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Collected Poetry

    (rd king dot net)
poetry and digital art

The Big Picture  

Groups of short poems.

  Spring


1:  Spring

The Japanese maple stretches
its new, maroon leaves
above the golden spirea—
and is witness to the lavish
palette of spring, where robins
      hunt.


2:  Turf

Something is bothering me
but I can't gather
what it is.  Listless, at odds,
I approach the kitchen window
only to find two deer foraging
      near the roses.


3:  Nigiri

Only a few, simple things
have been more surprising
than this:  a small filet
of blood-red tuna resting
on a bed of sweetened rice.


4:  Temptation

Cruel April, first warm, lustrous,
and heartily flowered; now
cool again with a chilling wind
and still lustrous:  aureate dusk—
song—my cat enchanted by his prey.


5:  Light

Tall, slender trunks of the
stately ponderosa increasingly
illuminate in the late April
light.  The oaks wear their
new leaves like young girls.


6:  Dogwood in an Industrial Park

The sky hindered with ice crystals.
A cottonwood struggling to leaf.
A warm day with a cold wind—April;
poppies blooming in the sidewalk
cracks where hefty workmen sit
      at lunch.


7:  Women in Spring

A sky weakened with cirrus, oak leaves
gorging on light.  A group of cyclists
pausing for water; two blondes in jackets
waiting patiently on patient horses
where a mail truck starts slowly down
      a narrow, dirt road.


8:  Girls

The afternoon spent watching some girls
rally a ball over a net, hoping to avoid
defeat.  It's a tough thing to consider.
One day I want to live forever
      and the next day I don't.





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