You never know what we'll churn up in cleaning a stall
Just what more do we need
in addition to the beginnings of two panels of ferns
behind the lilacs – my woodland mirror
or a blooming tepee with gourds and climbing beans
surrounded by zinnias for my Lady of Sunday Comics
in the heart of the exposed swamp
and the race to implant the kitchen-door garden …
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
he could hole up
with long-suppressed luminous temperaments
if only he could scale every surface except glass
shimmy up the black steel pole and raid the bird feeder
hang upside down from a sunflower
moving toward transition
an untested dream
from the stockpile admits to darling insecurity
in the hole the tree the ground
faint implausible rhythms chirps more lasting
if not so lucrative
* * *
every tree branches, so you choose in a flash
and keep running in the desert he had wondered
about squirrels so far from the nearest tree
the ones who live in burrows
whether somewhere they’d made a wrong turn
a deer makes a bigger target
than foraging for dynamite
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
bright brown irises
maybe a little too wide-eyed (available)
hair golden heartbreak. still
Duquesne University and Uniontown, Pennsylvania,
were places he’d been, he told her
requesting the next dance
there’s more than lightness afoot
driving these distances. Attraction, see,
flashes into conflict
“Quakers. They believe in Jesus, don’t they?” is how
she starts revealing she’s Jewish, from New York City,
but Ohio Boy steps back instead of forward, and misses
a third muses, “Relationships are weird. Always weird,”
while wondering if she’s sufficiently brainy to stay him
or just what he might be lacking
all the same, they cover their aces and wild cards,
map their terrain, and
reach out in the music for someone
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full set, click here.
Ever seen a squirrel caught in a bramble?
A seeming escape leading nowhere?
He could tell you.
* * *
He could tell you
he’s lucky to still be alive.
* * *
There are those who insist love is nothing more
than a seasonal disorder, an allergy or a virus.
Makes sense when you’re speaking of Sick With Love.
But how do you cope dealing with females
happier with thorns than leaves and berries?
Or when confronted by some dog?
* * *
Running along a phone line, a squirrel
never falls over. To hell with gravity.
It’s the strength of those long, skinny toes
can reach around a stick. Hold tight.
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
Ants swarm over a sugar maple’s
spigot and sap bucket.
In earth and in air, green spirals
uncoil.
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full Green Repose collection, click here.
she was pregnant
but which of the three
brothers was the father
she was all heartbreak
and sorrow
~*~
an acid-tripping Lutheran seminarian
argued “religion is for today”
as he walked in on his roommate
still atop Pia
~*~
the long-haired blonde with the deep voice
had already been had twice
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
“They already were like gods
made in Yahweh’s own image
and didn’t even know it.”
“I could see the Woman would be easier
to convince. She appreciated color and
the bouquet, where the Man noticed
only the fruit’s heft and taste.”
Every snake has its own hole.
Sometimes a snake is just as snake,
Doctor Freud.
And the Serpent went on to make a fortune
developing shopping malls lined with retailers
promising to cover everyone’s nakedness.
* * *
God creates a Helper for the Man
and she helps him, all right:
helps him get into trouble,
helps him to the forbidden fruit,
helps him get ejected from Paradise.
Not only that, but I’d venture
she believed she was doing something
beneficial for him all along,
something for his own good.
(And it was very good)
* * *
Where has Eden gone? Maybe
it’s now ahead of us, down
the road, rather than behind
with its gates shut tight.
As for Original Sin,
life’s not fair.
Some parents gamble
away the mortgage,
their children’s
college tuition.
Others get to be boss
through the injustice
of genetic roulette.
But that’s not really
part of this story.
* * *
Where do the other people come from?
Maybe the question becomes, for us,
where do other people COME FROM?
You! My neighbors! My antagonist,
my friend, my spouse, my children?
Perhaps they come from that other couple
God created, in the first creation story,
just before Eden. Perhaps they, too,
are ejected from their own Eden.
Perhaps there were other gardens
that were also released –
the ones whose stories we’ve forgotten.
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
I picked up the receiver
“is your wife around?” pause
“what number did you want”
pause
“I’m sorry . I must have the wrong number”
she sounded so married
I wished there was a wife to answer
~*~
“God-damn idiots, afraid to dirty their hands”
the old woman reiterated
“real work would kill ’em”
~*~
“I want to stop smoking
but I’m a very negative person”
so just recast the proposition
if you really want to stop puffing
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
Each seed, each root, each bud
unfurls on schedule. Melting
and rain come together.
In the daylight you open
so slowly you do not hear
their snap. Between pale tendril
and miniature leaves, we will gaze,
then, no longer doubting
our own inward spiraling galaxy.
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To see the full Green Repose collection, click here.
from the heart of the building in the night
“I hate your ass!”
countered by
“do I look like somebody who’d put you away”
and then she just screamed
~*~
behind the scenes at the fancy restaurant
a cook got shot
the maitre d’ was in the hospital with food poisoning
and the chief dishwasher overdosed on something
how many knives went missing
~*~
with all the Freudian potential
“Daddy, I LOVE you!”
drawing the twisted
“I want you out of here”
oh, boy, what a mess
To continue, click here.
Copyright 2015
