Blogger’s Query: Is there anything on God’s green earth as arrogant as a tom turkey during mating season?
tom foolery
it’s puffery — this fanned tail,
beard, and scarlet head-rush.
inflated egos, swollen pricks
pompous as they dance.
J. Thorp
02 April 01
It snowed last night – heavy wet flakes, the kind common sense dictates you not attempt to move, because A) they weigh a ton per shovelful, and B) they will melt away soon enough. The pines along the back yard look as if the weight of the world had settled on them alone, and the grey clouds hang overhead like a heavy sigh.
But the steady drip from the eaves is the faint patter of hope – a heart beating faintly in the thick silence. So, a haiku:
The last snow, fallen –
draped in white, the trees bow low
at Winter’s passing
Hm. It may help to know that white is the traditional funeral color of Japan, land of the haiku. But while that detail might add a little something, I think it works alright as-is. At least for today.
Sorry it’s been so long …
village limits
we step into the day with no illusions—
it is gray, cold and april.
a hawk sweeps the haze with banded wing,
birds sing, the street echoes the chatter of starlings,
the bark of dogs, the redwing’s wulperchee!
the stop sign leans how the plowed snow pushed it.
two chickadees man a bare and brushy elm,
feathers ruffed against the breeze, still and silent,
standing sentry at the intersection.
it’s strange to see them stationary—
with the trees around them singing
why should these two remain grounded?
there is a puckered hole where a bullet rang
the stop sign. Beneath its tilted stem
a balding radial is exposed in the melting snow.
the shoulder is scraped bare and sown with twizzlers,
nesquik bottles, crumpled camel packs and butts.
this is the way out—a cracking street with no lane lines
where village idiots pop their pills, their clutches,
whatever they can—a bleached budweiser slowly turns
over and over across the pavement to the muddied grass,
a plastic sack, a bra pressed flat, damp artifacts
of vice and apathy known since birth; a winter’s worth
of bullshits, to-hell-with-its, i-don’t-give-a-damns.
the birds sing; skin crawls to gooseflesh
as a cold wind rattles the weeds.
J. Thorp
04 April 02
—
*Although written in early April, in Michigan …
Blogger’s Note: Been thinking about this one for awhile now. Feels like a good first draft. Jinglebob oughta like it; maybe Doug’ll set it to music …
The Pressure Of No Pressure
She thinks I do no wrong – each night
I let her know just how I’m right
She lets me lie to her despite
She thinks I hung the moon
She’s heard the good stuff and the best
I never bother with the rest
What she sees I haven’t guessed
She thinks I hung the moon
And every little slight is dissolved
In her arms each night
And I find warmth and grace and light there
But no pressure
All that she wants me to be
Is here beside her and happy –
And I’d give her the earth, the sea,
The starry skies and yes the moon
And every little slight is dissolved
In her arms each night
And I find warmth and grace and light there
But no pressure
There’s no place to hang a moon here
Cracking paint and peeling paper
And there’s no place to write a song here
But I’ll try
And there’s no place to stash the stars here
Come high tide we’ll flood the neighbors
And I can’t give her this whole world now
But I’ll try
She’s all I know but I don’t say
It wouldn’t matter anyway
She knows I know what’s what – and hey
She thinks I hung the moon
And every little slight is dissolved
In her arms each night
And I find warmth and grace and light there
But no pressure
And every single sin
Proclaims what kind of shape I’m in
And Lord knows how a man can grin
With all this pressure
J. Thorp
25 Feb 2008
wastelines
it’s lent, which means no
meat on fridays. that’s alright though; see
there’s fish on fridays in the school gymnasium.
friday’s fry day, get it? an entire catholic school of fish —
i could go on, but why waste words in this season of sacrifice?
lent is no time for excess. we feast on fillets and dinner rolls and
pies and cakes, unless we’ve sworn these things away, or sometimes
despite. we should be fasting, right? to show solidarity with each other
and with Christ, who spent forty days in the desert with
the devil, as though it weren’t already hot enough.
that’s the idea, isn’t it? the man took nails for us,
thorns, jeers, spittle, and for six weeks we stop
buttering our bread except on sundays.
he died; we live lent like broken
resolutions looking to lose
weight when what we
seek is significance —
we fast to gain.
j. thorp
18 feb 02
—–
Christ Child
We are seated at the station in which
a man holds Jesus by the shoulders
while another swings the sledge.
I can see the gears are turning —
are they the bad men? why should they
do this? He would tell them to be
nice and they would listen, like the
ones who flew the planes and broke
the buildings. He would go to their
homes; knock on their doors, and say,
“Be nice,” and he would not
complain the whole trip he says.
Behind the altar Christ is risen, but
in our home he bleeds — a splintered
tree; a humbled God. The procession
passes. He sees what we see —
the cross, the Christ, his arms spread
wide — and more deeply. Softly he
prophesies, “Jesus has wings!” and
His vision is revealed.
J. Thorp
06 Jan 02
Archangel Stomp 