Once, while sitting
On a tide-surrounded
Piece of Sunset Cliffs,
I smelled boyhood,
A summer scent:
Warm sand, blue cool ocean,
Seaweed, shells, swells, surf wax;
Coconut tanning oil
SPF 15.
The silence of waves before they break,
Bodyboard rash and sunburns,
The sharp asphault places in the parking lots,
Kicking sand on the backs of your calves
When wearing flip flops.
Bonfires and beer drinking,
Big Olaf’s waffle cones;
Smoke and fireworks and Frisbees,
Barbeques, volleyball leather, and Cokes.
The wet, towel-covered vinyl seats
In the Monte Carlo,
All in one accurate slap
Of a wave and the wind
Gracing my face.
Posts Tagged ‘Boy’
Big Olaf
Posted: April 23, 1995 in PoetryTags: Beer, Blue, Boy, Monte Carlo, Ocean, Sand, Sunset Cliffs, Wind
0
Pine Tree
Posted: April 3, 1995 in PoetryTags: Ant, Boy, Cat, Child, Clouds, Crow, Fly, Life, Monkey, Mother, Sky, Storm, Tree, Wind
I climbed up as far as my courage
And strength would take me
One day in the life of a monkey-boy;
Those branches were spaced
With a long-armed youth in mind –
A kind encouragement
Beckoning boys to the heavens,
That grandfather pine tree still stood
As of the date of this writing,
And it still looks as tall.
Things change as I grow older –
Hey, I thought it might have grown smaller
Like my free time, but
I’ll bet the wind still waves
The top of that tree back and forth
Enough to make a mother faint.
It seemed like yards, side to side,
The crow’s nest on a stormy ship
Clinging to the sparse branches,
Inadvertently gluing myself to the trunk
With pine sap and a boy’s luck,
Feeling the tickle of the ever-curious ants
That make freeways in the channels
Of such an old tree’s bark.
I think climbing tall things
Is conquering the world to a child.
I remember my parent’s roof,
Paved with pink pumice,
Once all stones,
Then weather beaten gravel,
Looking like a picnic blanket –
Something you could almost fall into
And just sink in,
Like a cat for a headrest.
From that altitude, the clouds were nearby:
I was pretty much one with the sky.
I wondered if I believed enough
On the way down,
Could I fly?
I still write you
little poems of little consequence,
yet long for a messenger
– be it bird or boy –
to send them to you, fresh from my hand
a thousand times a day.
Untitled Poem #148
Posted: February 15, 1993 in PoetryTags: Boy, Crow, Druid, Eagle, Eye, Heart, Sand, Tree
wherever you walk
I watch from treetops
still your little blue boy.
my eyes haven’t suffered
the same sanding that my heart has.
I see like an eagle hunts
and my heart heals.
I see a sad Druid.
the crows raise eyebrows at me
but I show them my eyes
and they understand.
we’re all watching you
from our treetops.
Searching Still 4 Childhood
Posted: January 26, 1993 in PoetryTags: Boy, Child, Frog, Imagination, Monster, Spider, Story, Trees
a boy with a stick
thinks it’s a fishing pole
and can catch fish in a puddle.
this same boy
wields that stick
as a keen cutlass
fighting his monsters.
in childhood, a boy
finds a swing as a jet plane,
a few trees as a forest,
a soccer ball as a championship game,
a jungle gym as a spaceship,
a frog or a spider a best friend,
a good story as a previous lifetime.
my imagination
used to make what I had
into treasures,
and now my treasures are memories of my imagination,
and all I have.
Rabbit Girl
Posted: October 22, 1992 in PoetryTags: Boy, Eye, Girl, Glasses, Heart, Home, Rabbit, Rainbow
wet rabbit girl,
where do you go?
know puzzle piece fits you
and my rainbow glasses miss you
when you’re gone so long.
private poetry
to roll in and chew
– a mouthful of wet paper,
foam caught on a branch
in a river.
I stand as a boy
with both hands
up and out, offering you
my heart
with hopeful eyes.
if not, I’ll go home.
Thee Memorable Ocean of Dream-Boy
Posted: July 20, 1992 in PoetryTags: Blood, Boy, Candles, Cloud, Cry, Drums, Earth, Lightning, Mirror, Sound, Steve, Tears, Trees, Wind
steve said C-R-Y
[in hidden eyes]
thee, tears may arrive.
striped little boy I envy your dress
AND your innocence.
(shrieking) PAINTING,
blowing multicolored bubbles
through your paintbrush…
I Re-Collect
we begged lightning with fish from the solstice
[once upon a time]
when batteries ceased to function
drums only drums and howling,
croaking, baying;
Fucking with the night in
flickering candles, canvas cloudwork
[fists full of earth]
mystic corrections of our skin, in chalk, in earth
blood leaking from my ears
as we listened to the sacred sound of the wind’s whip
[lashing the backs off the trees]
you and I and fish, standing on a mirror, looking through the grass
into the heavens of lightning.
