Kitchened
The puppy idolizes windows.
On hind legs she paws
the low sill, scratching,
sniffing for breeze. Outside
a golden retriever lounges.
The little dog whines,
recalling the planes of the big
dog’s back, her mouth
filled with wads of his fur—
she hankers to dangle from his pale
neck above the yellow clover.
I have stopped looking
out of windows. I am
kitchened, stifled in my mind’s
house. Even in afternoon
light I stall at the garden
border. I am cabbage,
layers nested in.
Oh, to be cantaloupe,
to flower with insouciance,
vine into the next yard—
the fruit rough-surfaced,
celled with design, spilling
sweet seeds from the hollow inside.
Postcard from the Mother Ghost
Hammer yourself a ladder.
Lean it against the familiar,
and climb like deep-rooted
squash vines through daylight
and blue-white heat.
Climb into twilight, its pockets
emptied of fireflies. Do not
worry that you’ll vanish,
that you’re alone. Let
the ladder lift you beyond
the heavy face of night.
Turn the postcard over.
See the peonies I’ve brushed
into bloom, how they curve
like hands. In the pale life
that comes, there is no
climbing—only the heart’s
circulation of time and desire.
Only a sweep of words,
the sheen of petal and leaf,
the way love ascends
like dandelion fuzz—the way
it doubles back, like prayer.
Comments (1)
Dear Friends, after some fruitless hours searching for a few publications of the mystic nature spirit heart poetry love to correspond with, and submit my work, and more, such as Bill Plotkin’s ” The Death Lodge, I knew I found my community, almost 2 months now in Plotkin’s Death Lodge, a clarity, of imagination, the Pineal gland
top of my heart a golden pine cone radiating light within me like a transmitter high on a mountain top meditation. Sometimes a poem will come: at a particular gathering. I am tested for my endurance by the insertion of stainless steal fishhooks ,just there ,where the fingers web out from the knuckles. I will be dancing for the sun.
The angel secures the hooks through my hands.
I am the bait for God’s appetite cast out in the wind. With Gratitude, for your beautiful publication, and the opportunity to share my response from my death lodge,,,A thousand Blessings, Joseph Bottone