List of Dead Things

half done lock
hinging open
chicken wing

List of Dead Things

flown off
[zone / cosm]
leaving an absence

List of Dead Things

pipes stacked
muddied
awaiting burial
bale of barbed wire
with leaves for barbs

List of Dead Things

gubydal
in a cabinet
crumbs

List of Dead Things

gray wind
goes and goes and goes and goes
through empty spots

List of Dead Things

white shag rice
broccoli in the weave
beef feet

List of Dead Things

hollowed ground
a closet full of steam
water runs

I wrote a weird sonnet and it got published in the And Now, A Sonnet newsletter.

Here’s the first line as a teaser:

Strange duck / Odd bird / Walk into a bar

List of Dead Things

sticks in the wind
seed pods, squashed
cardinal
bright red
above oil black seeds

List of Dead Things

concrete water tomb

List of Dead Things

graffiti / gears / ground / halted / blocked / still, life

List of Dead Things

if you want
rights
incorporate yourself

List of Dead Things

black pipe
through the low point
train tracks

List of Dead Things

sand
washed
from rock

List of Dead Things

pebble / seed
wet
in the furrow

List of Dead Things

white banded
wings through the rain
fallen tree

List of Dead Things

petro fried
le miz keyfabe
um, what were we talking about?

List of Dead Things

tropical plant in january stewed greens

List of Dead Things

sunbleached bleach bottle bird song

List of Dead Things

recycling center
used needle
in an oil spill

#todayspoem

from Variations on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop by John Murillo

…Learn to lose as if
your life depended on it. Learn that your life
 depends on it

List of Dead Things

plastic bag
caught / catching
chilled rain

List of Dead Things

strip mall after sunset
finger nail clipping reflection
in the storm drain

List of Dead Things

plastic grass
jade shards reflecting
low winter sun

List of Dead Things

class deadcount

List of Dead Things

styrofoam snow
dusting the puddle

List of Dead Things

train whistle quack
clouds curled like dragon whiskers
racing down

#todayspoem

List of Dead Things

became death, destroyer of worlds
just bird tools
for kickin' up bugs

List of Dead Things

slab of glued sand
in sun cracked parking lot
neon lit night

doors sliding open, closed
for circling bat

List of Dead Things

feed:
because that’s what you do to it
attention vampire

List of Dead Things

azalea blooms: brown
clinging
to the branches

List of Dead Things

tattered clouds
glowing
racing
across full moon face
silent night

List of Dead Things

deer head in a storm drain

List of Dead Things

cold rock
hanging in blue vacuum
above bundled wooden sticks

List of Dead Things

r. hole filled with lightning
a. tar ridden
i. whitewater runoff
n. pothole weather

List of Dead Things

snakeskin shoulder line
worn, flattened
empty toothpaste tube

List of Dead Things

last year’s whistle
cutting
through first new morning

List of Dead Things

another year
fodder
for the fire pit

List of Dead Things

old gods
new gods
gods that don’t look like us

List of Dead Things

v. captured
o. fallen sunlight
i. piled high
d. recaptured

List of Dead Things

9

leaf blown drone
dance of the deciduous
solar panels

List of Dead Things

box of
dark glass filled
with extractions
with the taste
of blood

List of Dead Things

List of Dead Things

felled tree
fallen again
one plastic red berry

25 Songs of Christmas

Day 25: Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses

List of Dead Things

dry seed headed stalks
bobbing a bird
into frozen sky

List of Dead Things

twitching
squirrel
broken

List of Dead Things

jeweled drops
pulled from hidden tumor rot
dazzling in the runoff

List of Dead Things

pile of
frost-lipped leaves
sleet bounces

rippled solstice sky
a slow train through
the intersection

fall ends / winter begins

solstICE

pine beetle chew
sound of sleet
in leaves
fallen
falling

lines
classic and congested
seasonal pattern shift

ice melts
bird song
fat as winter sun

gray cat
waiting
with sealed box
curious

traffic pattern patched pavement
memory of water

rough torn orange wedge horizon night bruised sky

ink wash
train cars through
the fog

horizon hung sun haze
hanging from stop light wire
shoes

farm tool rusting
in memories of the deer
running past

windowpanes
of warm light in the night
hanging from a branch

flashes of white
behind fallen brown grass
in green leaves

sky shard
hops
through rocks / leaves
brown birds
chasing / fleeing

door
sends blue streaks
to the sky

metronome of
stacking boxes
van doors
rain
 drip
  drip
   drip
    drip
     drops

25 Songs of Christmas

Day 7: Holiday Road by Matt Pond PA

cold dough
the oven clicks
rain drop off the gutter

woodpecker expanding
grid of holes
on growing rings

dogwood
one leaf left
red
bobs
a cardinal

rain drop
hanging
off the rusting leaf
hanging
off the branch

school bus dusk
stop & rave lights
reflector tape

pink clouds
a Jackson Pollock
over sunset

tumbling
down the hill a crow
flaps across the road

streaks of pink
in the darkening blue
chimney silhouette

across the street
santa slowly filling out
leftover turkey

flying
under the power lines
another little brown leaf

circling
the thanksgiving table
turkey vulture?

