Ground Pepper

Morning commences with a relatively
clean page of suffering.  Creaking joints
are sighing into the lean,
not screaming at tops of gasping lungs.
We gather dirty garden tools.
I have that charge of energy
you've learned to let go.
Birds leave nests because they can,
whittled by wind and carried
by their wary fruit through riddles
of all carnal storms.

Health is a heathen in rags.
I am not a noble pine.
This carcass of cheap card stock warps
when will begins to write its name.
My stamina like stepping stones
wobbles when it shifts and shimmies,
focused on the job of art.
The world is a cookie to eat.
Time is burning calories.
You witness struggle from afar
like clay evolving toward a vase.

A daffodil of motion's bliss,
its season shorter than a breath.
Stubborn's spoon on makeshift knees
that pray to possibility.
My teeth won't be in wholish states
for evermore and ravens
will descend in blood.
But you respect the right to spice
even when I'm in your eyes.
This life, a nettled hurricane
that takes away a body's shack.
Pain a grinding peppercorn
sprinkled over shrinking meals.

by Janet I. Buck

      Dirty Diapers

The font of ache is large these days.
Scrolling it alone is hard.
I'm standing in a grocery line,
watching an unshaven man
checking out in every way:
his cart contains a quart of milk,
a loaf of bread, a case of beer,
a box of Kleenex for his wife.
I wonder if these inside storms
will ever see their Jerichos,
will ever see their battles fought,
will ever see the war's retreat,
anger's sword withdrawn in sheath.
Blood, for now, diluted by
crying need to cheat and leave
in veins of grown-up Kool-Aid.

Another weekend come and gone
as quickly as a cricket's call.
This is his pond.  He is the frog
of cardboard green,
steeping in his bitter sweat.
Tapping foot to beat of ghost,
drinking dry a woman's trust.
The sun a spotted marigold
bugs have eaten down to stem.
At home, a baby wails in cribs.
Soaking in his dirty diapers,
unaware and innocent,
soiled with this emptiness.
Diaphragms for morning's glory
in its prime and agony,
a beer can pops like chirping birds.

by Janet I. Buck

You can find more of Janet Buck's work at Before the Rose--Art Villa, Hot Links: Janet I. Buck, Author's Den,  janetbuck.com, Art Villa  

from the April, 2001 issue