Best Pileated Poems
A redheaded pileated woodpecker hopped up a tree
Barn swallows fly around me
Doves were cooing down in the dale
Other birds joined in, I even heard some quail..
While walking the dog in the late afternoon..
A Pileated Woodpecker skewers through
The golden mirage of fall trees
Leaves dropping from frosted beginnings
Rush my glance towards his perch
Loud knocking races my blood
Fumbling with my camera
Never captured
History on parchment proclaims freedom
Offering hope to all who taste the
Coming winter
To all who taste
The
Coming
Winter
trees dilly-O sing.
mellow skies surmise —
they’re not quite blue, white nor gray.
knocking in front and back —
pileated woodpeckers, shockers
with crests, crafty
to home owls and bats,
like royal courts of yore
dillydally the enemy within
mine walls.
the oaks shade their eyes,
press into my panes,
scratch during a storm,
rain on my parade.
yet, I can’t help...but adore
the pines and oaks,
ivy that wraps serpentine around bark,
wild flowers ready to leap
on ballet toes,
touch my nose with romantic scent.
so Spring,
the sachet of hidden things,
like a freeze game come to life
with intrigue, potentiality
of pairings — doves, robins,
crows and the like.
what if i could climb the tall trunk
high, below the unseen clouds —
easy does it.
my hair sailing like a pirate.
my grin foolhardy.
my heart doesn’t know what it needs.
it needs trees.
2/27/2021
Rereading the poems of others
and my own. Community across
time and graves. What's left
exceeds in significance
one's last moment. Yet
his last moment must have been
exceedingly important
for the poet.
Nothing he did that day will seem meaningful.
While we prosecute the war
a pileated woodpecker and red squirrel
compete for sunflower seeds.
A winter slow
to assert itself.
I can still see my mother's father and his bowl
of filberts, almonds, walnuts
quiet weekday mornings.
Both grandfathers read sports
pages religiously. I don't know
if my grandmother who gave me the
anthology of, to date, dated
unreadable poems read poetry.
I remember my mother's mother spoke
rarely as an animal.
Writing but not knowing where I'm going
unlike Joan Didion justly
cannibalizing candidates
who didn't read the Constitution, Bill of Rights or
Federalist Papers. It's late,
I have not vacuumed or shopped for food.
Instead I reread
Phil Levine's Salami.
In the holy spot
with the sitting rock,
an oak. Out back
shagbark hickory
and maple.
Ants climb the rock.
August, birds
celebrate flowering
weeds, the seeds
of autumn to come.
I am here to name it
and know it and help it
to grow. These mountains
are my grave. A good grave
to go to.
The crows have been
in conference, again.
A jay, blue, pokes
a hole through reality.
I find sumacs fruiting
and the male sex organs
of the Queen Anne’s lace.
Juncos glean the lawn,
an occasional nuthatch
in the butternut.
I hear a pileated
woodpecker jackhammering
and my neighbor’s skill saw
chirring. Ants crawl
on connecting interlacing instructions.
Imperfect world, purposeless person.
I retired to pursue perfection
learn jazz tunes, woody and herbaceous plants,
read every inch of English literature,
Scientific American and Foreign Affairs,
have an affair with an American.
Oh, and by the way, before you ask, I'm from Mars.
Orbiting your planet, admiring the girls.
Paraphrasing prayers by George Herbert to share
with Jesus believers on talk radio shows
where we try to bring your lives into expressible states
before it’s too late and climate change inundates you.
Reversed thunder, savior-side-piercing spear,
one day you’re feeling fine, the next not.
We’re pretty matter of fact, clear about
the fact of death. Once you’re gone most of us forget
your face and previous accomplishments. The place
you lived is repopulated with the next generation (of aliens)
and that ought to be a comfort, a sort of restful
certainty all is well, nothing special need be done.
Bluebirds are back, crows are mating on the sky
and chasing hawks away from their nests. Juncos
and sparrows glean together. I hear pileated woodpeckers
jackhammering and barred owls hooting soothingly.
Herons smoothing feathers and spearing fish.
Everything is as one would wish.
Numberless are the world's wonders
but none more wonderful than aliens.
What movement, what visual rhyme and grace ...
I have watched the old willow on my grand-father's farm
Sway in a summer breeze, sweeping the grasses with a soft movement
As sublime as the bow of a master cellist ...
I have rested in a hammock in the afternoon breath of the Caribbean,
Scents carried from the African plains to mix with sugar cane and brine,
Rocking me gently off to slumber in a flawless to-and-fro ...
I have been mesmerized by the perfect sweep of the pendulum
On my parents' grandfather's clock, the rhythmic back-and-forth of a child
On a swing, the tick-tock of a music metronome ...
The sweet up-and-down of a rolling ocean tide, the swooping flight of a
Pileated Woodpecker, the slow-falling drift of a winter snowflake, and the
Proud waving of my country's distinctive flag in the wind ...
But never in my many years on this Earth, have I beheld anything that
Compares with the flawless, hypnotizing, provocative, heat-generating,
Rhythmic dynamism and undulation ... of your voluptuous hips.
~ 1st Place ~ in the "Swagger" Poetry Contest, Line Gauthier, Judge & Sponsor.
Just past far as you can go,
yonder, where the crawdads sing,
out beyond time’s ebb and flow,
festival is full in swing.