bleaching the bath mat
another leaf drifts
down

fog passing
under a streetlight
train on unused tracks

colder
with every sip
neglected coffee

idling / creeping / idling
the light cycles
again

tractor tiller
still&emdash;rusted yellow
fallen leaves

nails
rusted in the pine
leaf blower drones

held note
a pine top sways
string scrape

leaf pile
rustles in the cold breeze
wet shadow of one gone

bird
yowling like a cat from the alley
flaps away

deer bounds under
power lines cutting
sky into ribbons

pot holes
filling with cold rain
orange cones fallen

against mismatched
fence slats

asleep in the long grass
coyote stretches
the sun down

stacking skeletons
fallen limbs, some held
by the living

water rolls down the glass
ice shifts - a dog
barks

basho’s narrow road
in the rain, lead piles
at the curb

one leg
from beneath the car
rain picks up

leaves
piled on the ground
the birds, quiet

thin branch
made mostly bare
yellowed leaves

the hours
come at different times
squirrels / up and down a tree

the order the same
the order the same

dead spider
on the stove
changing the clocks

sandwich
half eaten
the air hardens

future
gods of forgotten hymns, fallen
squirrel food

rock fall
of the clock hand
a branch, falling

hawk standing
in a once wild field
hotel brick red head

#todayspoem
from 2/16 by Alice Notley

fog
thick
burning off
with the sun sweep
of the hour hand

🎃🍂

pumpkin guts
dried on the step
quilt of fallen leaves

look of rain
hanging in the sky
leaf spins in the breeze

plant
drooping
under cool weight of autumn

signature of water
blasted!
through dirt

machine tower slide
behind a stand of bare trees
beheaded

the sky
once painted with sunrise
now fog

birds
still
on spread wings

leaves: bronzing
light: softening
pumpkins: spiced

personal landscape
of leaves raked
into books

a bird hits the window
a leaf
fallen

layers
  scraped away
  accrued again

a cycle
a circle

bramble of blueberries
now just
a patch of dirt

sun sets water down the drain

drone of deciduous destruction
ice
drops in the machine

old fluorescent
cockroach
clicking away

smoke vining
wax melt
just cooling

dirt
turned over
turned again

stone shadow
still
until you blink

for the Micro.blog Day in the Life Photo Challenge

time taken: 0823 EDT
location: Greenville, SC

saw
passing through
rings of time

rain
water
clock

ghost white
hunter’s moon
fills the hours

7 flowers
amongst dry stalks
bare dirt

sand gone clear
BANG!
thrush gone still

bird song
over the hood music
empty bird bath

fence pickets
falling
one by
one by
one tall weed

still standing
still

moon
in blue sky
sawdust

bananas
browning
leaves

branch
walks its leaves
across the road

time
passing
trains

aren’t all islands
dynamic in time
of climate change?

from the roots
of the dead tree
red leaves

breeze
shifting leaves
old notes
a timer
sounds

foundation
stripped of its structure
donating baby clothes

honking
migrating geese
neighborhood
walking group

racing
red light train
strip center cemetery

time flies
falls
just
a butterfly

do you remember
the end of
summer sky?

bubblegum pink / pop! / goes the witch

you’re a rich riot grrrl

state street banks / of money green streams

three times a laz-y-boy dream

images by stable diffusion

talking heads
burning down the house
breaking “news”

around the fallen tree
re-fallen
debris pile

multiplying
the dust bunnies

falling
yellowed leaf
raining again

claw hammer possum
the purple blooming
beneath my thumbnail

topographic
map in clouds
a dead hornet

mouth full of needles
squirrel
steps gingerly

dead cat
or plastic bag?
against the curb

we claim ownership
with lines drawn
in invisible ink

standing next
to the footless angel
a cooked-necked crane

siren song of
a neighborhood emergency
moths to a flame

blue
above
the lit street
light pink cloud shard
moon

crows
laughing
out of sight
cackling cawing
gone

this cinquian inspired me to try my take on the form, using the stress count by line as a syllable count.

and here is what the Stable Diffusion text-to-image AI model thought this Hi-Q should look like.

crow flaps a bang traffic

b/le/a/e/ding edge

dust clouds
around the trees
fenced in by red tape

behind the fence
golden-headed grass
droops

stepping off the duck slippery when wet

raining acorns bounce

brick wall
butterfly flies away
a bird

mimetic theory and
triangle roof joists
recalculating…

squirrel
carrying a three
acorn clover

attic’s ribs
bared to the sun
behind the fence

a crow laughs above a child’s cry

lost in thought
moss collects around
the roots

swaying
seed-headed
stalks

dirt path
one crow walking
another

rinse cycle rain
suds in the bottom of
the dishwasher

first day of school and
the spicing of pumpkins
false fall

armadillo
across the grass
ramshackle barn

hawk
watching the unkempt field
police car

fog collects
in the dark side of the mountain
armadillo

front loader
overtaken and overgrown
color of asbestos

an island of horses
rural highway

corrugated gold bricks
stacked 2 to the horizon

lines:
dashed and un

red eyes blinking
in the sun spots

orange cone megaphone
spewing sewer water
into the street corner