Victorian Violet Press
Black Walnuts
We had green-skinned walnuts falling
from three high-reaching trees.
They stained the harvester's hands with brown
and smelled sharply of acrid sap.
The meat within is not for eating
until the nuts have seasoned,
stored away on winter's shelf.
More than holiday bags of nuts
I treasure the country's black walnuts,
for they have a hard-creased wood
beautiful to feel, difficult to crack.
Picking out their meats takes a pleasured focus.
I'd say they are like well-bound books
I've set aside to open when words
I savor taste wildly full of meaning.
Snow and Ice
January heaps soft gobs of snow
upon the green spruce.
It rests, it clings to needled branches.
It swirls and dips, over and under
into airy crystallized snow-holes
and delicate cascading slides of flakes.
You quickly digitize the fairyland
before the photo trickles away.
On the roof, the weight of snow
collapses its own molecules
until an icy sheet forms
atop the house.
During sun-warmed days
the constant drip
creates lines of long icicles.
As if playing xylophone,
a percussionist taps
and raps these
with a broomstick.
The player tests all--
mind you, only once--
comparing resonance.
The repeated crash
of cymbals
sounds in thick icicles
hitting and shattering
against the ground.
Come late February
large floes of ice
break loose and scrape
across roof shingles.
Earthbound, they gash
into snow, these heavy
wedges of ice
pointing up,
giant shark teeth
that set the dog growling.
Poem Brewing
I sip peppermint tea and remember
Niagara Falls, its perpetual rainbows
we’d arched ourselves viewing.
On The Maid of the Mist excursion,
we’d let wonderment’s bare face
be sprayed with drenching mist
near the thunder of the falls.
After, we photographed our elation,
our blue plastic framed smiles.
We had green-skinned walnuts falling
from three high-reaching trees.
They stained the harvester's hands with brown
and smelled sharply of acrid sap.
The meat within is not for eating
until the nuts have seasoned,
stored away on winter's shelf.
More than holiday bags of nuts
I treasure the country's black walnuts,
for they have a hard-creased wood
beautiful to feel, difficult to crack.
Picking out their meats takes a pleasured focus.
I'd say they are like well-bound books
I've set aside to open when words
I savor taste wildly full of meaning.
Snow and Ice
January heaps soft gobs of snow
upon the green spruce.
It rests, it clings to needled branches.
It swirls and dips, over and under
into airy crystallized snow-holes
and delicate cascading slides of flakes.
You quickly digitize the fairyland
before the photo trickles away.
On the roof, the weight of snow
collapses its own molecules
until an icy sheet forms
atop the house.
During sun-warmed days
the constant drip
creates lines of long icicles.
As if playing xylophone,
a percussionist taps
and raps these
with a broomstick.
The player tests all--
mind you, only once--
comparing resonance.
The repeated crash
of cymbals
sounds in thick icicles
hitting and shattering
against the ground.
Come late February
large floes of ice
break loose and scrape
across roof shingles.
Earthbound, they gash
into snow, these heavy
wedges of ice
pointing up,
giant shark teeth
that set the dog growling.
Poem Brewing
I sip peppermint tea and remember
Niagara Falls, its perpetual rainbows
we’d arched ourselves viewing.
On The Maid of the Mist excursion,
we’d let wonderment’s bare face
be sprayed with drenching mist
near the thunder of the falls.
After, we photographed our elation,
our blue plastic framed smiles.