Am I really a squirrel, as my wife suggests?
Sometimes I wonder.
~*~
For more on my poetry collection and others, click here.
Tag: Poetry
WILDLIFE, CLOSE TO HOME
more squirrels than girls – and there are a lot of girls in this neighborhood
two horny squirrels on a tree
neighbors report a large groundhog … where are those dogs?
possum … how funny they look, running
their back arches, and both ends drop
nearly to the ground
how laborious!
a possum in the bottom of one of our plastic barrels
furrier than I expected
turn the cylinder on its side, still takes a while
for the critter to move off … injured? stunned? no idea
a young porcupine crossing Hill Street four doors down …
a neighbor watching from the stoop …
next night, a dead adult porcupine in the street
on our apron by the back door
a small snake, whip motion,
ever so slowly
Rachel awakens me
for a scurrying, gnawing noise
inside the wall, beside our heads
in the morning, I realize we haven’t heard
the house sparrows nesting in the eaves overhead, either
none of our plans come off as planned
but we keep readjusting
poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
~*~
For more of my home and garden poetry, click here.
CRITTERS
Reprise
The amount of wildlife in our yard continually impresses me,
especially compared to Oakdale Avenue or Woodbine.
The abundance of squirrels, of course, and possible rats
but also skunks, opossums, the groundhog can be added in
plus snakes and insects.
We must be doing something right, or just be in the right location.
A first: amid a throng of blue jays chasing a crow, a mockingbird:
was its nest raided or threatened?
~*~
For more on my home and garden poetry, click here.
GOLDEN RAGE
So much yellow, this time of summer! Sunflowers, finches, goldenrod, corn drenched in butter. Banks of black-eyed susans, too.
~*~
For my collected garden poems and more, click here.
CHIPPING AWAY
It started when we had some trees removed – the box elder that was shading a third of the Swamp, another shading the kitchen garden, and then a dead elm. We kept the flakes from the cutters’ chipper, rather than having them go to the dump. Repeatedly since, when we hear tree cutters in the neighborhood, we ask if they could give us the truckload, and they oblige, grateful to be spared the city dump charge.
Those chips work great for lining the pathways through our garden or around the yard. Eventually, of course, they decompose and enrich and soften our clay soil. It’s just another of the many lessons we’ve had in assuming an old house and barn and reclaiming a garden and grounds. I’m glad I’ve collected those stories, an indication how far we’ve come over the years, as well as reminders how far we have yet to go.
~*~
For more home and garden poems, click here.
ALL TOGETHER, NOW, HERE WE GO
Some of us have backbones. And some don’t.
We all breathe in some fashion. And eat.
Protozoa, echinoderms, annelids, mollusks, arthropods, crustaceans, arachnids, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals.
Welcome to the club.
~*~
For your own copy of my animal nature poems, click here.
MEETING IN THE MIDDLE
The prose-poem presents a subtle challenge. In theory, it should be a natural fit for the English language. In practice, however, what I see all too often is simply wordy prose. Somewhere, the poetry gets trapped or tangled or loses its spin.
Coming across a guideline to keep a prose-poem under a hundred words spurred my thinking. As I considered revising a clutch of drafted poems, a sensed an opportunity. Recast without line breaks, they flew – especially when I removed the punctuation that pushed them toward prose.
I’m satisfied with the results, which I feel are more powerful and vibrant and authentic than either a straight-prose or straight-verse version would present.
Take a look for yourself. Just click here.
~*~
POOL BUM
“Hey! You! Come here!” Black man, about thirty, in Pitt sweatshirt and Pirates cap, stands at the fence and motions one of the tough talking grade-schoolers over. “I said, Come here! Yes, YOU! I’m warning you, leave my daughter alone. Don’t call her, don’t talk to her, don’t approach her.” He fiddles with his car keys. The kid smirks. “Listen to me,” I suspect he wants to add “you little asshole,” but he restrains. “If I ever hear that you’ve said anything like that again, you’re in deep trouble. Understand me? Real deep trouble. And that goes for my wife, too. You’re to leave them both alone, got that. You can tell your mother what I’ve said to you, I don’t care. You can tell your pa, too. I don’t care. But I’m warning you, hear?”
(The blond brat, walking back to the pool from the fence, smirks to his buddies.)
I’m itching like crazy. This has been going on the past two weeks, ever since the first flea bites. Those are gone now but the itching gets worse. Hellfire. Mites? Fungi? Anemia? Allergies? (WATER! Hot showers or swimming?) Negative effects from the sun? First sunbathing in three weeks: my tan’s faded to half.
Hot shower and soap up thoroughly. No relief.
Much lotion, which I’ve been using for a week and a half anyway.
Iron pills.
Spray, for relief: Solarcaine. Tinactin. Bactine.
Avoid water now. Salute the dad.
~*~
For more, click here.
IN ITS URBAN DECAY
It’s life in the inner city, usually not far from downtown and often in an enclave near the river. High density population, at least compared to the suburbs, and filled with children. Usually blue-collar or poor or a mix of students added in, it’s noisy and lively, even colorful in its urban decay. You can walk to the store or corner bar.
We lived on the second floor and later, a street over, on the third.
That’s where these poems originate and resonate still.
~*~
For your own copy, click here.
MOODY RIVER WINDING AWAY
What may appear to be a lazy river meandering amid its wooded isles deserves consideration and room to run wild.
Passions arise and freeze over. The flow dwindles to rock. Rats run along the shoreline of factory brick at the dam. A few miles on, either direction, the dairy herds gather.
All of it reflecting my soul when I lived there.
~*~
For your own copy, click here.
Jnana's Red Barn 