I just read your monotetra, "The Key" for the first time, and I was blown away. And yes, I am that Michael Walker, the same who created the form. Occasionally I do a quick search on the monotetra...and I was certainly glad to have come across this poem of yours—one of the best monotetras I've read, in my opinion, and trust me I've read many. The intrigue in the tale and the use of the meter and flow were exceptional. Very well done! Michael W
Focus
Some days, I want to unpack
myself. Unbutton my skin, drape it
over the back of a chair. No longer worry
about wrinkles. Stack my bones
in the corner, and set aside this packet
of organs that keep a body humming.
I want to step out of the vulnerability.
Move through the world without
distraction. Discover a universal truth
not dependent on need
or tempted by want
or driven by fear.
(Published - Pirene's Fountain 2017)
Camera Body
Even without a camera in my hands
I walk with a photographer's eye, notice
some piece of chaff that flutters
against the wind—
butterfly
a flake of leaf not quite the right
shade of green—
katydid
constant motion in the nettles
on a still day—
bees
I also walk to listen with
a photographer's ear, to hear
the quiet chuck of a mother robin
at attention—
fledgling
a steady whee rippling the air at
the water's surface—
spring peeper
the unfamiliar chirp of a sparrow
in pain—
broken wing
And when a novice says you must have
a really good camera, I glance
at my empty hands and say, yes,
yes, I do.
(Published - Watershed 2016)
Monarch
She hangs weary at the browning edge
of the echinacea garden, her proboscis
curled in place, too tired to eat.
She has been battered by wind, scarred
by one narrow escape after another.
My hands—scarred and darkening—
steady the lens, pause
as I look for her best side.
She has no best side.
Glamor shots become documentary.
I wonder how old I would be
in butterfly years.
(Published - Watershed 2014)
Silver Anniversary
Whole, the swan was pretty
in a dime-store kitsch sort of way.
Oh, but it was beautiful
when it caught fire—
pink netting succumbing
to the chemistry of anger,
flaming down to its wire bones.
(Published - Watershed 2016)
Guernica
Oil on canvas, by Pablo Picasso 1937
In this dance macabre,
a bull, a horse
close the distance
from horn to heart,
spill gray hope
upon Basque soil.
A beautiful brushstroke
no longer shakes us
from the glorified gore
of broken blades
and severed limbs.
These dagger tongues scream
of shifting dimensions,
of space out of time,
of a dark aftermath
where we will ride the chaos
on our knees.
And we will ride without surrender
for as long as Man finds honor
in the death of children.
(Published - Pirene's Fountain 2014)