Some Old Poems....so you MFA poets can laugh laugh

Big Smiles on Cheshire Cats

That grin taunts Alice
flaunts logic (philosophical)
haunts my little girl dreams.
Which way ought I to go from here?

Steady pace it’s 7:16
Stairs winding first
through the kitchen
second doorknob, twist
stairs winding second, land with a thump
Twist, step-step-step, out.           out.
of options.
Firemen grazing on Menthols while
Slothful see-men lie.

It’s curious—a
grin without a cat.
Like a dream without a sleep.


Big Smiles in a Central Park

Wind flaps saffron flaps two focused faces beam
Her face is round, but round back in ’03 they called
her pretty gray eyes match a peacoat proper.

Rosy cheeks betray bravado     
Bundled up in nervous-wind-flapping saffron
Eyes hopeful,
Smiles fixed-posed-set-forever celluloid
Call back to my moment of wonderful awkward

Turned warm against the wind—
foreground, left—
heart skip-skipping when
mittened fingers brushed his cheek.
She was warm but
knows the cold is sweeping through the saffron


Chasing the Cold White

There—a cold white within her. A doctor who travels
by airplane and they talk about
New York City models,
she laughs.
Beauty in boniness and pallor.

There is a sickness inside, consumes halfway; makes
blood redder
skin whiter.

Suffering does not localize.

Wind, low rocks, icy water
breed familiarity and bacterium.
He worries about her children.

Later she will die and later he will too,
maybe he will cry. He will take off and
land and take off and land, following
the cold white as it grows.


Phillip Copper

Protruding plastic tubes
exit: left: elbow crook
over the river and through the woods to the blinking white ATM machine
Digital displays
A minute passes, as does 465 milliliters
“my body can’t handle 500”
Dirty blood—out. Clean blood—in.  
Beep beep. be-eee beeeeeeep.
She’s dozing—the loud talker,
under faded afghan
below Bob Barker.