dogtrax @dogtrax@mastodon.social

Perhaps I need to do another #introduction here, since it has been some time since I did it last. My regular forays here include composing #smallpoems, writing #smallstories, sharing #smallquotes and other connected sharing threads. If you write there, I'll try to respond. I may even remix as a way to honor your writing. I try to keep my heart and mind open.

Where water goes,
so we go, too,
we flow from sky
to mountain
to rivulet through
this twisting,
winding landscape
of home and stone;
You, leading me;
Me, chasing you

#smallpoems

Listening In At Leontyne Price Musical Park

When Miss Price sang us
that 'accomplishments
have no color'

the air accompanied her
as chords on a stage,
her voice, an operatic echo

of streets hummed as aria;
the city, as orchestra;
this park; as chance for change

#smallpoems

inspired by #nwp Write Across America (SMWP)
https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/c324b4c832bf9e9f1db8174bcf94c402/laurel-virtual-writing-marathon-smwp/index.html

Respair
(hope over despair)

When wrestling
over emotion,
RE- meets DE-
and the crowd cheers
from the seats
with noise in our ears
and hope, as belief

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

Eating ain't the only thing
we dig in to at Miss Pearl's
on Oak and Magnolia

We marvel at the woman
behind the counter, too,
the gumption it took

to imagine a diner
at seventy, and to see
it through, too,

so we're not just nibblin'
on catfish, we're celebrating
what it takes to make one's way

from there to here

#smallpoems

inspired by #nwp Write Across America (SMWP)
https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/c324b4c832bf9e9f1db8174bcf94c402/laurel-virtual-writing-marathon-smwp/index.html

Memory’s
a mad curveball -
stitching off the fingers -
its lightning, sticky, lingers

We’re all bunting dingers
into these fields of play,
then rounding home -
or remembering the trying -
as if there’s any other way

#smallpoems

inspired by a roll of Taylor Mali's Metaphor Dice

You surely know, too,
that time before
the hummingbird
sips:

you hear the sound
when gravity dips
inside the ear -

such thrumming,
that wingbeat
drumming -

and all it takes is movement
to make the moment
disappear

#smallpoems

Someone -
probably me -
forgot the poem
left in the pocket
of the pants put
in the wash
maybe not just once
but two or three times
so now the paper's
permanently folded,
words molded together
along the corner seams,
so it's lucky someone -
probably me -
recalls the first lines
of the poem now stuck
together, the trapped
lines still flow so easily

#smallpoems

The dented blue Subaru
arrived home,
north into New England,
last night, all right,
with dead cicadas
in the grill

sometimes,
even the dead
end up where they will

#smallpoems

Redamancy
(for love)

We may never finish
this game of petals
from the daisies we discovered
together, so that even
in crazy weather,
our lives, tangled in troubles, forgot,
I hold to the possible forever bloom
of “she loves me” and never,
“she loves me not”

#smallpoems

Inspired by an exploration of the word in The Cabinet of Calm (Soothing Words for a Troubled World) by Paul Anthony Jones

You’re rolling off
the tongue,
tumbling towards
the ground,

then gathering steam
with other drops;
this gravity
drags you down

down, you go
down, you flow
down beyond
my view

here, on river’s edge,
you disappear,
the last I’ll see
of you

#smallpoems

Inspired by this site https://river-runner.samlearner.com/

Baby’s eating ink again -
a writer’s born every day -
Me? I’m nibbling paper,
with nothing much to say

She’s spitting words and polka dots,
dangling metaphors on air,
while all the while, I’m watching,
hoping, without a word to spare

She drifts asleep, as dreamers do,
to draft a skein of tale,
and all I do is wander her,
ponder poems inside this shell

#smallpoems

World Explorer

The young girl giggles -
and how could she not?
– at the small city, bustling
of bugs beneath the log

she’s overturned just to view
if what papa told her is true:
that this world is falling apart,
and the underneath is where
the end will start;

So she’s gentle
as a soul as she slips
the world into place,
a curator of extinction
with an innocent’s grace

#smallpoems

(Draft for a community art project)

The world settles in,
calm enough for us
to hear the open rush
of blue herons in flight,
of sudden skimming water
with bent neck
and balanced wing,
for as quiet
as we are
is never quiet
enough and all we can do
is pay attention and listen
to the moment sing

#smallpoems

"... walk in the trees and watch the light fall into it ..."
— from In Lieu of Flowers by Shawna LeMay

Forever, is the falling
and never, is the landing,
yet here we are, standing,
dappled by soft morning
sunlight, wondering if
we're doing this right,
this remembering you
when all we can hear
when we quiet ourselves
to listen:
just bird songs and wind whistles
and somewhere we can't yet see,
the river's footsteps to the ocean

#smallpoems

Where shadows go,
darkness bends;
daylight sends
its signs forth at
dawn at dusk at
spaces between
this falling sun and
the rising moon,
untethered moments
of sleepless dreams

#smallpoems

Tide Riders

Creatures of a species
of another place’s
origin

Ride the rails
or hitch a ship
or sleep inside
the package,
delivered by tide,

then scampering free,
observe the world
with false hospitality,
eating their way
into our wreckage

#smallpoems

Draft poem for a community art project