Psalm For Students Out of Windows Staring

It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Dream aviary day and night.
It's yours, that blue by distance blurred.
It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Woolgather wing, woolgather bird
with astronaut for acolyte.
It's yours--that spot of sky obscured.
Dream aviary day and night.
_____

for Sunday Muse #66.

Lightning Bugs In July Darkness

Lightning bugs in July darkness
make me think of your Indian hair by firelight.
It's like being hit in the head, these tiny stars--
this pleasant longing with a barb on its tail.

Air is a funny thing, especially at night.
Like you, it seems expansive while obscuring entire worlds.
I need wings to keep from falling, writing poems on foolscap
about you, and eyes that can't help but follow 

The foxfire there-and-gone glow of lightning bugs
In July darkness.
_____

for Wednesday Muse "Night Sounds." I see now that I have written about a night sight instead and hope to be pardoned this departure from clear instruction. 

Damned Foolishness In The Balkans

The Balkans may not be worth the bones
of a single Pomeranian grenadier, but

cats are not much for Pomeranians anyway.

They do not care for your cause,
they do not show up to vote.
They do not seize the means of production
and do not care about class struggle, because

they know themselves superior.

Cats do not care about damned foolishness in the Balkans,
nor your schedule 
nor your needs.

They live by their own (laser) lights,
but if you want to storm the cannery in Belgrade,
summon them by electric opener and they'll
talk turkey (or tuna) but marching in formation is off the table 

(along with your papers and everything else)
from the start.
______

for Sunday Muse #65.

Source material is two quotes by Otto von Bismarck, as follows:

"The Balkans aren't worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier."

and

"If there is ever another war in Europe, it will be because of some damn foolish thing in the Balkans."

Proof For The Postulation Of An Old Poet

"There are moments that cry out to be fulfilled.  Like, telling someone you love them. Or giving your money away, all of it."  - Mary Oliver - Moments

The generosity of madmen
--whether born or made so--
is like a pitcher overturned, 
sweetness wasted in the sharing.

I'm not about to mistake straitjackets for haute couture;
I am as hard and closed as a policeman's nightstick.

Still, you can lay naked in the spring grass,
holding a hymnal and a caramel.
Pretend yourself a parrot, all colors.
I will still be the crow from whom the night borrows its darkness.

When you have gone, I will play ancient games
with dying cicadas.
The years will fold themselves into pastries
the crumbs of which I horde and never drop.

Go, parrot. And this time
do not leave open my coat of poems
with sleeves like shaded roads, and wool like forgotten noons.
But if you do, I will have been right in my manic certainty

that you would make me cry in the end.
------------

22 lines for Real Toads.

An American Sentence

Don't let me die in high summer; let there be frost and October rain.
_________

I know there doesn't have to be nature in an American Sentence, but I couldn't help myself. For Wednesday Muse.

Motion

Living on the road is like being in love with a kleptomaniac;
the unfamiliar is always turning up
in place of old favorite fragiles that go missing.

Here's a prezzie, baby,
out of the blue,
because he's sorry he sold that thing he did
that you loved
in the old place, or ten places ago.

Grackles love the morning same as sparrows
and like your love, they woke up being what they are.
You know winter will come,
the road will ice over,
and nothing will be the way it was, again.

Be his sparrow, then,
and know that God and the cops have their eye on you both.
Honey, you don't have to tell them a thing
and your fingertips, your breath, your tired determined hope
are out of their jurisdiction and beyond their experience, 
like flight, 
like lightness, 
like the way he makes you feel.
__________

for the Sunday Muse #64.

Trinket Jerry

Trinket Jerry senses your anger.

The gill-like organs under his lying tongue tell him exactly what booshwah you're going to spout,

before you ever open your mouth.

Trinket Jerry the bullshit fairy

knows you better than you know yourself.

He's got your number on his ticket,

your Shinola on his shelf.

"You're not making any sense," you complain bitterly,

following Ole Jer's latest escapade,

his Big Excuse Parade.

He senses your anger with the tiny hairs inside his big jug ears,

But Jerry just rocks on like a resistant virus

and there you are, Queen Twitchy of the 11th Hour,

wondering how Trinket Jerry turned I'm-with-stupid into us.

_______

An off-the-cuff mess for Toads. (whispering) The password is..."trinket."