Innocence Attritted [Today's News Poem, April 4, 2011]

Innocence Attritted [Today's News Poem, April 4, 2011]

There's so much freshness, so much more innocence to shed.
The tide for example withdraws all the sand,
Draws all the hermit crabs, basks in the droppings of pelicans.
Fish fake the song at the crest of the swell—
Throbbing; a heart that pumps gills and ocean.
Welcome the edges of food-chain and welcome the
song of ablation,
the pockmarks of moon;
welcome births with one's mouth
and silvery slivers from eggs in the moonlight—
innocent still, for a moment at least.

"The federal government's chief climate adviser Professor Ross Garnaut believes nuclear power still has a vital role to play in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, despite the crisis at Japan's Fukushima plant."
—Evan Schwarten, Sydney Morning Herald, April 5, 2011 - 2:54PM
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/nuclear-power-still-important-garnaut-20110405-1d1wh.html

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The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]

The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]
By Jack Granath

After forty-five years of work
in a manufacturing plant,
I finally retired
to the Floating Island of Plastic.

I’ve got a beach chair,
a supply of disposable
novels, and earphones
made of leatherette—
whatever that is—
a cooler for my cola,
and a collection of stuffed
birds on crucifixes. I bask
in what my doctor calls

“the enemy,” synthetic
beach togs revealing a grilled-cheese
tan beneath grizzled chest hair.
I’ve earned this. My wife
Evangeline would have loved it,
had she lived.

And I’ve got the Internet.
I’m a gentleman scholar now
(from the Greek for “leisure”)
and know that plastic comes from
plastikós, from plássein: to
shape or mold. I’m shaping it,
Angie, if only by watching it go.


Jack Granath is a librarian in Kansas City. His website is www.jackgranath.com

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Garden of Eaten [Part 2, News Poem March 26, 2010]

Garden of Eaten [Part 2, March 26, 2010]

Who stumbles up the snowy mountain, drunk?
Who starts in afternoon?
Who leaves his flashlight on the bedroom trunk
While seeking nature's boon?

And sweating on a cliff of hardened ice
Accepting death by chill;
Who praises deadly peaks and chills that slice,
When storms deplete his will?

In darkness we're conceived—in dark, I slouched.
And blind I reached the room
Upon a peak of blizzard, shelter-couched—
Inside a wooden womb.



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