Once there was a war declared between the landscapers and the football players.

the football players chose the day and place and they prepared.

              they knew how to launch assaults and plot sneak attacks.

              they had honed their aggression through years of team sports

                            into a masterwork of hustle and hate, and built up their bodies

                                          with groaning and strain under bent bars on benches

                                                        until they attained the weight of all things frightening and needy.

the landscapers were clearly outmatched…

but alas, on the day of the bout, before the assault could even get started,

              it came to a halt! it was done! it ended.

the football players departed and by default the landscapers won;

              no war could go forward in that torrent of weeds, for

                            someone

                                          had left the playing field untended.

you should publish bad poetry

never wait for

a masterpiece that knows its place in

the grand mosaic of masterpieces

the next rung in the great ladder

ascending the artform

expressing also

your perfect uniqueness; instead

reach inside and pull out

what’s there, say it with whatever art

you’ve got, and release it, gently

like a rescue bird back to the forests and skies

to live or die

in the wilderness of words

by its own luck, without you

the Pacific Plate trudges ten centimeters per year, pulling

     the Hawaiian archipelago with it

          wind grinding, rain chiseling

          mountains in the waves

          losing themselves in bits

          islands in a line, youngest to oldest,

          marching northwestward

 

once mighty shield volcanoes

     tall and softly sloping

are now sheered into jagged spires

     like weathered statuary in a garden

          Venus and Apollo missing their limbs, their faces washed away

 

standing in the sea, apart

     catching glimpses of each other on clear days as

     silhouettes on the horizon against

          the yellow sunrise

          the pink-orange sunset

 

the brittle-boned elders in the lead

          disintegrating into atolls and reefs

          and beyond them, invisible now, below the surface

          sunken shards of pottery

          the ancient ones

          surrendering to their final diminishment

 

a person is no clod or promontory, not a part of the main

     we are islands—

     in time and space and feeling—

     but still, I own with you the meaning of the tolling of

     every bell; we are pulled on the same path, conveyed

     and in this we are one

 

onward

     together in this procession

     heading northwestward

     into the rain and the wind and

          the setting of the Sun.

Today an ant drowned in a drop of water

he made it all the way to the edge but
couldn’t bust through

like God, I found myself rooting for him to escape
also like God, I was waiting with a hose in case he did

This bush has yellow flowers

              No one is here to see –

Little bangs, little tassels,

              Little butterballs that

This old plant grows prolifically, even still,

After years of struggle in this

              Impoverished soil and dry wind,

                             Bark gray, leaves pale,

                                           Weathered, lichen-stained, faded,

                                                         Pressing on.

Here in a wood where no one goes,

Far from the cosmopolitan gardens

              And bustling cared-about places,

In a patch of weeds and wild grasses,

Little bursts of vibrant yellow

              No one is here to see.

Shake
        my fountain pen awake!

Write in slow, careful characters
        handsome miniscules, majascules ornate
                and patiently wait

bide the time this way –
        a mixture of calligraphy and fishing

an ink angler am I
        on a great white papery sea,
        luring up my sustenance, fishy stuff,
                from the depths below
                        one
                                fancy
                                        letter
                                                at a time –

little hooks are they
        to catch the words I hadn’t known I wanted to say
        a letter to catch a word, a word to catch more words

A method that hasn’t failed yet:

slowly draw a letter,
        artfully,
                and wait
                        until a fresh idea floats up and bites the bait

        unless a whole school comes,
                and then I use a net.