Tag Archives: poetry

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Cicada spring,

not quite like cicada summer.

but it’s still 90 degrees,

so it might as well be.

Somehow it was meant to be,

me being here at this exact moment

with all those cicadas droning and flying

and dying

from the ground, from the molt,

three species mix and sound as one,

and I’m here too, letting them lull me,

watching them land on window screens,

cringing when one hits the windshield of the car,

plucking them from the stairs and the door.

It is different than cicada summer,

but still very much the same.

“What do cicadas mean to you?”

I don’t have an answer to that question.

Is it not enough to just like them as they are?

A fleeting life that’s set on one thing.

Do it and then perish,

and then wait once again for your offspring

to do it all over again.

The ones at home I rarely saw cause

summer cicadas are hard to find.

But these are everywhere and I feel spoiled.

I don’t understand how people don’t enjoy this,

the sheer magnitude of their numbers and their

whirring call that takes up the background.

Nope, I just don’t get how no one else is enjoying this but me.

sweet drone

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It took me seven months
To feel a hint of ease
At having to be 800 miles from home
In a new “home”

It was the cicadas, with their sudden rise
From the ground, their litter of skins and sheer numbers
All in chorus, those three species, only subtle colors and sounds to mark their differences

It was the twenty-five minute drive to Manassas
Just for some donuts
For that ride through that city to make it feel like I was back on my own ground
For just a moment
Cause that’s how it sort of looks
Endless trees and a shitty road and few buildings in between

It was turning on the AC since it reached 90 outside
Being able to sleep in my preferred deep freeze
That certain plastic-must smell that lets me know summer is within reach, just a few more weeks

There will be other things, I’m sure, but I’m still waiting
Chomping at the bit
Like a starved dog who got a whiff of meat on the back of a humid breeze

Gotta give it more than seven months
I know.

shut up

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noise noise noise noise noise

on the streets and

in the building

from the strangers and the neighbors

is every day national make noise day?

cops/fire engines/ambulances and

drunks and druggies and seniors,

it just never seems to end.

move this move that yell slam doors

rev your engines step on the gas

drop this hit this throw this

can you people just learn some respect?

how am I ever going to adjust to all the

damn noise?

home

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turns out

there are a lot of smells

from home that I miss –

dark diesel on a winter morning,

animal fat clinging to cement and wooden walls,

sunshine heated into a cat’s fur,

laundry taken from the line in spring,

chicken in the oven for supper,

the central air conditioning on a sweltering summer night,

river mud sticking to the wind,

and that subtle sweetness that seeps from the forest.

yeah. these are things i dont think about until im alone,

driving to work, muddling along with the traffic.

Mississippi Mud

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I smelled the Mississippi mud

On the back of a breeze

Coming out of the west.

I was taking laundry off the line.

I couldn’t see the river because

Of the trees but I still looked anyways.

I thought of the times when I used to go down to the neighbors and get up close to the backwater.

One time I speared a carp in that water- how old I was I can’t remember.

One time we set muskrat traps in that water- but how old I was, does it matter?

I smell that light tang of the Mississippi mud and I want to cry.