Don't Let a Poet Rake Your Leaves

     I've taken on some landscaping work this spring and summer, more just to be outdoors and have some time away from screens and electronic devices than anything else. I'm working with another artist, a musician, and we often discuss how being outside away from televisions and computers is the best way to refuel the creative process. Because I was raking leaves the first poem that came to me was about raking leaves.

Don't Let a Poet Rake Your Leaves

Your wife will end up contemplating
Enjambment at the breakfast table
And the children will begin using your earnings
Reports to compose trioles.
If that poet takes off his shirt
Your mistress might crash the Civic
You bought her as she rounds the corner
Of Hemlock and Elm.
Save the money for a prop bet
And never let a poet rake your leaves
Even if he grew up in the carriage house
Of your estate.
Given enough time on your grounds
He'll turn the trumpet vines against you
And the orioles will compose ariels
Mocking your manhood....


     I began this poem at the beginning of last summer when I was doing some lawn maintenance work. It was nice to get outside and earn some money for our vacation, but as the summer progressed I began to wear down. I haven't finished this poem yet. 

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The Night Is So Still Dolphins Swim Through It

When I was a child in school I never listened. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do, and eventually they just stopped trying to instruct me and gave me a pile of books to read. Even then i sensed there wasn't much reason getting knowledge second or third hand, filtered through the voice of someone who may or may not even understand it. Given math equations, I ignored whatever rules they attempted to teach me and simply proceeded using my own trial and error methods. Which, given time, were eventually successful. Either I ran out of time or I solved the problems. Always my brain has worked that way. Sort of a solipsistic inductive reasoning machine. No point trying to learn the rules of the game at this late date. Why do I tell you this? I don't know. Because there's more afternoon than I need. Well, because I use design programs like Photoshop the same way. I can't ever learn the hard and fast rules, which would no doubt save me a great deal of time. "Dolphins" is a poem I wrote probably in 1996 on a porch on Quincy Ave. It went into my second book, Detached Retinas. Jenny did this Tiny Drawing last month and told me a few nights ago it went with the poem "Dolphins." Then she decided it didn't go with the poem "Dolphins," but I had already decided it had by this point. So, I put together the Tiny Drawing Poem this afternoon using my usual trial and error design method. The font is Flowerchild. 

More Tiny Drawings

More Tiny Drawing Poems

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Partridge Family Poem

In the summer of 2005 I'd just come off of eight straight years in the service industry. I was tired, I hurt everywhere, and my writing had turned bitter and cynical, like me. Too much time watching people misbehave and fade away. All the poems for what would become my book Flesh Wounds were finished, and I just wanted to try something new. So, I took that summer off, sat on the porch, went to the park, down by the river, and just wrote poems with minimal to no apparent meaning. These were the first poems from my book Submerged Structure. Jenny saw this one last night and decided it went with her Tiny Drawing. I think she's right. 

More Tiny Drawing Poems

Tiny Drawings

As always, we hope you'll link to and share our works. 

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