Poetz.com: Poetry Changes People

two poems

COMPLAIN

It was hot
The bridge passed me by
and when I returned it was gone
bombed to the river
I couldn’t get across
I wandered seeking
my way back to town
That’s when I met you
with your begging cup
and joined you
We moved from here to there
in this new mode
called Freedom
for which they urged
us to give thanks

We didn’t complain
Life was too scarce

TOO SOON

If mushrooms grew from my butt
as Turkey Tail does from the oak
fallen across the blue blazed trail
I take when the sewers back up
and you are obscured in the muck
and I choke on the stuff of history,
I would tell my neighbors to snip the stems
eat them with the green of their gardens
if they hadn’t gone bad yet

But it is too soon for such feasting!
It’s happened before and the evidence shows
nothing will sprout from me yet,
the waters will surely subside,
and by nightfall I’ll dance on firm ground
and eat the fat new tomatoes

Roberta's work has recently appeared in Chronogram, Home Planet News, California Quarterly, Wildflowers, Friends, Bridges, Borderlands, Literary Gazette, Rio on Line, Literary Gazette, etc. Her books include: Dream Yourself Flying Four Zoas Press; Writing Air Written Water. Waterside Press; Only Rock and Other Poems Folder Editions; Not By Blood Alone. Lince Editores; Esta Naranja Lince Editores; Three Windows Reservoir Press; In Houses With Ladders Waterside Press. Visit her website at http://www.robertagould.net