Like Silvergreen Shadowanimals

ArtCar at the Crocker

Photo by Michelle Kunert

(Is your car your best friend?)

BDFF
for Tippy Biscuit Browning
—Tom Goff, Carmichael

My best friend never human is a dog:
what’s commonplace about that? She knows, she knows
to nose for food and wield teeth like a hand,
to dig and kick with stubborn hind feet a bog,
a right bone-burying bog albeit no leg
stripped of its chicken ever wound up below
her topsoil scrabbles in strata of hardpan.
No water dish but she pinks out the dregs
with licks. She guards rugworn perimeters,
harries with indignant nips our cats.
A zealous overseer of the kitchen chair,
from which perch she originates bitter spats
with puppy siblings—yet altimeters
fail to clock the height to which will reach
my feelings for her apricot and white peach
when fresh and cockapoo-trim in all her nap,
dog paw draped over man-hand, she fits my lap.

_____________________

Viola Weinberg writes to say check out the new Blue Lake Review at bluelakereview.weebly.com/. There's a spot on the b-board in the Kitchen (see the flying pig) for where you're being published; don't be modest about sending us your creds! Many poets are looking for venues to showcase their work.

Speaking of which, tomorrow (Friday, Oct. 15) is the deadline for WTF8! See the b-board for details.

_____________________

GIRL, BOY, FLOWER, BICYCLE
—M.K. Joseph

This girl

Waits at the corner for

This boy

Freewheeling on his bicycle.

She holds

A flower in her hand

A gold flower

In her hands she holds

The sun.

With power between his thighs

The boy

Comes smiling to her

He rides

A bicycle that glitters like

The wind

This boy this girl

They walk

In step with the wind

Arm in arm

They climb the level street

To where

Laid on the glittering handlebars

The flower

Is round and shining as

The sun.

___________________

WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?

—Mari Evans

where have you gone . . .

with your confident

walk . . . with

your crooked smile . . .

why did you leave

me

when you took your

laughter

and departed

Are you aware that

with you

went the sun

all light

and what few stars

there were . . . ?

where have you gone

with your confident

walk your

crooked smile the

rent money

in one pocket and

my heart

in 

another . . . .

_____________________

SELF-PORTRAIT
—CECIL BØDKER

Weeds grow shamelessly

on my tongue

in the middle of a bed

of taste buds,

and among my hair's

mangrove roots

swamp-fish shoal

like fleeing silvergreen

shadowanimals.

My heart dangles

carefree

on its string

from my lower left rib,

if it gets broken,

I'll scatter it

like ashes on the top of my head,

—or perhaps

like gunpowder.

(Translated from the Danish by Nadia Christensen)

____________________

THE STREAM
—Claire J. Baker, Pinole

For even as love crowns you so shall
he crucify you. Even as he is for your
growth so is he for your pruning.
—Kahlil Gibran, from The Prophet

Yesterday she sat by a pond
she believed had never reflected
a crown more glorious.

Today, Kahlil, love prunes her
down to size. A swift river
swallows photos, flowers, poems,

sweeps away her crown. Prophet,
world, time, she whispers,
no one can crucify me but myself.

____________________

Today's LittleNip:

Friendship is a sheltering tree.

—Samuel Coleridge, from Youth and Age

____________________

—Medusa

Photo (and LittleNip) courtesy of 

Carl Bernard Schwartz, Sacramento