Short Sloughed Poems

a little birdie told him
that his owner had sold him
	the warning he sloughed
	alas, he was stuffed
and nothing said consoled him...

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The edges of my heart have sloughed
From the immersion in your drama
This might not have a good endpoint 
I want to stop imagining your eulogy
See my sister as I saw her once
See that there was good in her
She was tough and fragile and cruel and kind
I say goodbye to you every day
Are you still here?...

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St. Lawrence river in the spring 

when a lake makes the ocean its' dream

shallow ice and sand bend the wind

the twigs begin to twitch and spin

sandwiched like a water gin

buds burn through the fragile skin

never is there  amendment 

sloughed grained signals silently sent 

as vast white  feathers float to shore....

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Early morning,

new, deep, snow

sunlit in the Garden,

covering the lonely woods.


Suddenly descending,

a mourning dove flutters,

roosts in the Tree.


There in a mere few moments:

another mourning dove returning,

perching, restless, cooing:


Cold, heedless solitude

sloughed off,

like the needless snow

the doves shake from their feathers....

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a quire or two, 
or three, may be
uncharterd
uncounted
discounted, maybe
tablets
stone shards
heavy slabs of me
rain soaked reams
sloughed off of me
shoulders of clay
unweighted may be
separate from morass
the mass of me
plunged heavy and sunk
in a literary sea
of words great men
spoke to me
I look for words
so meanings i'll see
and write, and write,
and write, maybe
so inner thoughts
so quiet may be.

03/06/2017...

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Blooms in their terracotta bomb-shelters,
bow their heads, but now
a distant thunderstorm nibbles
at my bare-boned flower bed.

The heat has crushed the clouds at last.
Rain falls out of a booming air.
Yesterday nailed its dry skin to the sky,
later it sloughed in sloshing shreds.

This morning, mourning doves clatter,
and roof-dance. 
The air even revives my fat dog,
who now chases a stubby tail
for the first time this summer....

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Our minds like leaves 
Fall in brown and gold 
Flickered green light 
Before winds changed the old 
Peel of skin 
To dry lignin. 
Thoughts sloughed and chafed 
To hold a name in the safe 
Crutch of a swaying branch; 
The proper term 
For things in the discourse of disciplines 
Or a shifting season 
That make the deep sap 
Flows sluggish, and stop 
The loquacious tongue. 
Youth is past. 
Memory is a leaf 
It turns in the Fall. 
Gravity touches everything with grief....

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Our home was lit with autumn's spicy scent.
Now spent are the forms that had something to hold:
votive molds, photo frames, vases.... forsaken.

The form within my breast, too, is forsaken,
no longer pressed against your Old Spice scent.
Once, we had each other to hold....

Now memories are the substance we hold.
Your sloughed skin dust is not yet forsaken;
a whiff remains of seasonal clove scent....

Forsaken spiderwebs hold your signature scent.

10-20-23...

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