Releasing the Crows

 —Poetry by Jason Ryberg, Kansas City, MO
—Photos Courtesy of Public Domain

GETTING BY

What little money I had that day, I decided might
     as well go to a cheap, used
paperback copy of 100 Poems from the
     Chinese by Kenneth Rexroth and
as many refills
     of coffee
as the
     girl
who
     worked
there
     at the
diner would
     let me get by with.

 

 

 

 

MIDNIGHT RIDE

At
some
point in
the dream, the
bed has become a
horse-drawn wagon with either no
driver or one who clearly has been possessed by too
many spirits, as he seems to be little more
     than a disembodied cackling and
the crack of a whip, and I don’t know about him but
at least the horses and I are
more than grateful for
whatever
meager
light
the
moon
can
provide
for us on
our midnight ride through
her garden of many wonders.

 

 

 

  

OUT BACK OF THE PLACE

Past the windowpane of an abandoned mansion,
     the wind tosses a single fallen
leaf around in the gray winter light of dawn,
         amusing itself this way for hours, while
            a wisp of white smoke
        is slowly
                    rising
                                    up
from
        a
                                 shack
                       out back
                                       of the place,
              where the trees have been
                       reclaiming the yard for decades.

 

 

 

 

SOMEWHERE/SOMEWHEN

Rainy dust or dusty rain? Whatever it is, brings
                                     on memories better than a
                 time machine, except
                                     you don’t get
                          to set
                                     the
                   dial;

            you just sit there and deal with the shaky 

    playback of the whenever / wherever from
                                  your past that gets pulled,
                     randomly,
           up from
                          that
                                deep

                  dark well for you by whatever forces
here at work,
             around or within you, when the
                                        thunder and lightning
                              roll in, or
                       even
                                just
                          the

       smell of dust and rain, on a day with a forecast
                   for nothing but sun, takes you back to
               somewhere / somewhen you
                                             haven’t thought
                                    about
                                             in
                                             years.

______________________

Today’s LittleNip:

ROLLING THE SLAB FROM THE TOMB
(Tanka)
—Jason Ryberg

We knocked and knocked and
knocked, pleaded and cajoled, but
no one answered, so
we rolled the slab from the tomb
and a hundred crows flew out.

______________________

—Medusa, welcoming Jason Ryberg back, and thanking him for today’s fine poetry!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A reminder that
Poets Club of Lincoln
features Evie Groch
plus Open Mic
today in Lincoln, 3pm.
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