Train to Sendai

Of all the patterns spilt in red

the fingerprint catches my eye

wandering its labyrinth of identity

in the middle a mustard seed mystery

who am I to be sprouting here this year

but really I was sown over 23 years ago

yeah back before I knew what numbers were

and mustard too

This poem was written with my wife, Jenny, as we rode a train to Sendai, Japan. We took turns writing the lines. 

Barefoot Talk

Arkansas is
where I grew up climbing trees
with skint knees
it is known as a place where
folk might be so  backward as to
walk barefoot

For the most part it has become like the rest of the world
a synthesis of interstate highways
internet hideaways
and interchangeable suburb sets
lacing us up in cotton socks and rubber soles

But some of us still remember what words
the cool grass will share
in the summer afternoon
or the joy of a winter creek
the shift of the rocks beneath

Some of us fear not
the broken glass, black
tar and burning gravel
we have planted in our gardens
Eden is there below
the grit of sand and humus between toes

Dead Morning

Drinking coffee this morning in the rain
will it turn black with bombs
who is making such troublesome thunder, I wonder
will they ever come in and have a cup

Porcelain petals spin down from the
newspaper-grey of branches
into beds where
glass ferns are uncurling, broken

Yesterday I would have been afraid
but I woke here to find my body tingling in death
and the life I knew yesterday spun away by
the clock so that all I have left to do is breakfast