You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
a woman in an improbable hoop skirt
and headscarf
lights a wall of candles
salmon-colored bands on a wall, plus a solar diagram
and an Elizabethan woman
black chair, as two birds flying in opposite directions
as she reads her book
in a balloon, the fog
handbag and coffee New York
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
Resting on the park bench, she complained
she couldn’t keep pace with her children.
When the seven-year-old pest returned,
demanding, “Ma, give me money”
for a cola, she complied,
thinking it love.
~*~
She couldn’t touch her toes.
~*~
Her legs pushed away from each other, yet
in her cotton dress, unexpectedly
as she swatted a fly, she began to float
and meticulously shrank from sight,
bouncing along the horizon.
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Copyright 2015
in the dune of the black-eyed Susan
a schedule diametrically opposed to my own
* * *
a stargazer adjusts a pile of broken
shell and black-eyed Susan polished by sea-spray
in the dune behind an urchin
adjusting broken shell, the black-eyed Susan
polished by mist, the blanched dune
kelp adjusting a pile of broken shell
and black-eyed Susan polished
by surf sweeping along the dune
an astronomer adjusts a schedule diametrically opposed
to purple shoreline in the type case of shells and dull-edged
glass where my own pile of green stones in the box of shells
pile up a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged glass
the purple astronomer adjusts the typeface in case
shoreline shells pile his green-stone telescope somehow
diametrically opposed to any heavenly schedule he attempts
tuning the dull-edged glass of my own type case of shells
piles in a schedule diametrically opposed to dull-edged
green stones along shoreline where I’ve set my own telescope
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
and that’s the really frightening thing
the bomb-sniffing dog
on the way to the Laundromat, before
~*~
I’ve had enough this season
to satisfy my sensibilities
though it’s still unseasonably warm
and raining
lingering
over
food
this buzzing
finds pollen
wherever
our sun warms
~*~
yet to the Appropriate Authorities
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the United States Government
unrelated by family or livelihood
my next-door neighbor
together on numerous occasions
I further state
intelligent, industrious, socially responsible
capable of
very truly yours,
the prodigal son, without the dissipation
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Copyright 2015
a well-crafted turbine
a flower in bloom
the blades of a large jet engine
a honeycomb exhaust fan
no stops for granola bars
this anatomy of a rippling stone in the stream, a fingerprint
no monkeys
in the Squirrel Temple
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
“you said when you married
you’d still make love to other guys”
the guest at the house party argued
though now
I initially have difficulty telling whether
he’s talking to the bride or the groom
even as he added
“you’re too young to be getting married”
he spent the night anyway
among those of us encamped in sleeping bags
around that second-floor apartment
~*~
we’d had an intellectual tete-a-tete on the corner
and then, upstairs, stoned out and dancing
at the heart of the crowd, I collapsed
it was all ass and thigh from the floor
so she liked flirting with me . Ooooh!
she told me my eyes were a strange, beautiful color
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Copyright 2015
ceramic dragon as a weed patch with teeth
you, me, it
don’t forget the oyster crackers
* * *
the repose of an attic ceramic dragon
papered in autumn foliage of a white T-shirt
and four blue candles caps a corner mattress
with weeds and a sequoia the attic room reposes
in a white T-shirt, a blue cap feeds on a corner mattress
the tile dragon ignites four candles with weeds
a sequoia papers autumn foliage over the reposing feed
that rooms in a white T-shirt and blue feed cap
a repairman walks past a weed patch
with teeth in white shorts
climbing a gray windmill two people
walk past as weeds with teeth patch
white shorts on two people climbing
a gray windmill repairman walks past
two people in white shorts and gray
windmill teeth climb a weed patch
in a corner in a weed mattress and sequoia
four candles won’t forget the oyster crackers
nor tile ceramic dragon papered in autumn foliage
all the repose of an attic room of four candles fed
a white T-shirt and blue feed cap a mattress
corners a tile ceramic dragon with weeds
and a sequoia papered in autumn foliage feed
don’t forget the oyster crackers atop four candles
~*~
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see all 50 Preludes & Fugues, click here.
with empty matchbooks all about
the apartment stank, as it had
since the 17-year-old sister encamped
at the door, a 50-year-old tattooed
sallow visitor with a front tooth missing
inquired if she was home yet
said he’ll be back tomorrow
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Copyright 2015
a rabbit in a bow-tie and party hat
laughs at a departing alligator
people holding umbrellas float over the stage
drowning the kittens as an adult act of mercy
people in yellow raincoats
floating under pink umbrellas
set against clouds
the woodcut sheep now resemble Georgia
a plain chair topped by a salmon-fish rung
a flock of sheep already dyed
twenty-two pigs come singing on the bare ground
“Simple Gifts” in operatic voice
a woodcut of a full stream laughing through a birch forest
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set of Partitas, click here.
Two cheerleaders wore white gym shoes
and thick white socks leading
to smooth adolescent legs
and who knew what else.
Freak girls bummed cigarettes like crazy
and you fed their neuroses.
A chubby chick fought and shrieked the hardest.
“God-damn fart-face!” she called a boy
she hit squarely, not to be left out.
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Copyright 2015
Jnana's Red Barn 