Sketchbook  Jeffrey Woodward, US

 

 

Haiku the whiskey bottle cannot hold its liquor— a night in spring     barely a white building in the haze     airing out an old grievance— a pinwheel     a carnival tent billows in the aftermath of a storm in spring     my friend only in a dream forgets his suicide to bring tidings of blossoms

 

Lullaby My gentle wife, What’s gentle, keep, And praise this life Of wolves and sheep. Cover your eyes; Covet long rest. The sire of lies Now saunters west.

 

Free Verse In A Desert Town The shrinking mongrel and his shadow part Where an odd leaf checkers the half-moon’s light. Day’s wake is dust and gathers on dry stems Of jimson weed, on tufts of viper’s grass. Far constellations, hieroglyphs rubbed smooth And faint through time, marble these shafts of dusk. Go, pilgrim, back from whence you came, nor pause. The town square loiters, desolate, effaced, Nor here’s one cold, nor there’s one cordial sign.   Ruin The gateposts of stone and mortar canker; The stump-fence bows, good fifty years ago. Timothy and burdock to the waist Clot the yard and cloak the gravel path. The cottage windows, lost to a vandal’s ransom, The door, on rusted hinges stilled long since, Invite the trespasser, and jaundiced paint, Peeled back by years of sun and wind and snow, And shingles scattered near the sunken porch. Beyond the ruin and staggered up a hill, An orchard, solitary and forsaken, Shimmers in a coat of green, its apples Mellifluous though tenanted by worms.

 

 

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