Laura Swings Her Skirts
Posted: June 22, 1992 in PoetryTags: Boy, Butterfly, Dream, Eye, Flowers, Girl, Laura, Memories, Tears, Time, Tree
I will sing you a song softly
of a little girl I remember dreaming,
who would wink into the faces of
the flowers to see them smile,
perfume tickling her nose all the while
as she would wander secret places.
this little girl I did love
as I seemed to quietly spy
from the trees into which I’d climbed
as a boy, eyes opened wide.
dreaming her leaving colored footprints
skipping in the parted grass,
laughing like the flight of a butterfly.
and I’ve been dreaming ever since that time,
drugged with memories more precious
and sparkling than her diamond tears
of happiness when she chanced to find
the too-shy boy in the tree tops.
tadpoles, grow fast and strong
in the light of the eyes
of the boy who kneels
by your puddle,
shrunken from the heat
of the dry days
after the rains.
standing, the boy can see
the river running, chasing
through the jumbled stones,
just over a ridge of gravel
several yards away;
miles to legless tadpoles
and semi-frogs still retaining
stumpy tails in a pool of
brackish water, bursting with life.
wriggling tadpoles in the sunlit warmth,
waiting for the legs to leave,
for throats to peep tiny songs
on their way to embrace
the river bed.
One from the House of Bedlam
Posted: March 4, 1992 in PoetryTags: Boy, Cage, Clock, Crickets, Ezra Pound, Mad, Rock, Spider, White, Wind
this is the box that the spider came in.
here is the molt
of the mad spider
who came in this box.
this is the rock
from the cage where I kept
the spider, who was mad
and wouldn’t bark
after he left the white box that he came in.
these are the pictures I took of the box
that the batty spider came in
before I found that it was not him
who barked.
I am the boy who also came in the box
with such a grizzly spider,
put was not put in a cage
with a grey rock and a clock.
this is what happens to the crickets
that my spider hunts around the rock
by the light of that ridiculous clock.
this is Ezra Pound; a sailor, a spider,
who winds the clock in the closet of crickets.
here is the ward
where the mad spider and I are,
full of wind and white sheets and flat paper hats
and a rock.
here is the boy that bought the box
and found the rock for Ezra Pound,
that mad grizzly spider who wore a paper hat,
who gave it to me for the molt
that lies in the House of Bedlam.
this is the box,
the House of Bedlam,
where the spider molted even though he
was supposed to be hunting by the light of the clock
that Ezra wound.
I am the clock that tells the time
that the closet crickets die in the white box
– the cage in the House of Bedlam.
these are the legs of the mad molted spider
who ran around the rock in the white windy ward
of the house of the box with a paper hat.
this is the picture of grizzly me,
the boy Ezra and that deadly spider
who still wouldn’t bark after returning
to the House of Bedlam.
here is the box that is all that is left
of the boy, the spider,
Ezra and me.
[based on a poem by Elizabeth Bishop]
Midion
Posted: August 26, 1991 in PoetryTags: Boy, Cry, Dreams, Echo, Eye, Hope, Mirror, Monster, Moon, Nothing, Salt, Shadow, Sleep, Trees
mud from the river-bottom
sieves through my heart
and dries brown tile
upon the sunny corridors
of hope.
shaken by the fist
of my own excitement
I feel my lungs
fill with salt
left by the cataracts
of beautiful plants
breathing.
to hold all of you
for one moment
would be to watch it crumble
and cry like
a waning moon
doused in the ink of the ocean.
little boy,
tiptoe carefully
through the echoes
of the fallen mirror;
the leaves
will put it back together.
the stitch of a sewing machine
manufactures my poetry,
sleep baptizes
my worried face into peace.
the dances of dreams
drum my skin into rest,
slipping me between the teeth
of monsters who plague my visions,
færies who cover my ears with storms
to mask the whispering
of nothing.
I fall without recollection
through cell walls,
shrieking with my senses,
soundlessly touching stars
with the shadows
of my fingertips;
hurtling at frightful speeds,
awed by the size of it all.
broken,
reflecting the trees
at fractured angles
agonizingly compounded,
the spilled eyes of an insect
encrusted with river mud
cracked and dry with age.
I have nothing to do so I do nothing.
I have nothing to say so I say nothing.
My day was cold and rosy like a wax museum.
Mistakes seem to multiply my shadow
Into monsters clutching broken shards of mirrors.
Weeds grow about the architecture of my projects.
I say nothing I do nothing I say or do…
The beatings are screaming dully now
Through the calluses thick and faraway;
Sounds I slowly turn my head past,
Rotating through the jelly halls
Of pedestalled imagination snowy with sleep.
Somewhere in my closet there is a chest
That I have lost and a little boy with no mouth
Is quietly picking up all the shiny pieces
That the shadows bring to him and putting them away.
Button-eyed animals have gathered
From smoky trash heaps to watch him
As they always have with their own bright faith,
Chrysalises for creatures clearer than I.
The alarm is reverberating somewhere, muffled
By the furs and pelts of sacrifices to unworthy idols.
Beautiful skins of fantastic creatures.
Tears fall from eyes which have not flinched for years;
Ever since I was a little boy with no mouth.
Hopes and Dreams
Posted: December 11, 1990 in PoetryTags: Boy, Dream, Dreams, Gold, Heart, Hope, Imagination, Joy, Love, Magic, Michael, Purple, Time, Trees
There once was a little boy
Who had dreams which danced behind his eyes
Of magic golden cities,
People merry under purple skies;
The trees and hills behind his house
Where the young boy used to play
Would welcome him joyously
Into their arms most every day.
The boy would lay for hours
Watching people living and dying
Delighted in the magic spent
To dream without even trying
But as the boy got older
His imagination began to soften
And out to the hills and trees
He wouldn’t come as often.
Plastic guns and army soldiers,
Matchbox Cars and other toys
Stole the love and keen attention
From the helpless little boy.
The sun set silent one day
Over the lonesome trees and hills
The happy boughs and glades
Wept and sadly stood still.
No one heard their hearts break,
No one knows how they cried,
But some dreams were lost somewhere in time
When the child in Michael died.
Froggacuda's Weblog 