Blood

Like fearful, anxious children
We have grown afraid of the dark--
We fear the sight of blood--
And look away, avoid its mark,
Avoid allowing such a sight to make
Us into better, stronger, more beautiful
People. Look closely at the wound
Opened in the soldier's bare chest, full
Of outpouring blood of brightest
Red, throbbing with a dark and terrible
Sucking sound with each slowing heart
Beat. Look into his unbearable
Eyes, their fading glimmer, fading
Hope, bringing to us in that glance
A new hope of our own to bear, stronger
Spines, straighter postures, and a chance
To recognize our own short lives
In his. Do we dare follow him, dance
Into the underworld, our knives
We protect ourselves with in fright
Left behind? It is a dark cave
And we're not carrying our comforting light,
But this dark descent is how we save
Ourselves from this terrifying night.
Our brave soldier guides us to the stream
Stretching a barrier between
The world above and the world of dream,
From all we know to all we mean.
He stands, stares, wants to know
If we are ready to go
Down to his new old world to bring
Up new and tragic songs to sing.

The Shame of Love Poetry

A thousand sonnets written by deaf men
To sullen women who refused to speak
The beauty of those lonely poets when
Those men could only think or sing or seek
In all those loves the beauty that still drives
The men to recreate all of those loves
In songs or sonnets, concubines or wives.
The poets see them as flowers or doves,
When all these muted women ever see
In these, their poets grotesque swine or goats--
Never their beauty, just the fatal flaw
Of sensitive souls, when no real man dotes
On women that strange way, for if he does
Something must be wrong with him--nothing grows
From such a weak and ugly, damaged seed.
Nothing but a winsome poem can grow
In the polluted soil of women
Who must be right, as this poem does show:
These men have poor choices for seed or pen.

For Anna’s Birthday

You’re beautiful and gorgeous and very cute—

I can’t wait to see you in your birthday suit!

In Brackish Waters

 Passions pull and repel--powerful prides
In this pair bring them blue love and cool pain.
Whenever high rivers collide with high tides,
Their brackish waters bring them little gain.
Sheltered waters are where they have a place
Discretely checking out the intruders,
The sociable climbers who want to replace
One or the other's quick-changing waters.
In the shifting salting world of tears
Where neither earthy flesh nor oceans rule,
Their passions doom them to their tidal fears
And stop them from seeing with eyes too cool.
But those with enough strength and energy
To maintain their display get victory.

Pleiades

Away from the palms,
the mountainous shores
with cliffs to the sea, crumbling
houses into waiting water,
everything's obscured.
Where are the stars? The Pleiades
are one, fuzzy. The stars
are clear in desert skies,
cold and clear. They almost forget
to twinkle. No clouds
haunt the skies. The cold
is frightened away during the day.
The heat hides by night. All is dry.
But the Pleiades!
All seven sisters are clear on such nights,
inviting eyes to watch them,
pick them out,
notice them one by one
instead of as one.

Apprehension

Something strange is lingering
Storms appear they may appear
Clouds in gray or white do not obscure
Sunlight from the noonday sky
Spring, the air full, flower scents,
Pollen make the air more dense
Than the winter's colder air.
Something seems to hide
Something seems to need to be uncovered.
Gray rocks, rotten logs we overturn--
Snakes and worms and rolly-pollies--
Musky, earthy smells as sweet, attractive