Tag: Poetry

ALL ON A WING, MOSTLY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

already the goldfinches are losing their bright yellow,
shifting over to their “traveling clothes” …

cardinal flower still scarlet … the sunflowers nearly past …
will we have any pumpkins in this crazy year?

blue jays as monkey birds squawking

a stream of crows, maybe a hundred, all headed south
(the ten thousand roosting together in a cemetery, how spooky)

admiring the white gull against blue sky
and the black band on its wing

four white droplets fall away and vanish
never seen that before!

today, two large hawks, soaring

now-dun finches at the feeder

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

PRELUDE & FUGUE 31/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a turtle sniffs
a box turtle shell
of blue spotted turtles

*   *   *

life out of a silly overnight bag
is getting me disoriented as much as sleeping
peasants with Mrs. Kerry form a turtle shell squall line

behind golden marsh hay, life out of a silly
overnight bag is disorienting
the sleeping peasants with Mrs. Kerry on a turtle shell

a squall line behind golden marsh hay life
out of a silly overnight bag has me disoriented
with sleeping peasants or Mrs. Kerry

on a turtle shell squall line behind golden marsh hay

waiting to dive to the river woven into a pouch
a turtle sniffs a petroglyph figure squall line
of blue spots painted on sunglasses

with slumber waiting to dive to the river
a petroglyph figures sunglasses woven into a pouch
are a squall line sleeping with the turtle

sniffing blue spots painted into waiting
that dives to the river petroglyph figure
sleeping behind sunglasses in a box

woven into a pouch a turtle sniffs
the awaited dive to the river
squall line of blue spots

paints a petroglyph figure on sunglasses
woven into a pouch with a squall line
of sleeping blue turtles sniffing a spotted box

~*~

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

POLONAISE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

ballet dancer en point in imitation of Winged Victory
upholding her billowing banner

long-winged owl in flight

the double-yellow banded highway
entering green Romance

safe and dry before the deluge

will she dive into the pool
or just jump
after posing with her arms outstretched

“overwhelmed” or “swamped” fits the bill better these days

or remains locked up within synapses of thy cranium and heart
the little mysteries complicate our existence
give it minor excitement or turmoil

behind the apricot, white grape, and plum tomato
sake labels

a long flat stone
spans the meandering pond
of a Japanese garden

passing the gift-energy

oh, how you, too, bound eastward

this scream
from cascading streams
together, on fragile new wings
surely left out some news

to find rumors about us subsiding

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

WORKS, WORTH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

not by intent, exactly, when repairing rotten sill
and ripping away needless wires
strung overhead, but under the floor

at times, a two-man job, with banter

still, keep an eye open for the unanticipated byproduct
in this case, a jest
envisioning a beer and wine cellar under the kitchen

nothing fancy, but acknowledging
the homebrew art
and gratitude for a place to age bottles decently
as for the wine, a house rule price limit
imposed by a glutted market

in season, the bulkhead would open its wings
on the shaded grilling garden, to the north,
or its cavern of contemplation within

a place of solitude and spiders
Squirrel would frequent

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

 

PRELUDE & FUGUE 38/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

 

in a salt marsh
in a lush gorge
against a glacier

*   *   *

at sunrise twelve horses
set out far below
a totem pole at sunrise in a salt marsh

horses set out below a totem pole
of twelve waterfowl trumpeting

at sunrise, yes, twelve horses
set out far below waterfowl
in a salt marsh

graze for yourself in a lush gorge
the agenda opens rhododendron
or a bald eagle on ash-covered slope

growling, yes, rhododendron openly graze
in a lush gorge under the bald eagle
the agenda of fish covering a slope

there, the rhododendron blooms
growl in the lush night, in its  gorge
the agenda you graze, hovering

no bald eagle on ash-covered slope
growls its agenda on ash-covered
rhododendron grazing into night

~*~

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

AT HEART

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

waging peace
restores harmony
uncovers common values where only conflicts
and differences in appearance surface
steps outside dominant viewpoints
teaches children alternatives to consumerism
which is self-centered at its core
engenders instead the practice of doing good work
reveals to us the unfavorable implications “God bless America”
extends to the rest of the world

O Holy One, waging peace reaches
to alienated people
envisions a holistic economy
embraces scholarship and meaningful labor
recasts globalization
to profit people in general rather multinational corporations
and powerful elites
fosters democracy and equality
rather poverty and powerlessness

*   *   *

Christ’s profound message of peace and justice
is seldom presented fully, much less heard or understood

each person needs to be respected and loved first
as a child of God, at heart

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

WHILE COOL, RAINY WEATHER DELAYS THE TOMATOES RIPENING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

slugs thrive, and I’m back in Seattle, except
that here, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini, and peppers
arrive in waves

and our woodworker-electrician and I tackle the barn renovation
in earnest

still, in a few breaks, I cross the line into Maine
sometimes with my Lady of Children’s Television
leaping rapturously in big surf
and sometimes with the afternoon all to myself
and once with the whole family
only to discover I’ve packed No 4 sunscreen
rather than No 15
(as a serious burns will demonstrate)

in all of this matter of burrows and burrowing
in the earth, in the foliage, at the beach

while fully resolving to keep the wedding simple
my Lady of Parsley and Sage delves deep into planning
what has already become too complicated for my taste
(“what do you mean, you don’t want a potluck?”)
and we meet with an Oversight Committee

in Portsmouth Harbor the family tours a Viking ship
on its way from Iceland to Manhattan
and the following week, a full-size Theodore Tugboat
with rolling eyes and all, as any kid watching PBS could explain

all the while, life itself feels submerged in Limbo
as absconded as our plumbers

Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.

 

FADEOUT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

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.

NIGHT WATCH

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

1

between sunset and sunrise
the ocean returns to desolate obsidian

of her dark depths
in the character

at best, stars above
strand of shoreline, depending

maybe the moon
with her sea-legs

or repeated slapping

2

breakers arrive as a single point of reflected white
opening out evenly in a line on either side

a lip, sometimes to one side only
rarely claiming, “I love you”

sheets of gleaming water shift on the sand
or everything way out, obscured
in fog

scolding
pipers scurry about
on their stilt-legs

at highest tide, pebbles sound of boiling

with all the sunburned drunks long asleep
or the party, behind glass or on the deck
a cigarette meanders somewhere to my left
though I catch no shards of conversation

3

if only the beach were not broken
by rocky fingers and cliffs

unseen ledges and outcroppings

or overwhelmed in abrupt tempests

the night voyageur might sail dependably
by the compass

but vessels and their crews
mostly go down along coastline
blindly

mistranslating, the whole sense stymied
by a single word, a puzzle, upturned wind

4

count the seconds, then, in the flashing
points
matched to the chart

one red-lighted buoy
white caps below

Whaleback just clearing the hilltop

a large, well-lighted ship near the Shoals
waiting for high tide to enter Portsmouth

or on a very clear night, way off
Thacher Island, Cape Ann, Gloucester

how is it the Boon flare jumps about
three spots, playing the length of shrouded rock island?

of the available beacons
the closest, curiously, appears only a muffle

in the call of the underside
“come to me”

mournful bell or horn
and strobe light

restless, relentless
rhythm, however unpredictable
retreats, advances
restores, destroys
cleanses

5

I cannot imagine rowing ten miles to an island
at midnight

after an evening in town

but they did
for a drink or conversation
so they said

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