The chitinous mechanics
of head, thorax, and abdomen,
clicking exoskeletons,
the chirring of dry whispers.
We admire the purposeful
simplicity of the heedless.
Houses crumble as evidence.
Trees rot and give witness.
Caves crawl
with their evidential passing -
they command the locomotion and menu,
of the inevitable.
We who must be consumed,
know that as prey we are not too large,
and so, we lumber on as elephants will,
on their way
to long prepared graveyards.
Categories:
chirring, poetry,
Form: Free verse
The chitinous mechanics
of head, thorax, and abdomen,
clicking exoskeletons,
the chirring dry whispers.
We admire the purposeful
simplicity of the heedless.
Houses crumble as evidence.
Trees rot and give witness.
Caves crawl
with their evidential passing.
They command the locomotion and menu,
of the inevitable.
We who must be consumed,
know that as prey --- we are not too large,
to be inedible.
A truth that all elephants understand,
as they make their way to
their bone-gnawed graveyards.
Categories:
chirring, poetry,
Form: Blank verse
First person singular prohibited. In order
to be more crow.
War! war! war! war! war!
Then there's that lowland wetland bird
around the stunted red pines crying
Birdy, birdy, birdy, birdy.
Hear the redwing blackbird chirring
Her, her, her... she
as one might expect, Spring.
Words for birds
since they're inaccessible. Aim
binoculars left, right, up, down, missing every time.
At the piano recital
Aaron made the penguins run, run, run, not waddle,
from a hungry polar bear!
Everything passes, even a massacre,
but birds outlast cars
and words like chemical and holocaust.
Woodpecker climbs oak,
Connecticut.
Not one neighbor heard the knocking.
The voice of a pewee
whose nest has fallen out of the tree.
Oh my! Oh me!
What did the wood thrush sing
that summer evening
teaching its young thrush meanings?
Categories:
chirring, bird, cry, holocaust, spring,
Form: Verse
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.
Categories:
chirring, august, autumn, flower, mountains,
Form: Free verse