Tag: Poems

ALWAYS SOMETHING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

1

a decrepit mess / pit

put them away

a cat, a dog, an auto executioner
gone, finally, by dawn

desperate houses plunked down in rock face
where will everyone live?

2

Warren Farm’s disastrous pick-your-own corn experiment
DeMerritt Hill Farm now owned by New York City refugees
who need to make the mortgage

while I’ve planted

blueberries, raspberries, asparagus, pussy willow,
rosa rugosa
the laurel and rhododendron that didn’t survive
all mine, all the same, within some inexplicable current

3

gentleness versus meanness
anger (I’m angry all the time)

RITUAL
versus
SURPRISE

Wild Willy’s still closed on Sundays

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

 

BUT THAT’S NOT EVERYTHING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

in the median strip of Route 17 just north of Pennsylvania
Paula and I found a road map of Fayette County, Tennessee
“you wanna talk about getting lost?”

all these vehicles entering a busy traffic circle
are just a matter of shuffling cars . as the matron confided,
“Harry and I used to go down to Buffalo” to do this or do that

careening along curving roads, I saw the moon
swallowed and released over mountains . “she’s
a nice girl who does well in school, but that’s not everything”

or we could have just stopped at a
BAR DINING ROOM
flashing in orange and green neon

To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015

 

CAKEWALK

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a trio of Asian dancers

a topless dancer in a red mask
squats with a white banner

a ring, as wholeness
allowing the hole
that opens opportunity

white laundry in autumn yellow

have enough for us, the good steward

tide marsh as a frosted tangle

the luxurious interior of a log cabin with plank floors and rag rugs

an old-fashioned downtown with springboard

harvester in corn surrounded by golden foliage

while I start

packing for the extremes
of Florida and Lake Michigan
in winter

after our first weekend
briefly, the duration of that leap

perchance a woman more serious than me
should be packing for

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 49/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

to lovers who were never quite present

*   *   *

good-bye in the night who never were lovers
repeatedly saying good-bye in the night
who never were lovers repeatedly saying
good-bye in the present night who
never were tubercular contortions or squiggles
good-bye tubercular squiggles to lovers’ night
repeatedly saying never quite contortions
squiggles repeatedly saying good-bye
to lovers never quite tubercular night

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S GRAND FUNERAL MARCH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a tight-cropped raccoon staring full of question

in the green leaves in front of an intricately tiled wall
a white panther spews water
into a pool of lilies

320 days a year you’d be hungry

an owl in snowfall

three landscapes, including a road through a desert

a smiling fisherman holds a salmon
the length of his leg

twelve neckties a father would love:
none of them fit for the office

roulette wheel with a ducky decoy
for games no player can win

egos as a blindfold
tied with leather work gloves

the pink smoke, uncoiling
wordlessly

shocks of wheat
around a woman in dream

two more windmills

half of the sky, a rusty eggshell

a flame
as an open door

a clock and classical portrait suspended on ribbon

wind mill manufacturers in Batavia, Illinois

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 46/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

cruelty that arises from bitterness
spanning a rocky streambed

*   *   *

the Japanese bow to India
with its dry ferns and maple
with its fronds becoming a cob of ribbon

in the dry fronds of Japanese
ferns and half-devoured cobs
the Indian maples bow and dry

cobs of corn and fronds
in Japan the Indian bows
as the ferns and maple

dry fronds of Japan maple
cobs of Indian corn from
stepping down to the streambed

a staircase cruelly arises
from rocky bitterness, yes, a staircase
cruelty that rocky that bitter
from that staircase cruel, yes,
arises rocky and bitter

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.

TRIANGLE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

the pack, as in cards or dogs
or the one after

Enigma Variations but it’s snowing
and there are no birds

finally, a female
cardinal

teapot and cup
beside a four-poster bed
with the long shadows of sunrise
on a plank floor

I love you truly madly deeply

mountain laurel and a Cigar Store Indian
unpainted carved wood

this relationship has changed

four State Supreme Court Justices, their backs together

a Portuguese woman
walking the beach with a TV set balanced atop her head
as the husband waves

leathery kelp as “cloven tongues”

the orderly farm in the Shenandoah overshadowed by two tall silos

nine pitchforks hanging in three rows in a shed
with two gasoline cans and four spades
on tool pegs

a map of Sturbridge Village

a pack of poets or painters or ex-lovers or actors or dancers
could be a loaded deck, all right, shuffled together
4-EVA

at the Hague, then Edinburgh
in the burning letters, her third line
how flat, stretched out under the sun

“Your crimsoning lips”

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 35/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

red maple on gray rock against
vertical tan stripes
the pooling and hill

*   *   *

blue-eyed moth on yellow chopstick folder
star lilies against horizontal green striation
Chinese river scene, the coin inscribed
from a tickle-free zone of “Dried Dark Plums”

red maple on gray rock against vertical tan stripes
pooling under a blue-eyed hill of moths
over another yellow river, the Chinese “Dried Dark Plums”
held aloft on scenic chopsticks or inscribed coins

as folded red maple on gray rock against vertical tan
line up between the pooling and hill of star lilies
as horizontal green striation from a tickle-free zone
the blue-eyed river inscribed with yellow moths

as “Dried Dark Plums” are maple red on gray rock
against vertical tan striped pooling water buffalo work
in a wet field of chopsticks between star lilies open
against the blue-eyed horizon with its variations

as coins and moths inscribed in yellow Chinese
calligraphy, the tickle-free zones become a river scene
for a “Dried Dark Plums” holder of chopsticks
made from red maple in their tan stripes

as the gray rock against vertical pooling
toward the hill of star lilies and their horizontal
green striation from a tickle-free zone
water buffalo patiently work a field

~*~

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.