March Po 3.0

Yes, there she is all dolled up

in black from head to toe

From the hooded cape to the heeled boot

being propelled along like a

fragment of torn paper ripped out from

a fashion supplement,

just blowing down the gutter.

 

And you wonder

will spring come this year

to all those sullen faces

at the wheel

trying to skip the pot holes

that the snowplows dug

looking out from the ruts

that they all insist upon

living in.

 

-From Another Rubber Eden

*

Line Storm

*

 It’s only when March

is well over the hump

and surely on the move

and each season will

have to shake hands

like lifelong neighbors

that couldn’t really stand

the sight of each other.

Spring thinks winter

has become one weak old fool.

Winter wheezing death,

bragging about the

coldness it can’t really deliver

anymore.

Clearly winter’s strength is slipping.

Winter whining on how it’s all over.

Spring won’t be coming.

This winter. His winter will be the last.

Even a season has an idea when their

days are numbered.

Winter huffing in pathetic rage

I still can, damn it

“I’ll take some of you with me,

you know that and the ones that

I miss I’ll be back next year to collect…

you’ll be weaker by a year, but I’ll be fresh,

renewed, new born

and capable as ever.

Spring yawns.

A long, slow condescending smugness

lazy yellow in flowers and green grassy tufts

poking out of melting snow.

Spring speaks,

‘Old man you never felt this good,

this strong, this fine on your best day…

usually Christmas and you get that

gift wrapped for you.

I never see the end.

I am the eternal budding.

 I never grow old

I never see my children

wither and die.

Instead you know what I get?

Your leftovers.

The ones you missed.

The frail, weak, and fragile who should

have left with you.

And now they linger here at my footsteps

where in the season echoes;

for every wedding in June,

there resounds two funerals in July.

                                                                                    -From Attitude House

*

Early Visit

 

Since you left

once a year

I usually dream

you back into existence.

 

Its been right around

the time of year you passed

at the tail end of March

right between the seam of

Winter and Spring.

 

I like to think you have me

do this so that I won’t forget you.

When you sense I am getting too far

away from your memory

as the years

collect.

 

This time you were standing

in the arch of a doorway

covered in flowers

and as a crowd milled about

you stood with your back against a wall of air.

 

I walked up to you

and you smiled at me as I recall

looking into your eyes

kissing you

without a moments hesitation.

 

In my dream

I can feel your lips

and see your face vividly

and very alive in the youth

you left with.

 

And something of me

with you

and are saving that part

to return to me

someday.

 

-from The Terrible Now

 *

Last Day of Winter

 

So sing me blue sky without

memory on the cusp

of seasons exchanging gears.

March in transition chilly

with a deceitful light promising

warmth but delivering

stark fingers puzzle scissors

purple brown sleeping limbs.

The air in the room hisses

in more chilly silence

Students bent to their task

glance out the window

hoping an answer appears there.

A flag flutters stiffly at the end of a pole

like it was an end of the broadcast day

announcement.

But this is mid-morning

for such a terminal signal

a sign-off, a blizzard of white noise

so the clouds defuse the light

and the classroom darkens…

A blanket of gray descends…

bringing with it a big black old memory

of a time like this before

where the silence bores into the ears

and fatigue of vague weariness

invites the eyelids to begin to droop

There is always the sleep of change

reminding each fleeting season

just how short our time on earth is

in March.

 

-from The Terrible Now