Nest Building: A Poem

Upon landing, the mourning dove

Will pick up then drop

A twig several times before finding

Just the one it’s looking for,

And sometimes I suppose

It gets lucky

And comes upon the right one

On the very first try—but I’ve yet to see it.

If and when I do, you can be sure I’ll try

To write a poem about it.

A Bouquet You Can Eat

 "Fountain"

what stalking

the wild asparagus finally brings us to

a gustatorial spring.

The Shell Game

The lowly snail takes only his house with him

And has everything he needs;

The lord of the land takes everything else

And finds he has nothing

He needs.

Aubade

Aye to this

Thin waning crescent

In early morning sky,

Gone by

The morrow, which gleaming

Sickle is to glean

Which mourned-for eye?

Cuatro Poemas en Prosa (Four Prose Poems)

Once again my thanks to poet and translator Mario Domínguez Parra for translating and helping place four of my prose poems (Sentences, 1976) in the literary supplement El Perseguidor of the newspaper Diario de Avisos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands.

Need to the Nth Power

Love,

I have to tell you something—

It is so overpowering

Nothing dares

Come through.

"Friends, You Drank Some Darkness"

"Revelation"

Dear friends

Who are in need,

Do not be so

Easily carried away

By the promising

Lyre of darkness—

Though the sun

May not always come out

When you need it,

When it does,

It always does

What is needed.

NB: Tomas Tranströmer’s poem “Elegy”—from which Bly got the title for his translations of Swedish poetry (Martinson, Ekelöf, and Tranströmer)—is as follows:

ELEGY

I open the first door.

It is a large sunlit room.

A heavy car passes outside

and makes the china quiver.

I open door number two.

Friends! You drank some darkness

and became visible.

Door number three. A narrow hotel room.

View on an alley.

One lamppost shines on the asphalt.

Experience, its beautiful slag.