Bullfrog’s on the tympany,
joined by pileated drums.
Katydids join company;
bold and bright, the bayou hums.
River Daughter glides the marshes,
carried forward by the song.
Haunting, her harmonic partials
rise up high above the throng.
Time to sleep, my lovely children,
lay your heads upon my breast.
Hush, a blanket, mutes the bayou,
safe and snug in slumbered rest.
Morning breaks in warm orange glow,
yonder, where the crawdads sing.
Casting off their bedtime clothes,
festival is back in swing.
—————
for the Feel Free Poetry Contest
sponsored by Sara Kendrick
written on 12/20/22
[ Quote 6 ]
Early Morning
I wish to capture in some way,
With words, the ineffable
Images, and sounds of quiet,
In a time without man sounds.
Early morning awakened by
The first glimmer of orange red
As it begins to rise phoenix like
Across the lake.
Incongruous images blended together,
deck railing covered with
beach towels, swim suits, life jackets.
Sandals with the obligate passengers of sand.
Cool, windless, no sound
of noise, except the
Bountiful nature noise
That exists in my silence.
Conversations of squirrels
As they sit sending their messages
From the high floating needle fingers of white pines.
The subtle whir, phantom like,
of ruby breasted humming birds
At the feeder, jockeying for position.
Persistent bird songs,
Celebrating, welcoming,
And then the exploring pileated wood pecker
On pine overgrown, over ripe.
Nothing moves except the cacophony of sounds.
No requirement to categorize each sound,
Only to listen to the sibilant blend,
and record in your mind the palette of colors
That surround you, the palette of sounds.
House quiet within-as is the
Glassy lake with mist rising,
Ephemeral gauzy, translucent.
The orchestral sounds of silence
Play out against the rising orb.
In its rising, the silhouette fills out,
Mists rising within its climb.
Now a brilliant blaze
of focused energy with a yellow shell,
Then a ball of incandescent light, searing to behold,
Incandescent memories.
May 2, 2021
"Piscator non solum piscatur"
("There is more to fishing than fish.)"
______________________________
Brown trout anglers catch few fishes
and almost always let them go
barbless hooks make more for wishes
then creels full to dazzle
children’s eyes.
Brown trout anglers tell tales distilled
of truth, of rises that didn’t take and
fish as long as your arm that always
get away.
They reminisce over glimpses of otters,
mink, beavers, muskrat and deer.
pileated woodpeckers, wild turkey
snapping turtles, frogs and snakes
orchids, iris and skunk cabbage
mosquitoes, blackflies and nettles.
And if you define a river by its banks
and not its water, then it remains the
same waiting for next year.
__________________________________
This boy must be in season,
this blaze-headed feather jack
hammering shack up condos
into swooned oaks, sautéing up fire
ants for a seductive nibble in the pulp.
You can hear him all over the island
a mating pummel; his peckered pocks
embarrass us along our saunters
such a committed pecker, this woody,
drilling wood, making mating dust
around your mailbox by the road,
out there, an exhibitionist hammering
Nessum Dorma’s into the timber,
belting away at his craft;
his hard wired love gut
to persist, and the fade out
of us jaded human shucks,
looking through our
windshields at such wide
wondering howls
in the dead of the wood.
birds fall hunger-wise...
before
cold winters shortages...
today a woodpecker ate...
such an
overfill it had to lay on the...
feeder for ten minutes till...
its throat
cleared so that it could fly...
it was such a 'pile he ate' that...
it's
called a 'pileated' woodpecker...
stans sand
Mediation
I wish to capture in some way
With words, the ineffable
Images, and sounds of quiet,
In a time without man sounds.
Early morning awakened by
The first glimmer of orange red
As it begins to rise phoenix like
Across the lake.
Incongruous images blended together,
deck railing covered with
beach towels, swim suits, life jackets,
Sandals with the obligate passengers of sand.
Cool, windless, no sound
of noise except the
Bountiful nature noise
That exists in my silence.
Conversations of squirrels
As they sit sending their messages
From the high floating needle fingers
of white pines.
The subtle whir, phantom like,
of ruby breasted humming birds
At the feeder jockeying for position.
Persistent bird songs
Celebrating, welcoming,
And then the exploring pileated wood pecker
On pine overgrown, over ripe.
House quiet within-as is
The glassy lake with mist rising,
Ephemeral gauzy, translucent.
The orchestral sounds of silence
Play out against the rising orb.
In its rising, the silhouette fills out
Mists rising within its climb.
Now a brilliant blaze of
focused energy with a yellow shell,
A ball of incandescent light, searing to behold,
Incandescent memories.
rhythmic staccato
interrupts the morning calm
pileated drums
red crest, pointed beak
penetrate the slumbered fog
now the forest hums
crocuses burst forth
joyfully joining the dance
a welcome spring comes
----------
THIRD PLACE WINNER
for the "A Lovely Day" Poetry Contest
sponsored by BJ Legros Kelley
written 02/20/2022
on a tripod by the window be my...
camera
with a telescopic lens aimed at bird...
feeders
over the garage door such that the...
chipmunks
can only get bird feed grounded by...
birds
that are very messy eaters such as...
woodpeckers
and the finches sparrows warblers...
chickadees
and rarely a crow will try the suet for a...
moment
it's being about pileated woodpecker...
size
stans sand