Alien January 30 2018

Some days, many days and months and hours piled on top of hours . . . weighed done by it all. A stumbling thought crowds out the reason that you know, that you truly understand . . . crowds out the skinny reality and replacing it with an overweight inability to function like a normal human thing is suppose to function, bowing at the waistline, smiling all the while. Sometimes to much reality leads you into a lie that can't be denounced.

Alien

Sometimes I feel alien. Not

quite a human being, feeling
more like a dwarfing star
devoured by its own heat.

Sparrows once sat on the

window ledge and sang their
sharp, crisp songs for my ears,
my ears alone. I vaguely hear
them anymore.

Smiles, the few that I have seen

in this life seem vacant, lost and even
on the most sincere faces just space,
empty space devoid of meaning.

Is there any meaning to this, 

this endless breathing, this existence

which no one seems to appreciate
beyond their own wooden words?

It would be nice . . . not thinking.

Be, instead, wind strolling mindlessly
through the dark green boughs
of early spring.

Or perhaps not even that.

Perhaps it would be best
to just rest, not move at all
like dirt in an open grave.
Woodie o5-14-12
(rewrites o1-3o-18)

Sparrow Logic January 29, 2018

I try not to write political poetry. No, that's not quite what I mean to say. I have a difficult time writing political poetry. I can't seem to find the imagery for political ideas. Besides, politics is such a cumbersome bag to carry, and most of it comes off as just forcing your ideas onto another  person. And yeah, that would be okay, but it never gets you anywhere. You can't force a person to get rid of ideas that they have carried with them most of their lives, lies, yes, but they seem to the individual thinking them to be truths . . . and nothing but the truth. But sometimes you find an image, the structure, the words that can transform a political idea, a political observation into something palatable to the most stubborn ear. The message gets across in such a way the reader, the audience  can't or won't reject it. BUT if you camouflage your "opinion" too much in a piece of poetry . . . they won't get what you're really talking about. So, finding the balance between creating a political idea as an experience and not just hyperbolic  political gobbledygoo is the difficult part of writing political poetry.

Sparrow Logic

A rather large storm gathers itself

on the outer edges of the horizon.
Lightning flashes, loud roll of angry thunder,
too far away now to worry about.
But try telling that to the quarrel of sparrows
that house themselves in the elms that line
Trout Avenue. Already they’re chirping away,
flittering about from tree to tree hoping
that the storm to come will mistake
their panicky fear for courage and rage.
I would try to calm them, let them know
that the storm is still young and too far
south to worry about it much.
But have you ever tried to convince
a fidgety sparrow that its fears are
unfounded? Easier to convince a wall
that it isn't a wall, or change the mind

of a hawk who's set on believing

that he, and he alone, owns the sky.

Woodie o1-29-18

Naming Day January 27, 2018

I often find my reality at the bottom of a coffee cup. Waiting for me to recognize it, think about its possibilities, write about even though the words are never adequate to express the ocean deep and wide that existence truly is. I sometimes find my reality in its simplest forms: a walk in the Wilderness park, the sound of unseen creatures running through the dead leaves.

Naming Day

Beyond sight, beyond the fragile veil

where thought haunts unconsciousness.

That's where my Self lives.

One day a child, the next an old man.

Neither can remember the other’s name.

Asphalt trails through the woods.

Autumn leaves go to die here

at the hands of mourning crows.

Memories around, abound around

an empty grave so dark and black

the bottom can't be seen.

Staring at my reflection

hovering above a frozen lake.

I’m desperate to remember

what the hell I looked like.

Fishing for a reason, a thought,

a reasonable thought. A whisper

of a wind is all I hear, is all I know

beyond the brutal fact that

I am, miraculously, still alive.
Woodie o1-25-18

Cats Dream Dog Reality January 26, 2018

Cats Dream Dog Reality

I do not understand the early morning breeze

how it slips itself into the old elm trees,

disturbing the winter branches

with its cold hands and eyeless glances,

that makes the dog that lives next door

howl and howl until the cat (who sleeps beneath

the wooden ramp outside my door) jumps

and runs about the lawn

never knowing if she's in a kitty dream

or alive in this reality, this dog cruel reality

that makes all cats afraid of everything

including their own shadow.

But it could be worse, oh, my, much worse.

To have the feathered curse of crows

who never know what they’re lives are for?

They spend their nights and days

confused and wondering away

“Why are we so different from the sparrow?”

Woodie 12-17-15 (rewrites o1-26-18)

Idiot Nocturnal January 25, 2018

Up all night writing poetry. Natural that I should write about trying to sleep or the lack there of. As a teenager sleep scared me. I always worried I might miss something if I closed my eyes. Later on, as I got older, the thought of dying while I slept became my excuse. It seems rational to me. If I just stayed awake long enough to see the dawn, then it was safe to go to sleep. Death wouldn't come for me when the sun was out and about. {smiles}

Idiot Nocturnal 

I should force my eyes closed.

I should drag myself towards a dream
without a thought for sleeping.

Mostly, I’m made of sand, a muddy,

sticky sand. It begins to loosen
its shape as each day turns to night,
today, tonight again . . . and again.

I patiently await the wetter seasons,

for the masters of springy air-currents
to blow me away to softer shores,
to softer thoughts than the ones
that hop about inside my skull

when the weather’s less than cheery.

I don't long for death, not for dying or crying.

I may find, time from time, to time a moment

for lamenting  my withered state.

But often enough when memories get too rough

my mouth props me up with a stupid-ass grin.

There are moments, precious moments

when being an idiot is a tonic for the soul.

Woodie o8-26-17 (rewrites o1-11-18)

Weather Depression January 22, 2018

Yes, Been a while, I know. And a name change. Yes, no longer Robert R. Woods. Woodie is my new nom de plume! I always wanted to use that phrase in a sentence. Anyway, new poems, older poems . . . it's all here and I hope I keep it going. Thanks for reading me, friends. {smiles}

Weather Depression

I was thinking about the weather

and noticed a depression mustering

around the polar regions of my heart.

Yes, you were there, again, uprooting

the trees then flinging them against

the neighbor's new truck. He

was shocked to see the devastation

but was more worried about me

standing there barefoot in

a puddle of bloody, muddy water.

“You . . . all right?” He asked as we

surveyed the damage you had caused.

“I think so...” I had a tough time

looking him in the eye. I’m sure
he never expected that a girl

your size could wreak such havoc.

Over the years I’ve learned to accept

the inclement weather that

accompanies your presence,

your raining down on my shelter-less

dreams as just a given like snow in

the winter, dead leaves in autumn.

I’ve learned to accept the chance

that you might return and blast

the world away with the same

suddenness you left with. They

should name a hurricane after you.

Woodie 1o-24-12(rewrites o1-21-18)