hurricane kids
after the storm, I awakened
to a world half-familiar
mailbox missing, tree limbs severed
cul-de-sac painted with leaves
an ancient oak withstood centuries
of storms and wars and urban sprawl
to collapse atop a boxy, red sedan
roadblocking the exit
the blackout lasted weeks
eight years old with nowhere to be
I found my way around in the dark
to save my flashlight batteries for reading
neighbors cooked out every evening
by a floodlit generator and communal freezer
while we circled a tiny television
powered by the minivan next door
streets unblocked by chainsaw harmonies
tow cables and family SUVs
while we raked up the leaves
built bonfires with fallen branches
search my shaky memory
but that state of emergency
may have been the funnest summer
of my childhood
Snooker
awake enough to beat a computer
at a game of snooker
but too tired to celebrate
awake enough to type a poem
but too tired to make it a good one
writing without knowing
what I'm writing about
even after I've finished
sometimes it works out
and you get something clever
other times you end up with this:
a poem going nowhere
about nothing in particular
named after the only interesting
word in the bunch
plaza tower one
when we were little
dad brought us to work one weekend
when the office was deserted
closed us in a conference room
made us promise to behave
we played a movie on the projector
crawled under the conference table
pretending we were in the story
hiding for our lives
from the whatever
we raced to the top floor
watched the tiny cars below
raided the breakroom for candy,
crackers, cans of clear soda,
plastic cups of crushed ice
we snooped around computers
watched their glowing screensavers
digital aquariums
psychedelic geometry
circles morphing into squares
we pressed our hands on the copier
picked quarters from the fountain
sailed paper airplanes down stairwells
race each other through the hallway
on rolling chairs
self-entertaining
executives of mischief
doing what we pleased
there was no room for best behavior
in our business
the numbers
she's sitting on the floor
running numbers through her head
I'm on the couch with a novel
and a beer
she mumbles to herself
about order of operations
common denominators
decimals and fractions
I'm a distraction
running fingers through her hair
she moves too quick
her hands around a notebook
the moment isn't taking
any chances
screaming past us in a blur
of missed opportunities
electric cars and formulas
skydivers and percentages
beeping microwaves
and Mayan calendars
I'm scanning pages
without reading the words
she throws her pen on the table
we're lost in an equation
there's no reason to worry
I'm sure we'll figure it out
super 8
it's too hot to sleep
ghosts out on the street
swap stories about Chinatown
morphine drips and super 8's
I could walk from here to Paris
on a bridge of restlessness
flickering like a neon sign
of silhouetted cowboys
twitching like an electrician
blindfolded and drunk
pavement ready to pound
skies waiting to behold
ghosts out on the street
disperse through equidistant doorways
as I destroy the night from
waking every hour
guest room
ten forty-seven post meridiem
more stars than space between them
showing off near-winter emptiness
of small town Kansas
wind whips through the weeds
like it could tackle a bear
whistling in chorus with a train
shrieking along its icy rails
my bad knee aches
so I sit instead of crouch
let a ladybug cross my hand
to reach the grass
clinging to a single blade
for a moment between gusts, then
carried off with the dust
into the darkness
past that dim abandoned house
where the goat froze to death
where feral cats fight, hunt, and
colonize the crawlspace
on a porch light overhead
a widow spider fights the wind
clinging for her life
to a collapsing web
I'm shaking from the cold
hanging on with the spiders
taking in the weight
of all I witness
inside, the baby's sleeping
the dog curls on the carpet
the staircase seems to steep
for me to climb
to get to someone else's bedroom
in someone else's house
four hundred fifty-two point seven
miles from home
tree farm
monoculture forests
on the Oregon plains
you can see straight through to
daylight on the other side
flanking roads in symmetrical rows
wooden units stiff in ranks
growing at near-identical rates
living out a parody of nature
a chessboard scheme
of evolutionary beings
earthen symbols in
mechanical arrangement
chiaroscuro aisles
vast grids of stem and shadow
coniferous pillars hoisting
piney pantheons
I long to climb the fence
creep into those eerie rows
let the strangeness seep
into my stubborn dreams
Sorrow Birds
ISBN: 978-1-62258-002-6
LCCN: 2012955385
© Tim Becker, 2012
Chapters: 5 (17-19 poems ea.)
Poems: 90
Pages: 178
Words: 11,670