Someone Dribbled Dog

Someone dribbled dog on my lawn.

There are puddles everywhere that I look.



Inky greasy stains on my bluegrass



Wrecking all the mowing work it took.




Then someone poured dog on my carpet



someone spilled some dog on my deck




Someone emptied dog on on my chaise lounge


Someone spilled dog on my band.




Someone dripped dog on my new chair, the Martha Stewart one I got on sale.


Someone put dog on my taxes. I almost didn't ever get them done.




Someone droozled dog on my husband



Someone dribbled dog on my head.


I do not pretend that this is good poetry. It is inconsistent, ill-conceived, written by someone who is overtired, and meant only to make you laugh.


Chet Baker's fame grows. On Wednesday, as we were flying to North Dakota, my piece, titled,
"Look at that Puppy! But be Careful What You Say!" aired on All Things Considered. I just found out about it, being in a place with more meadowlarks than Internet hookups. Give it a listen. Scroll down and read the gobs and piles of comments, especially the cranky ones, which I'm afraid I find more amusing than insulting. At the very least, I got to say, "Them things is HYPER!" three times on National Public Radio.

Shed, Asleep

A hundred years I stood
Sun and snow on my roof
Icicles dripping sharp
Snakes and ivy, grease and bolts
Planks and parts, bottles, tools
Once, a pony, whose old belly sagged
Almost to the grass tops
Taking shelter under my roof.
One by one the boards rotted
From the ground up
A scalloped edge starting
Where they no longer met the dirt.
Behind the dripline, a chipmunk highway
Powderpost beetles ticking a death watch.
Phoebes in and out; the furtive rustle of mice
Piling pignuts against a rainy day.
One day I lay down
Like a cow slowly, falling to my knees
Dropping the hindquarters last.
I lay against your trunk
You: sprung from a seed
Spat forty years ago
from a jaw long gone to dust.
May I rest here, lean on you
In the fine autumn rain?
Of course I may.
You're stuck here, too,
dropping apples small as a monkey’s fist
On my weary roof.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Bleeding Heart, End of March

It is time to weed.
The grass has grown silently all winter
Sent white roots through daylily and columbine
Infiltrating, choking.

I lift it with a fork
And tear the roots from the soil.
Shake it free of earth and fling it
To the side, on the lawn.
Grass, I can slow down.



And there, red, unholy strong,
Comes the bleeding heart
Pushing up through damp earth
Curled and thick
Turgid spring, uncoiling.

I plant things around it
They always die.
Coralbells rot.
Columbines too.
Geranium “Happy Thought:”
Mush at the first frost.
And the bleeding heart carries on.

Why should this plant
Smother the butterfly weed
The lupine I loved so much
Drinking their water, stealing their light?
They’re gone, no trace of root or leaf.

I could dig it up
Banish it from my garden
But I've nothing to replace it with.
Without it, there would be a space.

In the perfection of its own vigor
It pushes upward.
Stand clear.

3/28/07


3/30/07