Poems 2003

Heartbeats reflecting universes like soap-bubbles, stretching time
then bursting, dropping their worlds damply into my cocoon.

Blooming sunlight through the dappled shadows of leaves,
quail calls competing like plaintive cats' meows
heavy with the scent of skunks, tasting like burnt coffee.
Morning breath of soft salty skin lingering like jasmine
then scurrying out of the light
as the housewife with her can of Raid curses cockroaches.

Scott Simon, Susan Stamberg: it must be Saturday.
Could sleep longer, but poetry
and heat-parched plants are shaking me
softly like a lullaby.
Her caress, suspended, poised to crash,
breaks upon his shrouded shore,
pulling Monsieur S
into the welcome abyss,
a turbulent tide which he cannot resist
as he strips the barnacles off the pilings
holding up Monday through Friday
when he will again follow the winding road
to Flagstaff at this hour.

Don Téo says, "Yo enseño en la cárcel."
"At least I have a captive audience," he jokes,
but he is not joking, ex-Peace Corps in County Detention.
We use language to pry young minds open
in the third-world country of adolescence
each day as we try to start a revolution.

But today is Saturday,
and I can drift between heartbeats.

© 2003 Richard Sidy