Tag Archives: cliche

Twenty Love Poems: 3

One hears the old saw men
want only one thing but
if one may want a thing one
might as well want more
than one than one of that
thing men want but one
and more of that one over
and over again once more.

Then too why all this business
of all the eggs in one basket
when one’s father realized
two are living together sans
anyone’s blessing two alone
remarked with the old saw
why buy the cow why when
one’s getting the milk free.

And what did he wonder
about his cow apparently
now on the open market
and he calls his girl a cow
as if one could afford
to buy one a whole cow
comes sans dowry
save existential wave.

Love is a many splintered
thing like the tiny wood
jackstraw one can’t get
out with a fine tweezer
that sliver of sharp glass
entirely incapacitates
one’s grip on life and love
and the cow moos like a saw.

on water

he walked under
paid & unemployed
among rocks
and whirlpools
between antiquity
and the gift of now
of uncertainty
treading water
waiting for his own
antiquity to come
when someone might
remember he walked
on water treading
trudged and carried
no grudge.

The Anglers

They line the streets, sitting out at sidewalk cafes, watching the passersby, angling for what they might catch. Patiently they wait, nursing a coffee through a first frost morning, almost napping off over a warm afternoon beer, coming back in the evening for a smooth glass of purple pinot noir or a shot of postprandial espresso. The burbling, gurgling, murmuring river of cars drifts along, punctuated by busses and trucks, bicycles, pedestrians crossing, a cop on a Harley, a delivery truck snagged on a rock, three buskers in an open boat. The anglers move along too, changing spots, carrying their birdcages of verbs, baskets of nouns, hooks and swivels and spinners tucked in their tackle box notebooks. And I move upriver, looking for a new hole, so hungry I will not catch and release a cliche, but will pick out its bones and pan-fry the fillet in butterfat in a cast iron skillet.