In his story, My student wrote: “our parents decided to move to a more suttle part of the forest.” Yes, he misspelled the word. And he was misusing it even if he spelled it right. But I'm not taking points off. Because now I want to move To a more subtle part of the forest. A place off the path, But just off the path, A place that everyone passes But not everyone sees. A clearing bounded by pine needles and leaves. Within, giving loamy earth. The air is the mingling scents of green. Sun light rays down Defining trees Giving them their shadows. Forest dust shapes the sun shafts that shooting-star bugs plunge through.
Poetry
Wires Tangle
Wires tangle Like lives Like loves. Electricity twists wires Like lies twist minds. Wires twirl into one another Like legs intertwined. Wires find each other Like the time Even on that first day You just know You'll be best friends Combined.
Autumn Glory
Leaves! I celebrate your splash of color Your delicate yellows Citrus orange Majestic Red I honor you, Because your changing hue Is the glory Of leaves dying. I will not forget your Verdant green Your spring and summer Wind dances Hushing and shushing together The brief glimpse of your Light underside. And trees I don’t blame you if You already shed your leaves. I’m tired too.
High Meadow Lane
I throw the empty drawers Onto the pile in the dumpster. I turn away from the refuse, And look up at the family home. Somehow, still, my house. With the “Sale Pending” sign in the yard. I have a key for the Realtor's lock. I enter through the back deck door Like I always did. Into the family room that I visited So many times Dad’s been gone awhile. But the ghost of his recliner Still fills its emptiness. I say hi to mom Because she’s only been gone a month. Her recliner is still there, So I can picture her better I say “Hi” again, and then I say, “But you’re not here.” I walk through the kitchen Into the dining room. We have emptied the house so totally, That the few drapes And the one cabinet hanging in its corner Glare out against blank walls I turn to the stairway. The stair treads that mom hooked With her children’s profiles on them Are still there Secured with my father’s nails. I step on the silhouettes of my siblings, Myself. Up on the landing, I lean through the door Of my sister's room. Cable cords are in a snake bundle under the windows Hemmed back by hollow space. Still my sister’s room All these years later. I turn to Still my room. It is for a little while longer. And always The persistent bed and desk Hold their space in the past. The dresser with the record player. Ghosts of my clothes sloppying the floor. For a moment I am him. Or me. The me back then. Slipping out of my sneakers Without untying them. Dreaming my way out of a hated Cage. Scribbling high school poems Laments Eulogies. Records spinning On the stereo Over and over so the grooves deepened. Typing poems, to be given to scattershot loves. Hours long phone calls with scattershot lovers. Tangling my fingers in the coiled cord. Even the great escape to college Was followed by the return at each break Head hung like a parole breaker returning to a cell. I come back to now. I shake my head. Those small turmoils Were so huge. It was hard, sure, But it was so easy. Dreams I’m still dreaming Bloomed in this room. Achievements I only glimpsed here Have been accomplished. Talking to me back then I say: “I made you proud. A lot of your dreams came true. I haven’t done all you wanted, but you know: I’m starting to believe that’s part of the point.” I’m back on the stairs Descending through emptiness. At the bottom, I cry enough to feel like I got that part done. I pause in the family room. It is already changing. Becoming not mine. Not my families. Always ours. Not yet the new families’ always. For them A space awaits.
Upstaged by figs before reading a poem
Before I start my reading the producer hands out figs.
Morning Visions
Fingernail moon Beneath Venus. Two deer cross the road in front of a car The third puts on it breaks Back legs skidding As the car finally stops. Hang tail fox. Hazy orange sun That I look at directly.
Pays a Lot of Tension
Like a star You are distant Glistening In vast darkness. I must stand still. Look up. Gaze steadily. Impossibly try to capture seconds. But memories dim This moment’s gleaming.Continue reading
Mulch
This spring I spread mulch with painterly strokes Or smeared hurriedly, abstraction in brown My canvas: Rooty humps around tree bowls Beneath blooming bush branches Along Flowering paths My palette: Earth, all the shades From mahogany to ebony. My motif: Circles and curves And deep loamy earth The contrast of browns and greens That beautifies the beautiful.
Eclipse in a Dish
I watch the eclipse On a dish In the garden window. Even reflected The light stings my eyes. The water is still, Deep enough to give shape to the sun. I tap the rim and the water tilts Tipping side to side. The sun in a cradle Rocking, rippling, warped.
The Spark
I picture you sitting at your desk In your room in the apartment Or maybe at a table in the corner By the window. It’s the window that’s the key. What you hear through it Will change you. Right now, you are looking at us below Through the screen Its thin metal grill Pixelates us into small boxes That disappear to your sight As you gaze through them At the people gathered on chairs and benches. At first, it's just people at a fire pit. But then a woman steps up to a microphone That you hadn’t seen before. You catch glimpses of her words Mingling with the roar of motorcycles Inarticulate distant shouting Sirens far away. The woman steps away from the mic. You expect applause, But this audience snaps its fingers. You don’t know why they do it, But it’s different And difference attracts you. You lean in closer, tilt your head, So your ear is nearly pressed to the screen Like an elderly woman Leaning into her iPhone. Still, you only hear shards of words. “The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame.” They rear in front of you, these eyes, So monstrous that they are alight with fire. They will be with you for days Lighting your way with wild rage. More snapping. A woman sits, A man rises to the microphone. He reads: “There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create.” Murder AND create? How can they be in the same line? Because of this, you will play with opposites for weeks. Love and hate, good and evil, pleasure and pain. Until you see the things between, The beloved, The neglected, The destroyed. You listen all night As each of us rise to read a poem. And though you can only hear pieces The words glitter Like the shattered glass necklace That littered the sidewalk On your morning walk to school Catching the first rays of sun As it rose over the skyscrapers behind you. You type the words you hear Into your phone And poems appear. Your future begins as you read them As worlds unfold Rise up Crash down Stretch before you like seas of grass, Seas of water. This night echoes into your future Until one day You have the courage to write a poem. It is about opposites. About sirens and Sirens. The kind you run from And the kind you run to, Caught by an irresistible call.Continue reading
Mark Bozeman 