Someone has to be the first.
Someone has to take the first bite
Of the cherry
Be the first cab off the rank.
Someone has to be the early bird
For worms to be taken.
Some has to drop the rock in the pool
To set the ripples going.
Someone has to throw the first stone
For the stoning to begin.
The timid sun
Peeps through a mouse-hole
In the fog
It was not a black cat
But a red rooster
That crossed my path this morning.
I waited
As it waddled past the car
Oblivious to the honour
I had accorded it.
Why the rooster crossed the road
I do not know
Though it waddled
With intent.
It had the whole day
In front of it
Provided it did not cross
Too many roads.
I love how ink flows
from marker pens: strong, wet, exuberant
like inspiration
A rusty red rat
Rubbing its rump against the railings:
No more painkillers
“Good things come,” I said,
“In small packages,” hugging her again.
“Like you, Like haiku.”
I am eating my zen sandwich by the side
of a blue lake . I hear the sound of
two wings flapping .
A fawn falcon plunges down the side
of the volcanic cone , its claws extended
like the landing gear of a plane .
As it skims across the surface — a sail-winged
skater —- the talons lacerate the taut
skin of that lake . It bleeds blue .
Those pigeons are either sparring
with their wings as fists
Having a tiff
Or clumsily copulating
feathers flying everywhere
But I wish they’d get off
The cubby house roof
Before the sun sets
So the children can come out
And play.
Before I met her
I always laughed at cartoons
alone,
was astonished before paintings & poems
privately;
but now I pass the magazine to her,
the one with the crazy cartoons.
Look at this, I say, & she does and smiles
Span our faces & rumble our bellies
like little laughing Buddhas;
Trouble shared is trouble halved,
my mother used to say — but Joy
Works inversely:
It is doubled when spent with another.
The witch hunt has begun.
Under the viral sun
Men step over each other to confess.
Fallen stars
They beat their breasts
Then slink out through the gate.
What punishment awaits?
John Malone 