When God is just an abstract noun
we cram the floating word
with metaphors, provisos, parallels,
pro bonos, caveats, and dreams –
with fluff not concrete, yet
it tumbles right out of the sky.
When God means whatever,
God is a word to beware.
——
Rachel McAlpine
Subliminal itch or apron
on the clean-cut kid next door.
Today’s extreme identities
from the bank of spam:
Martina Manning
Millard Miner
Millie Maudie
Nicky Nelson
Quinn Wilcox
Sherry Schulz
Solemner G. Subcutaneous
and Wendel Kovalchak.
I am not making this up.
Shall I invite them to tea?
——
Rachel McAlpine
Habits not haphazards
are needed
for the next decade.
‘Keep desk tidy’
is not a habit
and you know it.
‘Tidy desk daily’
might help.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Let’s not pretend
that stuff in a blog
is poetry.
A blog is a diary
upside down, a silo
where notions wait
for processing
or better times.
Crammed tight
they twitch
in the dark.
They long to sprout
and see the light.
Let’s spill them out
and set them free.
At worst the birds
will feast.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
And a blog is a coat
of many pockets,
a continent
of join the dots,
a magic painting
wanting only water.
In my father’s blog
are many mansions.
A blog is content
in a room full of cells.
A blog is ever empty
and willing to be filled.
A blog is not lost
and may never be found.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Blog poems rise
like steam from a heated heart.
Ghost poems floating
like bubbles from a spring,
one long knotted rope
of cirrhus scarves.
Drifty. Cloudy. Quickly
off the screen.
Speak softly
to the newly wed,
the dearly dead.
Speak loudly
to your Uncle Fred.
– – –
Rachel McAlpine
Do you get sick and tired of being drip-fed poems, one per day? Would you like to have a bunch on a single theme so you can pace yourself?
That’s easily fixed. Go straight to Amazon and get yourself all my Senior Poems in one ebook. You’ve read some of them here. You know they’re kind of fun and sometimes even wise. (Not sure how that happens, but the Muse works in mysterious ways.)
My skull is an occupied
sofa. When someone
makes a home in your head—
no room for poems.
– – – –
Rachel McAlpine
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 