A HESITANT ODE TO A BUMBLE BEE

You there,

ya big, fat grumblin’
bumble bee,

you sound to me
like the chronically fuzzed-out
electro-static feedback
of a beat-up ’62 Fender Strat
(or maybe a ’63).

I see ya, there,
buzzin’ around the shimmering,
glistening early morning air,

sniffin’ about, here and there,
bobbin’ and weavin’, in and out
like a Mexican or South Korean
featherweight, in and out
and all around the newly blooming
Marigolds and Hyacinths
and those incessantly perfuming
Mimosas and Spearmints
and eros-inducing Linden trees…

Now, don’t you be
stingin’ on me!

-Jason Ryberg, 2012

POEM OF THE DAY BY JOHN MACKER

Diego

 

We buried my old dog Diego

on St. Patrick's day, next to the arroyo
one of the driest of devil winters. he
looked like any other dog in New Mexico,
like the Santo Domingo pueblo dogs,
asleep on the dusty earth in the shade,
dreamy respite
from the Corn Dance heat.
I wanted to write:
I wept tears of Irish whisky on his grave but
all I kept thinking was the Great Spirit must've
discovered that placing his soul on earth
for a spell
during my life,
beat
having to answer for all the sorrows
of the world, if only for a moment,
any day.

 

-John Macker

PABLO CONTEMPLATES THE PARADOX OF THE HARVEST MOON

Hey you.

Yes, you.

Tell me how it is
that the moon
can be both
rose and blue,

this strangely luminescent
night-blooming fruit,
suspended so serenely, there,
in the sweaty, swampy,
nearly-liquid
midnight air,

there, just above
the darkly churning
blue-green
broccoli-stalk
horizon of trees.

And, what with the ghostly
tangerine glow of streetlamps
and the invisible ocean
of oregano, mimosa and mint,
basil, lemon and hyacinth

(and of course
all these dangerously tart
and ripe tomatoes
lolling about
the scene)…

well, the world tonight,
must truly be
a veritable
vegetable garden

of urgent
and earthy
delights.

-Jason Ryberg, 2012