For Maggie Meyer,

Debt Acknowledged

I give you permission to glance away.

I give your eyes the right to graze on your

Read more

Sticks and stones piled up

   Steely flint sparks dry kindling

      Twigs neatly stacked lean-to supports

Read more

Walt Whitman had his Leaves of Grass,

Lincoln, and the Civil War.

We’ve got FasTrak Passes,

Bush and Cheney and an endless war.

Condy Rice and waterboarding,

squirrels in their own darkness hoarding

another country’s oil reserves

while we preserve our global warming.

We are our own dark clouds forming

from manufactured intelligence

where there was no intelligence at all.

A pheasant in a cage of our own making,

and wondering how we ever got into this mess.

Wondering what in 2009

will lead us home and to what?

We claim to be Recycling while

polar bears climb onto their disappearing ice floes

and look for another airline headed south.

Where are the bright people hiding out?

Is Washington DC just another homeless 

camp of uselessness? How about Sacramento?

An election coming up, Oh boy!

Show me the polls one more time,

and just one more pundit with the 

electronic game play arrows and traffic 

and weather forecast updates at 7 and 11.

I’ll try to stay awake and believe you

while surveying the first Leaves of Grass.

And wondering how we ever got here from there.

In Memory of Li Po,

My Drunken Bodhisattva

Buddhist bamboo stands strong

Yet sways flexible right or wrong.

Resisting breaks the stalk,

Surrendering, giving-in creates paths.

Scientific, philosophic, theologic

Thoughts do not reveal my walk.

How I am to exist.  What I am to do.

How I am to live and for what I am to die.

The other whispers, “The drunken ‘I’.”

The Other whispers, “The drunken ‘I’.”

In Memory of Hank Lampi, Carpenter

The Jack plane smoothes wood

Cut rough by the teeth of the saw,

While shavings, like words, stare out

From tight curls—up from the floor.

>< 

Homespun globe circumnavigating lonesome planet

            Finding refuge in secluded den

                        Perusing travelogues bound multicolored atlases

                                    Whale of Telltale library classics

><     ><   

Earthborn into secure landlocked circumstance

            Lubbers faraway from oceans favoring

                         Freshwater lakes over saltern fishpond

                                    Yellow-belly sunfish to killer sharks

><     ><     ><

Words cannot express wondrous vastitude

            Rearranged givens craving subterranean exploration

                        Needful privacy indulging familiar comforts

                                    Trailblazer adventures dusted off restacked

><      ><     ><     ><

Avoiding nauseous seasickness distressing travail

            Stay-at-homestead safeguards never venturing beyond

                        Escaping through timeworn bookworm passages

                                    National Geographic vainglorious naked denials

><     ><     ><     ><     ><

Nacreous pearly shells forced open

            Exposing ordinary grain of sand

                        Figure 8 hourglass flipped downside-up

                                    Demagnetized compass pointing everyplace else

PoeArtry by Charles Frederickson and Saknarin Chinayote

Earth’s spit-polished veneer chipped away

            Without skin we cannot live

                        Sea levels rise coastlines retreat

                                    Overflowing glacial teardrops flooding basins

                                                ><  ><  ><  ><  ><

                                    Spitfire core molten anima meltdown

                        Crust scraped like burnt toast

            Streaming butter sugary cinnamon sprinkles

Teapot spout letting off steam

<>  <>  <>  <>  <>

Wanton destruction of lonesome planet

            Diminishing water supplies agricultural clashes

                        Recycled excuses uprooted windswept soil

                                    Heat waves droughts tempestuous extremes

                                                ><  ><  ><  ><  ><

                                    Smoothing wrinkles soothing battle scars

                        Plump wrathful grapes sun-dried sultanas

            Twisted clinging vines seedless clusters

Early hoarfrost siege strip searched

<>  <>  <>  <>  <>

Climate change shattering glass greenhouses

            Scorned thunderbolt fury lightning rage

                        Flash floods clear as mudslides

                                    Tornados funneling disaster homeless refugees

                                                ><  ><  ><  ><  ><

                                    Nothing remains behind thin-skinned masque

                        Groovy slits baiting nebulous void

            Bipolar pointless compass run amok

Desperate humanimal instinct leaking out

PoeArtry by: Charles Frederickson & Saknarin Chinayote

Advertisement
———————

there are those
who seek the bright light
and attention
thrive on the thrill
of being seen
and suck up all
the energy comes their way.

others shy away
from the intensity of scrutiny
don’t want can’t use
all that attention
and would shrivel up
and die under the spotlight
preferring quiet beauty.

she announced herself
in the early morning
as if in a dream

but wasn’t satisfied
with that.
she wanted

to be recognized
and appreciated
for who she was

not a peacock
and not a songbird
either, calling

for her mate
with a quarrelsome
unmistakable voice

playing hide and
seek between the garden
and the rooftops.

Sometimes a real beauty

doesn’t want and can’t stand

all the attention

the ooing and aahing

and silly questions

not worth answering

preferring the quiet

inaccessible places 

where appreciation

is limited to those

who seek out beauty

for its own sake.