Little Poems

Forrest Keefer

[forrestkeefer]

Cruise Control

I’ll leave before sunrise

when goose wings seizure the pond

and dog walkers, collars jangle

Turn the car left onto the 70

            Fast out

Velocity set, sunrise behind

As road rises

twists around rock sides

sigoggles along Eagle river

4 million years of construction

in minutes parted by blasting putty

So that I

may glide by.

[forrestkeefer]

Amelia Island

Herds of feet

on Amelia’s island,

(the street by my blue

house by the kudzued

lawn)

dance into spewed clouds,

the pesty

fogs of sulfur gases

and chemicals,

our lungs are shrapnel,

a shell went off in my throat

with a single tug of air,

and the bug truck leaves us

stranded like Spanish moss

[forrestkeefer]

[forrestkeefer]

City Park

              sopping dews,

              leftover rain,

jump rope spanking concrete

yoga girls gather

grass surges

little players jerseyed

              saplings rest tall,

              letting years go on

              until this city is gone

tough young mountain overlooks all––

               synagogue

               my sangha

[forrestkeefer]

Autumn Impressions

cars scuttle about on asphalt.

weary leaves salt the sidewalk:

treetops decrowning

amid sweet October.

hunching over my tea

the late-afternoon sun retires.

***

Can finally see 

mountain from the porch, been months 

since smoke came in. 

Light white nimbus snuggles atop. 

Finally can see 

the clear blue 

has come through. 

Gray is gone 

for now.

***

We were one once, and young.

Birthed from the maple-water brook,

and laid to bed under cranberried leaves.

By that creek where the waters speak,

build a temple out of your love

and serenely embrace the fragmentation.

Work to weld with gold the fault lines of your soul.

[forrestkeefer]

[forrestkeefer]

The Vasquez

high bird hawking by,

truck grumblings on the road,

and trees breathe wind

under cooling clouds.

I sleep the night by the creek.

low streaming broad

my life: listening

there is nothing to say

[forrestkeefer]

Sustainability

For the Earth sustains itself

            no help needed

                                       from us.

She made, from iron ore calcium

           and so many rainbow elements,

this skull and brain, this muscle

                                       amazing mind

An organ that grew itself into

            self-awareness

                                       from fats & water.

Conglomerating into consciousness

             Earth thinks

                         itself, feels

                                     cares & hates.

There is no us––only Earth, only

               her activity in multifoliate forms

               no needs as such

                                        only motion

               no lack

                                        only emptiness

And by being body

                break down and become

                                         sustenance.

[forrestkeefer]

Feel fate flow

Feel fate flow within you.

The determined river blooming forward

From itself.

You are its waters.

Let it take you afresh, for it has taken you

Deep within its rapids

And along its currents calm

Past the pines that pray in misty riverbank chapels.

Make fate a verb for your life

And go on praising what is

What always was

And what is going out

From the preset sources of childhood.

[forrestkeefer]

[forrestkeefer]

Manía

I know this mind

is temporary

            these tumults momentary

            in the galactic love-tale we live:

            the horrid droughts of feeling,

            the floods of despair,

                        great nights sleepless

             and the avalanche of anxiety

                         as I turn

                         into my moon’s new phase,

              waxing with the blood chemicals

              of the brain: manía

                          the need to swirl

                                    to leap

                          to think loudly thoughts––

                grandiose as young grecian gods

                when the sodium channels swell

                into wide boulevards of insanity.

But I know this mind

is makeshift,

is temporary.

[forrestkeefer]

Mantra

And in the openness brokenness torn-asunder sweet disorder

            I hear a breath within…

                        chanting…

                                                        Being fragmented

                                            hold together

                                   Being scattered

                                            remain serene

                                   Being broken

                                            collapse again

                                    Being chaos

                                            become change

                                    All that hurries

                                            soon will be over with

[forrestkeefer]

Reading

Blue Ribbon and poetry in our blood

              And a bit of grass in our lungs,

Reading Whitman, Wordsworth, and Rilke––

               Anything to make us feel alive.

               Take note of the present:

                          Cicadas buzz and burn

                          Geese chuckle and leave

                          their shit everywhere.

               Note the cedar-lined lakeshore:

                          Dust tossed about by jetpack motor-blowers,

                          deadly sounds.

Another can, another verse

               Catch fire heart

               Catch fire, read on

[forrestkeefer]

[forrestkeefer]

State Capitol

                               Backdropped by Rockies

                      it looks belittled, emaciated––

                                   this golden dome arrogantly claiming

                                   to govern on behalf of the People

                                                                                            (Have you ever met “the People”?)

                       Master at manufacturing consent,

                                   its man-made idols, abstractions,

                                   laws layered upon laws––

         All the while, birds sing,

              grass grows, lovers lay, winds come in at leisure

                    and the wise and courageous

          Refuse

                        to rule or be ruled.

[forrestkeefer]

Good Rain

          Plain oaks and elms

Brimming with magpies and crows

           Red squirrels dancing quadrilles

                      around the trunk.

Through the screen door

           cat eyes study––bugs and flies

           the life enduring the modern world.

            Smoke grit grain

Choking views of Flat Irons

             It must be some pine-haired hill

                        on fire

                                      out in California.

A good rain will clear it out

                   clear my head of heavy voices.

[forrestkeefer]

Lovers

They swrld with the night.

They did the closest dances,

Clsd the distense tween them.

And the moozik of the wrld playd.

Composing poems with the body,

Legs straight and strong like wooden beams.

One hand holding the white crescent back of the other.

One hand cupped about the face. Orbiting each other.

I wake and wear the sunshine proud on my face.

Here’s the fifth morning of April

And here’s the open air cool at the screened door.

A gold-fire sun, little gardens

Glowing green in its light.

Plant the world. Sing it strong.

The moozik of the wrld plays.

Then you’re talking,

I’m the one who’s committed to having your voice

Tattooed on my skin. I will sit as long as it takes.

My ears are to be fed by you

Because this is the moozik of the wrld.

I’ve waken, you’ve wandered through my dream

For the brief hours I bare not being with you.

Because sleep is a curse when I would be awake with you.