just do what i do
five words in a line
just do what i do
be like all the rest
it is just so easy
to lose that inner voice
four words in a line
do not do that
Category: Poetry
Baseball Cards
i’ve begun to hold you again
colorful cardboard portal
young men gripping bats
like no one ever ages
i used to take you for granted
trade you, shove you into
shoe boxes, stacking Tigers
and Orioles, reading statistic
after statistic, the only math
that ever made sense
now with gray hair, you are
mine again, behind plastic
i cradle delicate memory
this time around i know
nothing lasts forever
Magnus Carlsen
thinking always about chess
like words gliding through
space and time, these
pieces of royal motion
an endless game of poetry
No More Snow Days
those frozen crystals
one after the next
swirl and gust, dance
in sky, as we stare
hoping streets turn white
with each inch on ground
silent time arrives
waiting by the radio
listening to county
after county close schools
for children only think
of sledding and cocoa, and
knocking powder off oak branches
landscape like the untouched moon
today with Zoom the flakes
still descend, but screens trap
the young inside their computers
a flat warm world without end
no more snow days
Artificial Intelligence
evolution, acorn becomes
the tree, caterpillar a
butterfly, soar into future
skies, on screens with
robotic machines choosing
videos that emerge to
distract us away from
here, the present day
always leaving the
past behind, and perhaps
this should be
until we finally
become like drawings
in the cave
look how those
humans used to be
so simple and so free
now we are all
just technology
When Instagram Spoke
no one wants the poems
give me the photos
no time to look at letters
on a page, and i don’t
really care anyway
about your abstract ideas
related to sound and sunlight
so forget it and paste
your iphone image
on the screen
get to it old man
the future is now
Mom Plays Evening Piano
she only played
mozart, on chickering
flat tusks, ebony
keys, her fingers
pressing sound into
air, while my
head on pillow
rested for sonata
slumber, this childhood
memory of time
gone by, as
if anything really
leaves this universe
empty spaces left
to be filled
again and again
Covid’s Harem
i chew mint gum
behind my mask at
whole foods, walk by the
organic cherries, putting
their shiny bulbs into
the cart
our eyes dart out
looking at one another, we’ve
gotten used to this
toothless, lipless existence
as if we are helplessly in
covid’s harem, all of us
unhappy wives
plucking up frozen pizzas
following aisle arrows
in the direction away
from looming sickness
that saturates everything
with its statistics and
endless news of how this
will continue unabated
but still we eat the
sweet cherries, hoping
to one day be free
In the Stream
floating on his back
my son in river
water, glistening hair touches
sunlight, azure sky, cloud
reflection, i imagine him
alive forever, held in
nature’s undulating womb
Enduring 2020
introvert, he is one
quiet with his time
passing the days like
a sleeping couch dog
not to say he
doesn’t pay attention to
it all, the unraveling
of life in this
magical year of screens
and awful virus dreams
breathing is so much
of the hours, in silence
content and aware that
maybe there really is
nothing more important
Daniel W. Polk 