I want to rush
I want to race
I want to ride
I want to fly
I want to slice
and dice and swallow
every crystal
in the sky
Oh my!
Poems
Morning feet
Interface
of tai chi feet
and icy tiles
of round on flat
of dry on wet
of soft on rock
of pink on black
A single moon
lopsliding off
to let the morning in
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Rachel McAlpine 2016
Prosopagnosia
I’m bad with faces
and bad with bicycles too.
Was my Kyoto bike ‘Merry Bell’
or ‘Joyfully Sue’?
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Rachel McAlpine
The new bed
The new bed is like no bed.
You might be rolling
on that denim cloud
beyond the evening city.
You might be floating
in a forest of kelp
that swings and lolls
and lulls you enigmatic.
You might be anywhere
but in bed, and you wake
to morning light
when flickers of eternity have fled.
– – – – – –
Rachel McAlpine
Talk English, techie
Talk English, techie.
I just drive this thing.
Name your home,
but do not name it ‘Home.’
——
Rachel McAlpine
(With apologies to all the brilliant technical professionals who have helped me over the years.)
Message from computer
Entering system dump routine.
A panic server was not specified in the boot-args,
terminating kernel core dump.
Waiting for remote debugger connection.
Wait away, wait away.
—–
Rachel McAlpine
When God is an abstract noun
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
Stuff in a blog
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
The fair maiden
Once upon a time
(says Ruby)
there was a fair maiden.
She had to decide
which pair of shoes
to wear to her wedding.
The wedding was a sad funeral
for someone in her future
who had died.
The fair maiden loved her shoes.
Finally she decided
to wear these ones.
They are blue
and they’ve got a blue flower.
They remind of her mother
who died.
*
Rachel McAlpine
From a story by Ruby, aged 4 or 5 or 6
Facts about zombies
Goblins knock on the door
in disguise (says Ruby). Get them
to take off their clothes.
If they say no,
they’re baddies.
To get them destructed,
take off their clothes.
Then call the police.
Then fight them.
(You know this isn’t real.
It’s just in case,
to save the day.)
If a zombie comes up the toilet
you can whisk off and fight it,
because you know the steps.
Put some Barbie dolls in a row
because zombies hate Barbie dolls.
They’re afraid they’ll chomp them.
You can also shine a light at zombies.
It injects them
and they die.
*
Rachel McAlpine
From a story told by Ruby, aged 4 or 5 or 6
Poems in the wild—Rachel McAlpine 