Mr. Butterfly

THE BUTTERFLY

You think you know the butterfly, you might even like it best.

But the butterfly I’m speaking of is a buzzing little pest.

The flying pest buzzes at me, that’s what bothers me the most.

The only thing it’s good for is spreading on my toast.

Emily Dickenson

Yellow Beaks

I’ve never seen the jungle,

nor visited the zoo,

and yet I know of toucans,

and what they have to do.

I’ve never been exploring,

nor watched a stampede,

yet know I the circle of life,

and to where it must lead.

Emily Dickenson

I’ve Never Seen The Sea

I never saw a lake,

nor visited the sea,

and yet know I what a boat is,

and what a trout must be.

I’ve never been a-sailing,

nor caught my own little fish,

and yet I know how it must taste,

as if I’ve had a dish.

My Door

Pulling aside a curtain of misty twilight,

I pull on a silver door above me, and a silken ladder drops, raining down like colorful tears from heaven.

Stepping lightly, fearing that at any moment, I would be dropped into the now seemingly never-ending black oblivion,

I finally reach the top, then walk silently through a grey mist,

and across a white prism.

Unexpectedly, I have the sudden urge to run,

and,

as I gather speed, the white begins to blur into colors,

the colors into shapes,

and the shapes into beings.

Abruptly, my foot lands down on grey stone,

the surprise of gravity bringing me tumbling to the ground.

Gathering myself, I run to the waist high stone wall,

and look down.

My stomach lurches,

bleak cliffs fall into

the foamy inferno of the sea.

There is no sand,

only rock,

then ocean,

as far as the eye can see.

Ted Kooser

Reader Selected

Having just come from a lady’s etiquette class,

I am not pretty,

red from dancing, the nape of my neck still damp with sweat.

Walking up to the counter of the isolated bookstore,

I point to your book behind the counter

in the middle of a purple twilight.

I’m still in my tea-length dress and white gloves,

spanking clean as it always is

when I’ve just had it cleaned at Lucia’s.

Opening your book gingerly,

I lean against the counter and flip through your book,

then, after collecting a pile of other books,

I walk slowly to the front of the room

and approach the register,

only to find that I have no money with me.

Billy Collins

Introduction To Writing

I ask them to take my stories,

to treat them like a freshly painted canvas,

and to study their many layers of differently colored paint,

or take them and organize them in a little book

like newly bought stamps.

I say turn the poem inside out,

to better see what its trying to say.

I want them to plant seeds in my stories,

and watch how they all grow differently,

turning into many different flowers.

But all they want to do is unravel its very meaning,

bleeding to death,

trying to understand their own crimes.

They start to slowly demean it

to realize what it truly means.