Rik George writes

Dictionary Flowers

My grandmother 
kept her family history 
in a dictionary, 
because Webster’s stirred less controversy 
than her mother’s Protestant Bible 
in her stepfather’s Catholic household. 
She pressed flowers between its pages, 
mementoes she kept of her wedding, 
and my father’s christening, 
and maybe her mother’s funeral. 
She never said which blossom 
marked which event, 
perhaps because she couldn’t remember. 
I don’t touch them. 
They might crumble. 
Even the dictionary’s pages 
are brittle and likely to shatter. 
I breathe gently when I look at them. 
I don’t want to sneeze 
and scatter her memories 
and the old definitions 
among the dust mites 
in this room she never saw.

Rik George writes

The Clockwork Nightingale

I made a clockwork nightingale. 
I cut the gears and shafts from brass. 
The springs I bought at my hardware store. 
I made the body and wings from copper, 
and etched the feathers in the metal. 
The beak and tail were stainless steel. 
I enameled eyes so the bird could see. 
I wound it up with a silver key. 
I taught it madrigals and sent it 
from door to door to sing for my supper. 
A Nashville crow lured it away 
with promises of country music stardom. 
I have not heard it sing on the radio,
 nor seen its discs in music stores. 
I sometimes wonder, late in the night, 
if it sings on Nashville’s meaner streets, 
or lies scrapped in a dump in Tennessee.
 
Die Zwitscher-Maschine (Twittering Machine) -- Paul Klee

Rik George writes

For Don Wells

The crocus will bloom where the snow is melting. 
The bud shows color under its green. 
If Don were near, I’d invite him over 
to greet the crocus when it comes, 
but he has gone adventuring. 
He left his house; the door’s ajar. 
The stove is cold, the table’s empty. 
A winter’s dust sits in Don’s chair. 
Autumn leaves sleep on his bed. 
He has other rooms to keep. 
He’s taking tea and cookies with the saints 
and telling jokes to the solemn angels.
Tomorrow he’ll fly kites with the Christ. 
The crocus must make do with me.


Crocus -- Carol Blackhurst

Rik George writes

The Tulip Bearers

Two men bearing potted tulips
in the mall processed with uplifted hands, 
solemn as priests presenting the Host. 
The younger, who led, looked back to see 
if his older companion followed safely. 
The old man’s gaze was all on his pot. 
He looked neither up ahead,
nor at his feet. He walked down stairs 
and did not stumble. “Do they visit 
the sick?” I wondered. “Look around,” 
you said. Potted tulips fill 
the flower boxes. I think they’re thieves.” 
“Walking so slow and carefully?” 
“They’re too old to run away.”

Tulip Thief --  Johan Lilja

Rik George writes

The Hustler

A boy-man leans against the brick, 
one knee bent, one hand on a hip, 
offering youth for coin of the realm. 
His eyes are green as ocean swells.
I yearn to plumb their mysteries. 
He searches my face to see what I want. 
I shake my head. I will not pay 
for grappled sex in a bathroom tiled 
with puddled semen and weary lust. 
He shrugs. His eyes glaze with boredom. 
He turns to search the passing crowd. 
I leave him there. I will not watch 
some casual trick buy time with those eyes 
not caring what self may swim in their deeps.

Marcantonio Pasqualini Crowned by Apollo -- Andrea Sacchi

Rik George writes

John Day Country

There the spirit may sing its making, 
and the pilgrim wander the wind-kissed ridges 
to commune with hawks in the high desert. 
There I would go to get heart’s ease. 
I would shelter with cougars in the shadowy pines. 
I would sing with coyotes in a star-scarred sky. 
I would chant with the rapids roiling through the canyons. 
I would den with the bear and dance with the deer. 
I would run with the rabbits through the sage and the sand 
I would untwist the tangle of my terrors 
and walk a free man on the wind’s highways. 
There I would live, lonely and clean,
where the air’s so thin the eagle falters. 
There I would sing my spirit song

John Day River Country -- Rebecca Baldwin

Rik George writes

Reunion

Lamplight splotched 
the polished wood, 
littering the table 
with yellow lights 
like lemon peels. 
Our coffee cooled 
in our willow-ware cups 
while we tried to remember 
why we once were friends. 
The furnace noises 
accentuated our silences. 
After an awkward time, 
he went into the snow. 
I turned out the lamp 
and was glad he had gone.


Awkward Silence in the Aftermath -- Margo Burian

Rik George writes

Park Encounter

I watched you pass my bench, 
smiling sidelong at me, 
many times before 
you stopped to talk with me. 
The wind tousled your hair 
and pressed your shirt against 
your muscular pecs and abs. 
My pulse swelled in my throat 
so I mumbled my reply. 
You looked up at jets 
writing vapor answers on the sky. 
and nodded as though you’d decided 
something. You smiled, excused 
yourself, and walked away. 
I’ve waited on my bench 
every day since then, 
but you haven’t walked this way.

Man Sitting On A Park Bench -- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

Rik George writes

Hospital

Every evening they come to me, 
the woman I wed and the man I loved. 
They gather with lesser ghosts at twilight, 
fearful I’ll forget I knew them. 
They swing from the tube that enters my arm. 
They dance on the scope that watches my heart. 
When the lamps divide the glare from shadow, 
they skulk in the dark corners and scowl. 
They wait for my evening medication. 
They want to chatter in my dreams.
If this room had television, 
I’d turn it on before the twilight 
and drown my ghosts in seas of drivel, 
so I could sleep the night undisturbed.


Hospital -- Joe Ongie

Rik George writes

Homeward Bound

Winter moon, watch over me. 
Shadows stalk the feeble streetlights. 
The whispering wind has snow on its breath. 
Long hours in smoky bars behind me, 
waiting for Mr. Right to show. 
I’m going home alone, again. 
Watch me, waning winter moon, 
between the bar and my empty room.
The Trapper -- Rockwell Kent