Both

/ David Ferland / 3 Comments

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Both

 

Dread in the head runs down metal suck tube

poisons my rib cage of rats

 

The sun rose behind Mount Tom today

 

Scowling men cold eyes in suits those suits make me

nervous those haircuts too fan boys of Jesus and soldiers

 

Chickadees dance in hedges, mourning doves coo

 

Conspiracy droplets broadcast float settle on surfaces

remain unsure how long infect susceptible minds

 

Maple branches redden, arteries of earth blood

 

mom dad grandpas aunts what world will be left

for our kids?

 

Walked a different way home (everyone is walking!)

Met a friend from ten years back

real sweet guy named Cliff

lives right around the block

 

We talked of Bodega Bay, where we both spent time

 

                                                                        from six feet away

Is it real?

/ David Ferland / 1 Comment

Is it real?

 

my son asks

as the pandemic nears

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of the bald eagle

perched on the apple tree

 

chewing the fat with our

garden Sasquatch

 

Are you real?

 

              Are you?

 

from the kitchen window

they’re both real enough—

 

Scavenger mascot of the land

of the free

 

          Simian nomad out by the

          woodshed

 

they whisper together

comparing notes

 

things may improve for them

 

Teacher

/ David Ferland / 4 Comments

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The Teacher says

 

You’ll know when to step up

read the signs.

 

Doesn’t he know I need to keep hidden?

 

It’s a habit, invisibility,

a useful one

Except when the call comes

 

The Teacher says,

Walk through the fear.

 

I don’t have that skill.

 

But what if it’s what I’m born to do?

The next thing that

leads to the next, and so on.

 

Then he says,

Failure is inevitable

 

Are you beginning to get the picture?

 

One’s fate isn’t like building a deck

or buying a car.

Specific advice just won’t do.

 

Lau Tzu, the Tao te Ching guy,

He had the knack.

It is what it is, he might say today.

 

But it probably isn’t.

September

/ David Ferland / 3 Comments

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September

 

Scritch of crickets

outside my window

 

When did that all start?

 

I’ve been busy

scratching mosquito

bites into wounds,

picking the scabs

 

Look at the ceiling,

water stained from the

upstairs bath!

 

How to soothe this

itchy masochism?

 

The salve is beyond my

skull-walled house, in the

cricket static of a

September dawn.

 

I must go out there!