bluebird canyon, laguna, july 31, 72014

no birds are not dinosaurs
anymore the same way you and i
have two lungs
each
gills given up the ghost
in this sunny valley mid morning
where hummingbirds
a little like flying reptiles
that sparkle come to the hibiscus
so outrageous even the wind
only ruffles skirts
it's a party in a steep walled canyon
where light seeps then colors
now raucous joined by rooster
crying baby truck and avian cacaphony
squee squee  hrrr hrrr huh hrrr
and didgeridoo of unnamed
but not nameless flying reptile
progeny. i used to wonder what our
children would do but now i know
the wind will come down this canyon
whistling in millenia milennia from now
when humans are stories, so changed
by the loping ramble of evolvosaurus
that our daughters' daughters' daughters
etc will be lithe on wing, a flicker
of flight, perhaps the hibiscus still
will offer their pink satellite fabrics
open
to our daughters' d d d d d etc.
who will be green
and flying
and someone else will wonder
are these pteradactyls?

A Visitor

welcome mat

woven or rubber

door may be open 

door may be closed

matters not

step through or up against

feet square 

key under 

“come on in”

“come to stay?”

Heart and Soul

So you can play, and play for hours,
linking moves as in a swing dance,
an improvisation that sounds
like a song you've heard more than once—
though culture has put that song down.

You risk disparaging glances
as you start to boom-de-ah-dah.
Say you haven't tickled them since
grad school back in Arizona—
your fingers find their old power,

madly snap appoggiaturas;
fancified melodic forays
ring the teeth of the rusty saw.
Boogie-woogie on yesterday's
abandon, bouncing every ounce

of self-aware grown up away.
A can of worms: "Oh, do you play?"

IMUNURI Prompt: Answer to Question

 
For this week's writing, start with an answer
and end with a question.

keywords: poem, your handle, question 

Is desire a trump card?

Deep thoughts

The dying art of letter writing

Today, I recieved a letter in the mail from an old friend.
A New Mexican who loves the stark and barren romance
of the landscape that envelops her.
The look of her hand-written script was as pleasing and artfully disheveled
as I remember her to be.

My eyes joyfully followed the line of letters and bold, punctuating marks
in their fervent effort to describe.
I could tell that she relished each stroke of that drugstore ballpoint pen.
The pressure, release and glide of it's crown
translating her mood as sensitively as an artist's sable-haired brush.

I wondered whether she realized, or cared
that every tenth word or so was illegible.
Causing the eye to stop and tumble over them.
Words that looked like balls of tangled thread.
Others like hastily written musical notations.
Or ancient Japanese calligraphy by the "Wild Sisters of Zen."

I was surprised by the intensity of my gratitude
for the drop of water or tear or tea that bled the ink
and curled the corner of the page.

This simple hand-written note.
Like a relic, a keepsake, a remembrance.
A true oddity among the daily scroll
of digital salutations.

The sage-scented sheet extended out like an invitation to a handshake.
A tactile way to bridge a distance seperating two friends.
A way to touch.

IMUNURI Prompt: Post-It Poem

Okay, so writing a poem without writing it down is an unexpected challenge for many.

Let's try a nearer-fetched experiment with writerly media, namely:

Post-It Poems

Draft poems on post-it notes, or write them and transfer final versions to post-it.

Here at IMUNURI, post your post-it poetry as text or upload a scan or photo of your post-it poem.

Bonus points for posting the poem somewhere before taking the picture.

keywords: your monicker, poem, post-it