cardinals singing boisterously, 5 a.m.
a raven or two in our yard
regular visitors
under our bird feeder
corn / cracked corn in the mix
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
Tag: Relationships
THAT PUERTO RICAN INFLECTION
there was something cozy
in Isabel’s phrase
dark roasted coffee
after dinner
~*~
North Amigo
South Amigo
– not Americans, but Amigos!
the United States of Amigos!
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Copyright 2015
TURNING NORTHEAST
two blocks from my apartment, on the way
toward downtown
the Amoskeag Dam impeded the Merrimack
with a broad placidity I associated
with the upper Susquehanna
below it the roaring wildness of hydroelectric generation
or the snow-melt Yakima and its tributaries
why I didn’t just dump half my stuff way back
and start over before trekking through the marketplace
to rediscover how outrageously expensive all these goods
I need at hand can be? at last, though, my belongings
began falling into place where old mills extended
an eerie sense all too similar
to what I had created in one novel
to say nothing of the French-Canadian hilltop
on the west side of the river, neatly occupied
by descendants of Kee-beck, and an air of Kerouac
oh, how I’ve come through calculator-town
foundry-town, shoemaking-town, college-town
fruit-packing-town, sawmill-town, meatpacking-town
car-assembly-line-town, blast-furnace-town
summer-resort-town, and spice-grinding-town
on the harbor
to this ghost of a textile-town on the river where
the warehouses of my broken ambition overflow
once more, I arrived without a lover or children
for now, though
this life in a sleeping bag and cardboard boxes
fatigues and I long to get back to Owings Mills to pick up
the rest of my furniture and files so I can really move in
with essentials that include a toaster-oven and
the little red light on my answering machine,
items I’ve come to miss
but having a little cash in my pocket once more
feels wonderfully strange
and having seven book-length works
drafted and revised allows me to show something
more than a concept in my head or scattered notes
the arduous, tricky road to publication can take ages
usually eighteen months once a house accepts a work
and the contract’s signed, according
to the New York Times Book Review a few months back
In the meantime, my savings have gone
(the miracle is that they lasted as long as they did)
and it’s time to get back on my feet, financially
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Copyright 2015
GIVEN
a strip of land
to develop
or let go wild
or trash
you make your mark
me, I think I’d rather farm
or run a trap set
drawing on something
in my bloodline
more than the banker
but this is, after all, in a city
Poem copyright 2016 by Jnana Hodson
For more, click here.
WITH PRAYERS TO OUR LADY OF THE ASPHALT
In the congregation of pleasure:
Some are fat; some, skinny.
Some cute; a few, beautiful.
They smile, frown, dimple, blink.
Hair short, curled, long and free.
They come from anywhere.
~*~
“Roger was in my room again till five
telling me he didn’t want to sleep alone again,”
she said, glancing at her lover
while he simply smiled, facing away.
~*~
One votive burns
twice as fast
as the other.
Both, invoking
departed honeybees.
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Copyright 2015
HOPING FOR ANOTHER ACCOUNTING
She liked to bite fingers.
She braided my beard.
Her nose and big toe were square.
Her tresses were thirteen years long.
~*~
She devoured the translation like a cheeseburger
and refused to understand me.
She spent her paycheck
on clothes she bought on layaway
while she was one unemployed
good dresser who had to do something.
She said Kayak poetry review
looked like a Sunday school booklet
with a cannon on the cover.
~*~
She didn’t like the antique silver fork
with the engraved W
I’d bought for a dime
– the yellowed marriage
whose bride was no doubt long dead
held no treasure in her eyes.
Why else would we have it?
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Copyright 2015
SQUIRREL TAXI
who knows exactly when it happened
that he realized he held more in common
with squirrels than any of his colleagues?
he couldn’t quite fly, no matter how much
he admired birds, and had climbed
enough trees as a kid to nearly qualify
still, he had little taste for nuts, other than cashews,
unless you mean a strange people,
and he rarely raked fallen leaves
maybe it was all a matter of some vague sense
he didn’t exactly belong in this apartment or house,
except by clandestinely rearranging his peculiar insulation
maybe it was simply a nickname
for the way he rummaged frenziedly in search
of some missing item suddenly remembered
he would dash, then, in and out of the trap
in and out of the trap and, with a snap,
wonder where he was being carried
Poem copyright 2015 by Jnana Hodson
To read the full set of squirrelly poems, click here.
FARM GIRLS
“Those aren’t bulls, they’re steers”
she corrected from the passenger seat.
Now a waitress at the country club.
“I bet you get some pretty far-out passes.”
“More than that!” She giggled.
Here she was living with a man
in a hotel in town. He was a Mohawk
who raised horses and died
two days after landing a paying job.
“I guess I’ll never go back”
– to the farm, to the city –
it didn’t matter.
~*~
Sometimes it’s the Baptist upbringing.
~*~
She couldn’t understand why her parents
were still together. Thought her mother
once had a lover. She’d hear kissing
after being sent to bed, after her father’s
best friend had come over. Now
he couldn’t stand him.
There was a big waterfall on their farm
which they had to sell.
And she told me
she had laryngitis the previous week,
making me wonder
if I should have kissed her good-night
so much.
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Copyright 2015
CONCERNING THE PURE TEDIUM OF A WARM SINK
She washed dishes so fast they’re still dirty.
Even then, she overlooked
the beauty of tarnished silver.
Adding cabbage to the garbage,
she insisted Kosher pickles are obscene
and cheap wine’s just funky venom.
When she visited my kitchen
she wanted to star in a detergent commercial.
All of it meaning we ate out often.
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Copyright 2015
ECHOES
“Jim’s one of our young flashes,”
a production chief told his wife
when all three paths crossed in the grocery.
To which, you might add, “in the pan.”
~*~
“I wish I could have gone to college.
I wanted to be an engineer.”
said the unshaved man in a Salvation Army pullover.
There are a lot of older people in college classes,
his nephew tried coaxing.
“I have no money,” came closing in like a curtain.
~*~
An elderly mother and middle-aged daughter
argument escalated in the sedan
in the doughnut shop parking lot.
They’d no doubt discussed this before.
At last, opening her door, the daughter repeated:
“Let’s go in and drop the subject.”
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Copyright 2015
