Alan Botsford-I
mamaist drops (1)
Time is father’s
Nose to the ground.
Space is mother’s
Sweat off her brow.
When together they
Lie in each other’s arms,
Poems happen–
We are the needle
In the haystack
Of their love.
__
Hanging the nail on the wall
Of all is his crucifixion.
__
Death be not proud, he
Says, and peeks
Under the shroud.
Here, though, the grace
Note is a human
Being
__
The lion’s mouth is no place to prattle
When the lion’s share is more listenable in silence.
(In defeat, abundance.
In solitude, friends.)
(Deep space
Deepens time)
__
Just a book?
Just a look?
People have died
From a look
__
I’m an ex-word
I was spoken once, and
I was all
That was needed
To be said.
__
I’ve been hiding
Under my mind
But now I’m ready
To sell the
Idea of where
I went.
__
Shot to death by
The sound of a word,
He flat-lined his
Way back into Being,
As the birthday
Of your future.
__
Slow growth’s victory
In the fast lane.
What’s transitory
Is time’s gain.
__
Load up time
With memories
And the stowaway
Is always art,
Hidden away in the steerage
Until out in the open seas.
__
Dad’s debt he
Owed the Dead
Games life
With strife.
Mom’s bent is home
To which she comes
Each night, unspent.
__
Pulling magic out of a hat?
Grab it! says one.
Rob it! says another.
Did you say wabbit? says still another.
Ribbitt, I say, for the hope of
The world.
__
Harmony is a thing of the past.
Golden is the present.
While meaning is
What the future does.
__
Like birds in winter,
How do they know
It’s time for them to go
For fear there is still
Too much fear in the air.
Come out of these words, come out
Count on our own flesh
And blood to be
In the garden.
__
Petrified, the cuts running deep,
I see the wound-image
In my mind’s eye.
__
The music the wind plays
Might twang like a plucked
String of a harp, or groan
Like a cello, but this time
The wind plays it by heart,
Night and day only a
Breath apart.
__
The crow’s perch
Is limited by
The eagle’s eye.
__
He became a rock
In the road, smoothed
By a thousand steps, kicked
Eventually into a ditch
Where he was picked up
And used in a wall
That stood a thousand years.
__
You’re right, life
Doesn’t start
In the body.
Hunger originates
In the heart
Of existence
If existence has
A heart.
It is ours
To follow
As our pilot.
It goes out,
Out goes
Our light.
__
In all my days of heart
It still doesn’t make any more
Sense—art or no art.
To muddle through
I’ve learned, however,
Takes art.
__
What mothering instinct
Isn’t soon fathered in ink?
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