Best Middling Poems

Words that do not speak to me
       Fine poetry may very well be

     My taste, middling mediocre
       No literary bona fides
     ~ This wild card's...

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In middle America — a small earth tremor,
not enough to scare the cat,
the cat felt it, and it told the mice
who lived in the walls.
"It wasn’t us", they said.

A mess on my desk;
the glass inkpot has toppled,

has spilled deep blue ink
on a sheet of white...

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Where are the magpies?
Where the ruined cathedrals
where are the birds
that once made their homes
in the hollow heads of saints?

Here all dwell in the new or the old
the days between are bulldozed,
the waste rubble resold.

Crowds seek out boarded-up exits
other crowds construct entrances
for new homes
that when assembled...

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Ducks are up in the air,
it is early - too much
a middling.
Nature lures,
leads us on,
the weather is wrong.

Icy licked stems
are surprised.

Defrosting ants and marmots
patch and mend,
loggers lean on buzz saws.

People take pause,
store bobble hats
and puffer jackets.

Today, to the contrary
the snow is heavy,

any hint of avian...

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