15 minutes of anonymity
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Brook

This tour
Of babble:

Stones
To smooth

Trees
To uproot

Ankles
To chill

Downs
And arounds
To meander

– A way
To lay low

11:42 AM - 25 Comments - 52 Kudos - Add Comment

cover up
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Close

It's time to close
The summer house,
To spread white sheets
To catch the drift of dust

Our feet that sprang
Into the summer heat
Lead back to cityscapes,
Tall teeth across the sky
In gears that turn our hands
To telling time

11:30 AM - 23 Comments - 50 Kudos - Add Comment

shake it
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Clearing

Old plows
Furrow the brow
Making haze
While the sun shines

Ditch the rut
For sky-blues
Shake a crutch
To groove

11:04 AM - 19 Comments - 44 Kudos - Add Comment

strokes
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Mona Lisa

I dry on your canvas
Layer upon layer –
As text on your texture

A smile settles
On lacquered lips
As time becomes timeless

11:13 AM - 32 Comments - 70 Kudos - Add Comment

a vision
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Domestics

This dusty stretch of road
Is down where rivers flood,
Captured in the sun
But warm and welcoming
To sudden downpours.
There is no time,
No clocks to run:
It is a picture held in place
By hands I traced across your face,
A state of bliss and grace
To call our own.

You stand on toes
In denim shirt and jeans to kiss,
Not knowing yet that we are gone.
It is an early chapter in a book
Without a plot,
Just two young ones in love,
No end in sight.
It is a little house
Where we could be together
Talking to each other
Through the night,
Just letting worlds of time
Run from us on the river
As we find the words
To make a home.

Though almost drowned
By dark unruly waters,
Chilled and coughing up
The suffocating flood,
I find us now beyond the mire
And see an older couple
Talking in the kitchen
By a teapot heating water
On a rusty white-enameled stove.

11:15 AM - 25 Comments - 58 Kudos - Add Comment

bedtime story
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Tom Bear

Tom Bear woke, stretched and looked outside his cave. The sun was shining on the green grassy field below. The sun sparkled on the stream where he fished. Tom's nose twitched. His eyes opened wide. It was his favorite smell – ripe blueberries.

Tom ran outside as fast as a big bear could move. It was the first day of blueberry season. Tom Bear did not want to waste a minute. He lumbered down the hill to the blueberry bushes.

All morning Tom Bear ate blueberries until his furry face was all blue. When the sun was at the top of the sky he waddled slowly home. He lay down in his bed of damp leaves at the back of his cave and fell asleep, dreaming blueberry dreams.

10:45 AM - 31 Comments - 64 Kudos - Add Comment

hitching post
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Lift

Thumb out
On a cold shoulder
Shaking the dice
To hook a lift
For a pick-me-up,
A come-on
To come along,
Arm numb
Back stiff
Waiting in ragweed
For a soft touch
To catch my drift

9:46 AM - 30 Comments - 58 Kudos - Add Comment

a spell
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Arm's Way

You slip your arm in mine
To spend a spell
In borrowed time.

We laugh as shoulders bump,
As fingers hook a waist.

We look away and wait:
Only the ghosts
That rattle in the night
Embrace.

10:04 AM - 25 Comments - 54 Kudos - Add Comment

taking turns
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Vintage

The mornings sharpen
In August's first cold breath –
A chance to punctuate
After the sopping heat.

I hold sweet grapes
In these brown hands,
Glad for this retreat
Beyond mosquitoes' itch
To greet the gold
Awaiting in the vines
At summer's edge.

11:36 AM - 28 Comments - 56 Kudos - Add Comment

fleurs du mal
Category: Writing and Poetry

Neil McDonell © 2008
All rights reserved


Soil

Plants overrun
The flowerbed
Taking no prisoners,
The timid left for dead,
Terror in the sun,
Vegan Vandals and Vikings
Running amuck,
Genghis Khan
Among the fronds
Leaving a bloody mess
Of bleeding hearts
And all the gardeners
A pyramid of skulls

10:01 AM - 23 Comments - 54 Kudos - Add Comment