Hunter Gatherer

Walking the woods

gathering elm, maple, 

oak, birch, sycamore 
leaves, twigs,
patches of moss 
squirrel tufts, 
owl bones, feathers.

Hot glueing them to my
feet, ankle, calves, knees, 
thighs, buttocks, cock, 
stomach, chest, hands, 
forearms, wrists, biceps,
neck, cheeks, ears,
forehead. 

Hidden, I wait for prey.
I wait for you.

BFM

Garden Path

Sometimes,
I exist

Sometimes,
I’m in control

Most times
my mind, a lie,
wanders
thistle paths
thorny dreams
swirling bricks
and chipped wood.

BFM

Anxiety 2

Floating on a tide that ignores moon and sun, who’s true masters are relentless pictographs – a historical fiction writer and an one eyed seer in a meat locker with a cracked crystal ball – my cooled breath quickens as I watch shark fins circle my predilections for thunder and lightning. 

B.F.M.

Not a Haiku

Words comma
  comma
  comma
  comma
word word period

Yes, I am fully aware that this has been done before. Think of it as a page, a meditation, a reminder on your calendar that says stop...forget your formulas, read the words. Then forget the formula of forgetting the formula forget the words. Crawl out from under your rock. Notice the shadows you cast and try not to stuff them into a bottle. Try not labeling the bottle.

Write 
word word word
return some words comma,
more returns, morph clever
verb nouns semicolon
return word. Pity.

B.F.M.

All the Pretty Girls

In a mountain college town,

I, the elder, pose 

in a coffee shop,

a cliche scribbling 

notes for Mr. Poem.

B.F.M.

Love Poem 22,314

Mosquito bastard
loitering, piercing,
diseased, delirious.
Love.

B.F.M

Abandonment

My rime formed
in formative years
is meant to keep you at bay.

My slick craggy shores, 
lack kindling or foothold
is meant to keep me distant.

My charm: 
trapped coolness;
glassy particles;
seething–hatred–remorse;
thick tarry dark matter;
belief in a Simoom fairytale.

B.F.M.

Expectations

Betwixt two maypoles
light contorts, yet
I’m to walk up right
without support.

B.F.M

Earlier in the day I posted and image from my notebook, the before. This is the after.

Click here to see the before.

Before

scribblings. a look in my notebook; the birthing of a poem.
B.F.M.

Click here to see after.

Trail Map Lament

I found 
an old trail map
of yours.

The one with polkadots
and trails highlighted
in bright star pink.

Yet no matter how closely
I followed it, 

it

never 
led me 
back to you.

B.F.M.

This Exact Morning Moment

I’m as kind
as a porcupine
as long as you don’t 
know
what a porcupine is 
and think
a pin cushion 
is cozy.

B.F.M.

Dust Storms

Your elders gloat like lilly pads
on a pond
under sunscreen and broad hats

thousands of miles from their 
grown children.

Then the call comes:
“your mother, she fell”;
"your father, has a spot, lump, cough.”

All this is an unexpected thunder storm 
carpeting your sun.

You don’t know it yet, but you’ve 
just been drafted into the minor leagues
playing for a team plagued by dust storms.

B.F.M.

Autumn Lust

I love 
when you wear 
that burning crimson 
maple dress.

B.F.M.

Awkward Gong

I tend to let

two, three weeks

pass before

hearing:

gong, gong, gong

Then it's all I hear:

GONG, GONG, GONG.

**

The you and I of it

pack our baggage, 

say our goodbyes,

wrap ourselves 

in salve & gauze.

Say curses, 

close our doors,

and wonder what 

we saw in the color

off pink.

B.F.M.

Churning

This afternoon

I was an oak

disturbed

as a bee hive.

B.F.M.

Dolt

Sitting under 
a cottonwood 


pretending 
I’m a poet


I listen 
to echoes


plunder 
a breeze.


B.F.M.

Advertising : Poet Laureate

If I hold my spectacles
in my right hand, placing
one of its hinged arms
in the right corner of my mouth
like the posing Billy Collins
on the back flap of 
Horoscopes for the Dead
will I too once have been
the Poet Laureate?


B.F.M.