Tag: Poetry

BRIDGE FROM MAY TO JUNE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

clapping dragon – prayer banner
blessing the northern wind:
Indra, Vayu, and Varuna
conspiring
with brooding swirls
to drum our roofs and nurse
our earth.
gather us
in logs
beneath
thundering rain
– with Handel and Bach
we speak of broad leaves
and our friends:
opposites
within jagged walls
brushed white –
this reassembled skin,
its rice paper sphere
and we take tea. minor elegance
rough wood improves –
the drenching opens
unnamed doors
in Monday’s clover
and Tuesday’s spruce –
drowns the shrew-mouse
on Wednesday’s trail –
awakens sleeping polychromes.
makes pokeberry tall
beyond our yard.
shakes tulips from twigs
and fattens swamps.
urges telegrams of morning birds
to break our sleep –
rumbles within our karst –

as current
entering swallow holes
will rise where mills
once twirled
soft wheat.

Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full Green Repose collection, click here.

 

 

BRAINCHILD

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

a feathered and furred woman
bare shouldered, face painted white
black mouth and black exaggerated eyebrows
a black veil over her face

where is the balm?
the salve for stinging nettles?

potted plants on a white mantle

a bowl of sprouts atop a handwritten note
spread over a blue napkin

richly patterned fabric
behind a waxy flower

a pile of Valentines

reeds and songbirds
home is a refuge or should be

a bar of soap wrapped in pale-tea ribbon
a hole cut in a painting left open with crossed ribbons

two men in an open briefcase, as dolls torn apart
so many screws and nails and tense threads
for connections

a barn owl in front of a red barn

a red house with shiny metal roof in the woods

red hen, red comb, red alarm

Bright day in the valley

Lincoln’s Indiana legacy
in a place that couldn’t support a used bookstore

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

PRELUDE & FUGUE 40/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

three dogwood

two owls

a stone barn

*   *   *

stone fence
halfway up the valley of silos, tractor trailers
in mirrored sunrise

the symmetry, yee hah! of fence half stone
up the valley silos, tractor trailers, in the mirror
of sunrise coming home, yee hah!
setting forth along stone fence halfway up
the valley silos, tractor trailers,

in glittering yee hah! sunrise
so fleeting, unbalanced
between the gloved hands

a rosebud, three dogwood, two owls
a stone barn with blossoms that God
in front of a lone maple looks down

in a rosy stone barn fronting a lone dogwood
three maple blossoms look on two owls
that God, in a rousing talk in front of the lonely

fireworks of dogwood, owls, rosebud
blossoms, by God, around a stone barn

in front of a lone dogwood, what blossoms
into a conversation of two owls with God
looks up, looks down, looks around fireworks

~*~

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

SMALL FRY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Gould’s Trumpetworm
looking to all the world like sand

spoonworms

speckled flatworm, milky ribbon worm
the many segmented worms
(rolled up into a body when threatened)

shells of northern white chiton
diluvian punturella
spiral margarite
wide lacuna
the tiny periwinkles
flat skinea
three-lined basketsnail
solitary bubble
fuzzy onchidoris
graceful aeolis
shag-rug nudibrand
northern dwarf-tellin

if you’re close
or have a yen
for maritime bonsai
of a zoological twist

dig in

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

IN THE GREENING

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 3 Comments

in the end, we miss the freezing rain
that becomes fog in treetops on my commute
over melting snow

still achy from gardening
so what do I know?
a touch of lime oil in my morning coffee

green swags
my windows

watch my back and sides
spasms
all that digging

a full month of April showers compresses
into thirty-six hours Monday and Tuesday
welcome relief, but

uproot a hundred stealth maples
and a squirrel
every day
this time of year

the garden looks great, so luxurious to have cut flowers indoors
a second sprig of laurel in my lair
against the deep velvet of Siberian iris
now we’re sinking to detail …

a bucket of strawberries, to the office

too much rain and the sump pump kicks in
a downpour leading to rare July flood warnings across the state

our Lady of Pink Flamingoes keeps taunting
“Have you been flocked?”

such a strange summer
cold, wet July days
rain and thunderstorms forecast
into next week, without break

my Lady of Coriander had the stove going three days

by Bastille Day, still no time in the 90s
and only a few in the upper 80s

where’s it going, our summer of plastic flamingos?

or the alternative, of very humid, stale air –
80 Fahrenheit, 80 percent humidity –
can’t move much
despite intentions

some sun, some rain
including brief downpours

the continuing decay

I mow the lawn, saturate a T-shirt in sweat
of course, it’s extreme high tide at the beach

