Henry Powderly » Poetry

Sweet Pea, Sweet William

Henry E. Powderly II — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 11:24:09 +0000

Sweet William
at home in a hole
dug by dirty fingers
in earth forked loose
and cleared of roots and rocks
twists its mane of pink and red
in breezes
with the other garden blooms.

Proud flower,
watered by underground pipes
by spouts and hoses
drinks under sunlight
and drops, from its scented sunburst,
pearls of water
on dark soil,
on sour mulch,
on Miracle Grow,
for a season.

…

Sweet pea, dragon faced
big-nosed and veined,
quenched in thunderstorms,
climbs a sapling that
rises from a rotting stump.

Shy weed-blossom,
having wrestled with thorny twigs
and strangling weeds,
thumbs its purple beak to the
spring sun, and summer sun,
to the mud of wet June,
to the split soil of August drought,
and fans the fall breeze
that sways the ghost of Sweet William.

Escape

Henry E. Powderly II — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:00:07 +0000

If we were the size of crabapples
we’d cut our clothes from maple leaves,
then laugh, in our green overalls, at the
slow caterpillars who chase us,
wanting to snack on our pant legs.

In the evening, you’d pluck a flower from the hosta
for a dress. The tips brush the branch we’d sit on
to watch the night’s lights,
the fireflies that glow like fireworks
in brilliant silence.

In the morning, we’d run through the dewy grass
to bathe before the sun dissolves the soap.
While our friend, the mockingbird, wakes
the blue jays, sparrows and wrens.
Then we’d swing on saplings,
through the cool morning wind,
until our thews are dry.

To drink, we’d burst a black raspberry
and slurp the sweet ink, dyeing our arms
and smiles and skin the color of the
old brick in the grass that’s chipped and
sleeping like a monument in our
giant world. Then we’d
climb it and holler at the clouds.

We’d shake long dandelions at our attackers,
the yellow-striped wasps that angered
when we painted their paper home
with raspberry ink and buttercups.
Or the bumblebee we startled when he
found us sleeping inside of the
trumpet flowers.

No spider would snare you to drink you,
I’d steal his silk to weave us sweaters.
No bat would carry you off, I’d tell the owls
where to find him first.
No ant would drag you to its caves,
I’d pelt him with bits of gravel,
cracking his armor.

And the rain wouldn’t drown us,
I’d weave a raft from tall grass and
fallen twigs and float us through the forest,
where we’d find the great pine, and climb to the top,
to wait out the storm.
Later we’d tie loose feathers left in the hawk’s nest
to our backs, and fly the hot winds
to the ocean for a swim.

Spring Flower

Basil

Henry E. Powderly II — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 11:23:01 +0000

Glow-soaked leaves,
Like boats, they bow,
pure green and pillowy,
cupping the rain in their
upside-down bumps.

Plucked for the sauce, the soy
or mate tomato,
their scent is soft until
knifed in fine ribbons

Under tooth its savor slightly cinnamon,
the perfume of roses and geranium.
The whiff, bright coriander,
the candy of tarragon,
its oils tinged citronella,
thick laurel and pine.

Such a puzzle, in simple leaves,
the intricate chemistry
of edible land.

Spring Flower

Henry E. Powderly II — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 10:30:56 +0000

The spring flower
climbed out
from under
thawed mud
and rusted blades
of grass
tamped by
frost and boots

It Is Peace

Henry E. Powderly II — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:15:10 +0000

Today I go questing for Everyman’s grail
for a sip of pieced together circumstances
of calm hope dripping
and hoped calm dropping
Balmed reality fights through
soothing and sobbing and traveling to interwoven souls
- synonymous with sinister -
“Reality is War, and Peace the Imagination”
This is X-rated!
I see and evil man nodding his head, walking from the bomb site, his wounds
too burned to bleed. He falls and family calls out. “He is at peace now.”
SHOUT AND WHISPER!
RIOT!
Quiet. She stands naked and beautiful, fixated on little death, lured to blush
an feel satin, alone in the dark.
“She will be our sign of peace.”
- the trembling ecstasy of pure imagination -
Not the marijuana men sitting in circles, loose talking, the are deluded
by poison, and fantasy, but not imagination, pieced but not peaced.
It is not anesthesia, nor dulling.
REMEMBER HER, SHE IS TREMBLING IN THE DARK
EXHILARATION.
And I hear the clergymen speak of peace everlasting as you lay in the coffin
and feel your blood standing by your side, weeping and wishing.
Wallowing willow trees of fallen heads, each wondering why.
“This is it?”
The watchers find solace in imagination.
Holding signs calling for it, they whisper their plans. But shouts from the
circles around them have plans of their own.
How do they expect the riot to birth it?
As if any shout or whisper roots in the raw of every man’s pure imagination.
She Tastes Awe and How Some Body Shakes,
Alone in The Dark.
Remember her, pilot, as you fly stripes and stars, as you fly the atomic theory
of destruction, according to instruction. As SHE rolls over he target on
her own orders.
“At war, soon to be at pieces.”
Why “at” it, and always “at” it, picking away. Pat it. Padded? Feel around it.
Pilot, fly at it, in your sights
Woman, cry in it, at our mights
Door open, hand upon the button
They each want it, drop it,
CAN’T STOP IT!
And the pilot watches the cloud-skull spread the air with
melted skin, a screams put out the call for peace. Bureaucrats dance
to the melted specter-songs of souls sent across the sea and sold for
signatures on a piece of paper.
Treaty, do you stop the suffering?
or …
Do you excuse us to close our eyes and feign imagination?
The woman has nothing following her explosion, she shakes, alight in
the aura of action based in the raw, non-deliberated ecstasy of pure
imagination.
SHE is in IT.
- Sing your pornographic Tao -
The pacing, racing heart in part so calm, the water sought her, brought her in
within the place of mind to find the combination of the only pure
imagination,
Where war is balanced by protocol
and
Peace is balanced by more pieces of peace.

No related posts.

Simple

Henry E. Powderly II — Sun, 10 May 2009 01:42:23 +0000

Sunset perched,
I dreamed of waking
on the moon.

Simple
like a flower in the
Sea of Tranquility.

Simple
like the farmer’s
rain dance.

Simple
like a song without
harmony.

Simple
like diamonds.

Epitaph

Henry E. Powderly II — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:15:45 +0000

Alacrity could mean wild if it weren’t for its definition
and
love could mean beauty if not for its fangs
its appetite and flocculent poison
I watch the philanderers lock hands and walk by
and see no bite marks, no scars, no bleed from love’s prong

Uncut they are defined
but
If only we were more willing to bleed.
If only this fixity, this cold need to forge ourselves with ourselves,
if only the finite could be broad and our interests filtered through a screen of unexpected tones,

If only cemeteries were more than flippant stones.

When I see the world foster itself
I pray
for famine and disarray.

When I see each moment foist itself on its definition
I feel
no end.

When I see the laser phantom of right now
I surrender,

and wonder how I will be defined
when I take my place in the rows
of corpses and sprout
flowers from my head.

No related posts.