More Poetry by Robert R. Woods

June 18, 2o13

  Today is my good friend Kimm's birthday. So, today's poetry page is dedicated to her.

The Kimmology

(three poems inspired by Kimm)

Kimm Dancing

She leaves the Earth if only for a moment

and we the pebbles, dirt and dust beneath

her tiny dancer’s feet mistake her  legs for sky.

The swirling currents that her whirling generates,

A cyclone softly smiling down on us,

a gentle grin of soft-soled shoes adoring us.

Jealous, are we? No.

We who sweat away our lives

doing this and that to just survive,

the shadows which she casts

as she leaps and pirouettes

become the welcomed shade

for all who are afraid,

for all still tethered

to the graveyard grip of gravity.

 

I watch Kimm dance and hope and dream

that I can learn to live, to fly, to be free,

if only half as well as she.

—rrw o4-o8-13

Poop and Circumstance

 

Morning rain has turned to afternoon.

A muddy sky complains, more drops
dropping bombs on concrete walks,
against the windowpane. Fat chunks of ice
drip to death on angry trees,
another frigid, bitter day for them and me.

 

A sudden chill, a throb of pain reminds me

I should turn the heater on and patiently
wait out this freakish storm. It’ll pass
as all things pass, much later than too soon.

 

I think about the smile you wore the whole

weekend long, and that makes me smile
as I stop writing long enough to blow
warm breath at my numbing fingers.

 

Yes, nice to remember you and me
smoking cigarettes (which neither of us

should be doing) outside, closed in patio,
watching your dog poop! I suppose
some images don’t belong in a poem,
but it’s hard to forget how we laughed
at her and at ourselves for observing.

 

The spring was short lived, my weekend

away from it all, the same. Back to my
one room apartment above the grad
student who always wears a heavy
coat no matter what the weather,
no matter what the time of day,
no matter what warm memories
try to coax her out of her cage.
People are funny that way.
—rrw o4-1o-13

Plastic Moby

 

I was thinking about you today,

you and that secluded duck pond
we visited on a warm but not overly
hot Saturday— My God! I sound like
Goldilocks! See? That’s what happens
when I hangout the whole weekend
with you and T-Town. I become more
boy and less old man with far more
smiles than my usual frowns.

 

And ducks. There were plenty of ducks

and other duck like looking birds, a few geese,
and one very suspicious white swan
who didn’t like me taking its picture, bastard.

 

And water, lots of water spewing from

a plastic blowhole— look, it’s Moby Dick!
The wind shifted and we both got wet
and cursed the Oklahoma breeze
for being such an “asshole, asshole.”

 

Our friend finally found us sitting on

the flagstone steps of some rich
guy’s house. You’d have to be rich
to live on this fairytale like block,
rich or magical…  or a duck.
—rrw o6-14-13