Tossing a Ball

I look at my dogs and wonder why they

like chasing the ball. Rabbits and squirrels

I get; the ball must have a magic all its own.

20 years after Annie Barker’s dress lifted

above her waist as she ran for a touchdown

I married her – still I marvel at the daisies and

freckles beneath her dress. Is glimmer one of

those words that makes you think of stars,

or ice in moonlight? If I have a glimmer of

hope would it shine like stars out over the

ocean, or would it mean the moon might

be made of green cheese? When that first

girl pulled the heart from my chest and

handed it to me like a shell, I put it to my

ear and heard the sound of my impending

doom. I survived, though I will never

forget the silence in that shell. I still hold

it to my ear now and then, searching

for a glimmer of hope, something magic

for me to chase.

 

dVerse open link night

EAT

Cold and dark in the morning,
talk comes at a price.
It is a bargain with the waitress
and the diners get what they need.

 

The eggs are served with sympathy
for another birthday missed.
The road is more than miles for
the trucker who takes them over hard.

 

Booth number 9 is an omelet and oatmeal.

A preacher and acolyte looking for a church.

The preacher’s collar is frayed and yellowed

in service to a god who speaks too softly.

 

At the table by the door farmers drink
coffee and talk of weather, tractors, prices.
They have the look of a dying breed,

not because they are old -

their sons are off to college,

the army, the city, anywhere else.
Daughters will wait,
not one of them will marry a farmer.

 

A young couple passing through
sits in number 8, close almost huddled.
The boy counts coins, his girl looks cold.
The waitress brings hot tea,
“It’s on the house honey.” They order toast
to share, she slips ham onto to the
plate when the cook’s not looking,
“I’ll take that outta your tips.”
He never does.

 

The woman at the end of the counter
tattoos a glass with her lips.
She is the blue plate special, one egg,
one pancake, two strips of hard salty bacon.
The long night gives her an appetite for
comfort and something real before going home
to wash the scent of stale cologne from her hair.

 

Street lights go out.

The sun promises warmth.
Diners pay bills, homage, thanks,
and go out to live in the light.
The waitress cleans tables,
counts her tips.

 

She floats from counter to table
to booth serving coffee water eggs toast

and some things not on the menu.

She takes their orders brings them what they need,
and all of this beneath a sign that says EAT.

It's story time at The Bar...come on in and tell yours

Jubal Archer's False Horizon

Brown fallow fields ladder across the hills to a false horizon.

I am no longer able to see beyond these simple fields and hills,

or fathom the distance beyond the buoys in the harbor.

That world is on the far side of my vision.

 

Early stars hang over the water, birds frozen in the sky.

Boats without keels are safe in the low tide.

Gulls circle, drop from the sky for crabs or clams,

their incandescence makes me think of falling stars.

 

The wind brushes the hair from my forehead.

The first fairy strokes of dew are in the air.

Already, in the dimness of purple light,

darkness leans against my eyes.

 

I listen for the hush of grass –

the water stills as if it might hear it.

I wait to feel the magnetism of the moon –

the buoys ring as if they do.

 

I think of a glass of water, puzzling and perishable yet still pleasant.

I think of God’s body trapped in an atom of bread.

I think of women putting flowers on graves,

I think of the men, boys really, who inhabit those graves, and why.

 

The moon is bright and eases the darkness.

Still, I belong to the shadows at night.

There is a comfort in their dependable blackness.

They do not bring a false horizon.

 

Diamonds in the Street

I wait in the rain for a taxi.

The street is newly paved,

a scent of smoke and oil

hovers, curling in the air.

Flecks of light reflect in the water,

reminding me of diamonds.

 

There wasn’t any pavement

where we lived on the coast,

only snow, gravel and mud.

The winter months were

best when we simmered in

out nest, wintering wasps.

 

The white clapboards preserved

us like a museum vault.

We celebrated Spring by

splashing them with schoolhouse

red, a sign, you said, of something

we cherished. But paint cracks and

 

fades quickly in sandy, salty air.

You left in October before the

first snow. There was a long note,

more than I planned to do.

 

It is still raining, the taxi driver is saying something.

I am remembering the night sky over the coast,

the way stars would shine out over the ocean,

a million hard diamonds.

 

Open link night at the Pub 

Birches

Birch Grove
By Stephanie Williams

Broken skin on the birch trees;

curled silver taking in the light

and returning a muted glow to the air.

I wonder, do they prefer this smoky light

to the carnival glare of unbridled sun?

There is a gravity about the atmosphere,

as if they hold some deciduous secret,

waiting for it to be unlocked.

 

It's all about trees at the bar...climb on up. 

Debris

Yeah, it’s less than you think, what you see.

It is nothing more than the debris we bring,

like the pianos settlers dragged over the Great Divide,

deepening the ruts for the next wave of pilgrims.

It’s not insubstantial, this debris,

after all we have made our stand on its heap;

but we need to keep in mind its impermanence

and be prepared to come back again and again

to plant a row of something -

if for no other reason but to keep the thistles at bay.

The Great Plains

“Nature includes too much

and art can’t include enough.”

 

The gold that shines off prairie grass

as the sun comes to rest on the butte,

the absolute black shadow in gullies

scythed by flashing water, the expanse of blue,

shading to red above the sun,

sectioned by stray clouds, purple,

out of place in the sweep of space unfurled

over this champain ground,

accosts us with silence.

 

This place confronts what we have become,

how we made it, what to make of it now.

 

 

Quotation by A. R. Ammons, “An Improvisation for the Stately Dwelling”

 

champain = level, flat