1 a.m., bedroom windows open

thinking of the past
I smell a skunk
crossing the darkness
below me

into a lazy day, mostly on the deck

frozen daquiris, relief from 90-plus heat/humidity

the first time in five years

profusion of glorious mock orange
in and over the kitchen garden hedge
just because I watch the stars
doesn’t mean I trust them

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

OUVERTURE

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

welcomed into my orbit

a Chicago-Baltimore axis
its own perspective

a shadowbox with sixteen cells of teeth numbered
out of the thirty-two originals

to whip up something before a martini

a gray vase with a cow skull
places I once treasured
since lost, yes, lost. And now?
how often, not the place as much as fragile
in the void of letters, Well, kiddo
all the right intentions

a postcard of Florida seashells

a secretary (white blouse, tight black skirt, black heels)
waiting for the midday train in a suburb

three close-lipped fishermen wait to build a fire
on a rocky bend of the river

a woman in a blue dress pauses at the end of the blue deck
before leaping into subtropical ocean

the blurry backside or figure with bent leg
reaching for balance

to sit, wearing blue jeans and a blue polo shirt
in a corner office overlooking parking in a desert

to enter a tall office building housing a Jekyll and Hyde club
befit with gargoyles, sculpted climbers, human skulls,
and Ionic columns

to pose standing in a powder blue wrapper
under a Greek male torso and the head of a stallion

to leap in a fiery ballet costume
from the Brooklyn Bridge before breakfast
onto a parked Harley on cobblestone

dazzling Shakti Style weavings

a Celtic bowl with three mermaids as snakes

Open 24 Hours
misery, in spicy flavors

modern glass teacups and teapot
modern glass table lamps
modern plastic table radio

all I’ve inhabited but won’t return, ever

no, waiting for a “better” scheduling day means
another couple of years, at best, so let’s do it while we can

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

INVOCATION

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Honor the frail onionskin
cast by the wayside where a snake
has rubbed its sleeve free
in the course of defenseless rebirth.

Protect me when regeneration
dictates some plaited hull to surrender.
Lead me through each forward motion
demanding we embrace fulfillment.

~*~

Teach me admiration
for these obstinate weeds
– their resolute profusion,
even when I pluck them.

Shield this garden
in its cultivated rows.
Restore our mislaid tools
in the morning grass.

Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full Green Repose collection, click here.

 

PRELUDE & FUGUE 43/

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

green drapes
the first week of leaf

before the coral color of cooked lobster

*   *   *

coral (stars) (in a buds of) still birches
(with the wind) an ocean of northern lights

divers (however) shamefaced
avoid the first leaf
draping some fancy coral (yet)

northern lights drape the stilled birches
shamefaced, avoiding some fancy ocean
frogman first

(as) the coral northern lights
leaf out, draping

some still sand bar
beyond fancy birches
(shelters) a roseate sea nymph

(at noon) divers are shamed
facing (her) (the one as fleeting as the) first leaf
or northern lights avoiding (possession) (capture)

(at midnight) hanging still (as) birches, divers
in their shame, avoid facing
(their) fancies, first leafing
(in the) still briny reef

lobster footwork
coming clear

the still green lobster
works its feet in coming
to the clear green

the rippling lobster foot
works clearly
in the coming
green

~*~

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

GIDEON

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

1

in a beachside motel lacking
a Gideon’s Bible beside its saggy beds

it’s a mystery
just what else might be missing

I, for one, wouldn’t go looking
under the mattress

even at these off-season rates

2

off-season, an indolent tourist village
still awakens with Boston newspapers

rolled up on narrow sidewalks only
now most stores open about noon if at all

and workmen pound new yellow shakes
between weathered gray before the dew lifts

their rounds of hammering and rolling surf
repeat a brazen dance figure in a limited palette

of blue and nearly beige you could render
the clouded and sandy past overcut
and overgrazed
excepting the stooped plumes of wild grasses

3

an earlier Quaker dove pigment might
whet the salt-air and pepper mercies

appearing now

as two couples gleaning the beach
precisely as four aging women

once the gulls raise their aprons

4

tan sand, deep blue water
deep blue sky, touch of green
against the cliffs
gray houses or driftwood

deceptively peaceful
the lulling surf

surfcasters at dawn
wary of ferocity just below the horizon
or water’s surface
approaching the realms of Jezebel and Baal

Sunday dawn or sunset
matching the moon
(heart) breakers

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