Autobiography in Five Short Chapters- A Poem Modeled After Portia Nelson's of the Same Name

I.
I sit in my room.
The doorbell rings.
I hide, stuffing myself under the bed.
I cannot answer the door.
The doorbells stops.

II.
I sit in my room.

The doorbell rings.
I run.
I throw myself into my closet
and cover my ears.
I cannot answer the door.
The doorbell stops.

III.
I sit in my room.
The doorbell rings.
I go to the door
and look out the window.
I will not answer the door.
The doorbell stops.

IV.
I sit in my room.
The doorbell rings.
I go to the door
and open it.
I step outside.

V.
I wait on the porch.

How it Feels to be 23

Fleeting.
Like typing letters
with wet and smudgy nails;
Something I can barely touch.
Something I still don't know.

Crocodile Fear

Down the mountain after dark;
See the prickling blush of electric streets
Like jewels down a crocodile's spine;
Black water licking clean his claws.
I fear reaching out to meet his teeth

Elizabethan

The desert sky is wild and red but even he soon pales,
As the mother long horizon calls and cradles him to bed.
And one black thing circles low with black and outstretched sails;
The cracked and broken earth below tells no secrets of the dead.

Who knows but that the steady eye will catch the earth below,
To see a broken thing enthroned in the dry and bracken brush.
The black thing spirals down the sky until he comes to know,
The smell of warmth still leaving, and the breath of sudden hush.

And then these two may sit awhile; as his appetite allows,
Before the heart is ravaged and the mind is like devoured.
Feathers ripple off the bone; the beak recites its vows,
The black red thing is hurried on; too hungry to be coward.

The heart has filled the sky against a lonely scavenged night;
The sun and he will bleed brief hours before the final bite.

Childhood is

Childhood is
a ring of grass
left beneath the summer pool.

Death, come to me in the pages of an old book

Death, come to me in the pages of an old book;

In the heavenly breath
Of an old spine.
Take in your hand the sweet and aged dyes,
Of ink and pages turned another breath.
Come to me with the next return,
And of me fill not take.

Haiku Collection

-Red Bird-
Blush beneath wide bone;
I hold my heart with both hands,
No strength for wide strokes

-Yellow Leaves-
Yellow leaves; wanton,
Cling close to branches with their
dead-red rimmed lips.

-Cricket Song-
When low clouds gather,
A cricket in the water
sings of falling things.

-When I Pass the Birds' Bush-
Birds inside the vine
pitch themselves from heights and dive;
chirping for the soul.

-Penny in the Fountain-
Penny in the fountain;
though many hands reach to touch,
you remain solemn still.

-Behind the House Wall-
Behind the house wall,
grass creeps above the wet moor.
This snow melts quiet.

-A Dead Man-
A dead man reaches
up for air, while proud pines wade;
both are cold and still.

Mother Heart

My mother holds out her heart,
and we take it by the rinds;
to bite;
cold and sweet,
picked down to the unstrung bow
we clench with both hands;
bitter and sharp to taste.
We swallow one black seed to grow.

Out in the Cold

A steaming kettle screams from the stove,

Red with the glow of heat; boiling water runs

Down the burning metal; the water streak burns.

The surrounding kitchen fills with morning cold,

All except this small hollow, alive and hot.

Lift, and carry it away with cool and careful hands;

Carry to the table, a clean cloth between your hands

And the scalding bronze. Quietly, the steam drifts off the stove.

A mug waits to be filled to the throat with liquid hot;

Milk poured from the plastic jug, down the steaming surface color runs;

A little heart enclosed in the drink, separate and cold.

With a swallow the mug touches lips and the mouth burns.

A slight touch may rouse the skin to a red burn,

This, the danger in eager and unpracticed hands.

The first grace is followed by a ghost of cold,

Then the scrape ignites beneath the skin as a stove.

Beneath the tap, chilly morning water runs;

This hurt flashes in and out of pain and touch; cold and hot.

Outside the kitchen, past the morning, the hot

Sun leaves its mark on skin as it burns

The leaves to withering gold and teary dew runs. 

Nature holds within herself her own stove;

Just as quick a brush from quick and eager hands,

Can leave the marks that linger in a numbing cold.

Winter opens the cellar door that keeps the cold;

A freeze that whispers its own through hot 

Climates that rage in the flame of a stove.

Yet even comfort in the cold leaves burns

As pink and terse as naked winter hands;

Under that ice a hot river runs.

Away from this feeling of heat, my heart runs,

Out into the air to gather in the cold.

Hidden away in pockets the warmth finds my hands

And as cruel as hate I force them away from this hot

Space; feeling for the numbness after burn.

I can no longer trust the spark of a kitchen stove.

Tears rise from the kettle hot,

The fire catches and rushes beneath the burning stove;

I listen to the kettle scream walk out to the cold.  

Forest of Fontainebleau

A walking stick
In this deep forest,
Thumbs along the earth.
This fallen tree beside you;
Wide enough to wrap your arms around
And not reach halfway.
Perhaps you will,
When the picture-taker has closed his eyes
To rest,
Reach around and hold;
Drag your legs to climb
Over; your heart feeling its
Beats against the wood.
Let the cane fall,
To roll and lie still
Beside a jagged cut friend.
You need this too;
In this deep forest,
Where you walk
With no one else near.