Tag: Poetry

POOL BUM

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

“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.

Riverside 1~*~

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IN ITS URBAN DECAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

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.

Riverside 1~*~

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MOODY RIVER WINDING AWAY

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

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.

Susquehanna 1~*~

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ENDLESS PERSPECTIVES

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Rarely do you stand at the summit. It’s a lesson of life.

Even on the trail, the climax awaits, somewhere overhead.

We need something to look up to, from infancy on.

And then there are clouds – or the surrounding range.

Or the streams, threading together, below.

Mountain 1~*~

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IN AMESBURY TONIGHT

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Just a heads-up for anyone who might want to show up in Amesbury, Massachusetts, tonight. I’m the featured reader at this month’s Prime Time Poets gathering. The open mic starts at 6:30 in the Market Square Bakehouse, 5 Market Square, just a few blocks from John Greenleaf Whittier’s home. And, yes, I’ll be paying homage to Whittier in his more topical, acerbic vein.

Once again, Bryan P.T. Riley has put together a lively slate of reader for the coming months. Here we go!

FORGET ZEUS AND HERA, FOR NOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Olympic Peninsula is an extraordinary extreme in continental United States. It juts out in the far upper left-hand corner, surrounded on three sides by ocean and inlets and featuring a jagged mountain range in its center. Much of it is lush and tangled, and there is relatively little human habitation.

It could be a land of the gods, as its very name suggests. Or as the Native Americans, with their stories still intact, will relate. Forget Zeus and Hera, then – this is a panoply arising from American roots and its westward focus.

Come along into the rainforest and then camp just in from the beach. As I did, collecting these poems.

Olympus 1~*~

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HEDGES AND SHRUBS ABOVE, WHO KNOWS WHAT DOWN UNDER

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

If you garden, unless you have a pickup truck or access to one, you’ll have to decide what to do with the limbs and branches you trim. Bagging them for the dump’s a pain. One thing you don’t see in the colorful gardening books, of course, just may be essential. I’m speaking of the brush pile. Especially if you can’t get a burn permit due to neighborhood density.

The wood breaks down over time, however slowly, but the pile does provide refuge for small critters as well as kindling for our wood-fired stove through winter.

It’s all part of working our plot, with an emphasis on composting and natural balance.

In an urban setting like ours, rejuvenating the soil itself can be a revelation. Items keep coming to the surface from somewhere underground – stones, glass, costume jewelry, bits of metal or plastic objects. Nothing prepared me for the spaceman, though – the one holding a pair of pliers. No, he topped the toy horse and the Neanderthal with a club, for certain.

 ~*~

Garden 1For more on the book and others, click here.