Battle Stations

Coffee, poems:Diane Ackerman.

Then poems in recipe form:pies. 

Breeze, 72 degrees, birds singing

sun yawning through a clouds.

Me in battle station, writing,

anxious about the last drip of coffee 

that comes like the Vietcong,

leaving me surrounded, deserted, terrified.


B.F.M.

Best Guess

I think this will be my very best one in a long time. It will have something to do with prime numbers and two, no, three lovers traveling southbound to Memphis;

each in love with the other’s other, yet none of them could make the train trip all the way to Memphis, however, they could travel as far as Jackson, TN. If a = b and b = c, does c = multiple cups of bitter coffee had across Kentucky’s blue grass while each lover eyed the other?


B.F.M.

A Child's Story

When I was a child, 3 or 4,

one of my giants came to me

carrying a jagged lid cut 

from a last nights can of beans.

"This won't hurt a bit you tiny varmint"

Slicing off a small chuck 

from my heart's right side.

When I was a child, five or six-ish,

one of my giants came to me 

carrying a greenish glass shard.

"This part is wasted on you."

Besides I need something for lunch,"

and sliced a chunk 

from my heart's left side.

When I was a child, ten or so,

one of my giants came to me,

Sawzall in hand, proclaiming:

"You need to toughen up. 

This middle section is doing us 

no good you cry baby."

Slowly it zigged and zagged 

it's blade between my hearts

right and left sides

dismantling the middle wall 

between two chambers.


B.F.M.

Never Ending Story

The Peony unfurls 

a restless mind

each petal 

a to do list.


B.F.M.