Short Transom Poems

Staring through the sullied glass
Ever present…

A transom of silent reflections
Standing amid us…

Dirtying with every irate grousing
Thick and hazy…

Our windowpane painted shut
Always locked…

Gazing through at one another’s faces
Slowly fading…

Eyeing the desperations of moving lips
Hearing silence…...

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APPLE    BLOSSOM   HEAVEN


Heaven must be  this  sweet  -
The  Schillings along the shore,
Old Pilikov across the street,
Apple trees  just outside door.  

In the softness of  lush pink shade
And  their heavy  laden  giant  blooms  
My  children  grew and played
And inhaled  their pure  perfumes.

To start each day in blossom,
In display perfect and fulsome,
Spread low over my transom  -
Is surely  life in heaven’s bosom....

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THE    BLOSSOMS   OF   HOME



Heaven must be  this  sweet  -

Old Pilikov across the street,

The  Schillings there along the shore,

Apple trees  just outside door.  

In the softness of  lush pink shade

My  children  grew and played

With  their heavy  laden  giant  blooms  

And inhaled  their pure  perfumes.

To start each day in blossom,

In display perfect and fulsome,

Spread low over my transom  -

Is surely  life in heaven’s bosom....

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Balanced on a Red Rider wagon,
a wooden boat with flaking paint; 
split transom
poorly repaired.  Ten year olds
with borrowed tools, untrained
in fixing leaks, or boats,
or knowing what a transom was.
     Christened the "Neversink,"
but often did, with bamboo fishing poles askew,
the used nine sixteenth nut sinkers
spilling into warm water;
     sunfish laughing.
A doomed soup can ship, 
crewed by worms,
going down.
Young toes to search the liquid silt
     for clams....

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