remains in a box
I am afraid to open
babe’s ashy bones

Kaintuck the Commonwealth

What airhead

On what planet decided

To dub our patch of geography

The Commonwealth?

Did that ’head not notice

Only the arch of our misshapen footprint of a state

Ever came close to something resembling extra goods?

    Did he never see the liquor taxed to death,

    The horses run to other rings,

    The oil drained down the Mississippi,

    Waters turned to sewers,

    Coal condemned as poison,

    Mountains blasted into moonscape,

    Tobacco fields disgraced?

The south did rise again,

The states below grew strong.

Lake, field, and factory lent their gifts

To sweeten lands less names.

‘Commonwealth’ mocked us all

And hid a misplaced pride.

We bounced a ball.

Took the draw.

And hid our sins in bluff.

Better to have been named

Old Dark and Bloody

To spur us on to strke against

The curse laid on those

Who claim too much.

Brucehill Florence

June 29, 2015

(for Mark)

I go to Clear Creek
to brush away cobwebs,
walk sideways to Eva’s arbor,
hug my walking stick,
put fear under the nightshade,
read my Jing Shin Jyutsu
(the art of god through man)

I take off my shirt,
tight-walk over a chasm
on a fallen oak,
climb West Pinnacle,
investigate mushrooms:
structures more fragile
than clear thoughts

Engarde!
Engine up
the pen. Engird
the world. English must englut
and engorge, engrave, engross and engulf. Words’ usage
meant to enhance enigmatically and enlighten the enlisted. Enrapt and enrich with ens!

formations

a circle of old men
with large warted noses
congregated to sing
“Happy Birthday”
to a pig
as a company of trolls
crowned
one of their own
Emperor
while a Chinese dragon
passed his coronation
so much going on
as I gazed
outside
during a long boring flight

No Sacred Flags

Don’t ask me to love stripes.

I have no affection to spare for spatters

Of color on squares of cloth.

Sing lofty songs if you wish,

No chords stir my gut response.

I have no allegiance to black suits with secret agendas.

I have no allegiance to blue suits with open agendas.

Trees with sheltering limbs.

Babies’ wet smiles, rolls of fat.

Sails tossed against a following wind,

Sunsets blazing on silver waters,

Cataracts flinging their heart against polished stone,

One perfect bloom,

Wrinkles of wisdom.

To these I pledge.

Brown skin, woman heart, gentle hands

And a patient and loving God.

To these alone I pledge.

I will not love stripes and spatters.

K. Brucehill Florence

June 6, 2015

She talks with her husband,
a sign of a strong marriage.
Their conversation cover hours,
continents, millennia past and yet.
He’s been dead ten years now. 

The young couple on the south farm
think she’s a sad and lonely case.
The old widow to the north
understands, is both jealous and sad. 

Her kids think it’s all quite right,
and her friends are so happy for her
for the happiness he still brings.

                  The Moth

Candle fire beckons her.

She flits in the drawing light

And turns in its rising heat.

Wise eyes sitting on her wings

Beg her to flee the dance

And save them both.

 But one last twirl, and pleading wings

Singe, tiny legs scorch, torso flames,

Then ash and she is gone.

Was her instinct for fire planted in eons past?

And why the waste of such aerial grace?

Is earth, rock bound, in her stationery circle

Jealous of the moth’s flitting freedom?

If not the fire that pulls her perhaps she

Hoped to stretch her one day into two.

Brave little moth wagered her life,

Desperate to add more time

To her twenty four hour span.

She dared to capture every second

And stretch the briefest day

Until the weight of final darkness,

Too heavy, took its toll.

We grieve not at her sacrifice, there are similar tales.

We weep to behold a love so strong that even earth

Herself pales in its reflection. Given her passion

Could we fly into the sun with joyous abandon?

 K Brucehill Florence

June 29, 2015

1) don’t worry about writing
     worry about living

2) the mind and stomach
     work best when empty

3} turn over rocks
     they might turn me over
     in return

4) never say things 
     happen for a reason

5) i run this same path
     every morning/but i’ve
     not been here before

6) treat Monday as if
     she were a guest
     from out-of-town

7) its gossip about me
     mostly true,
     this covey of crow
          murders the silence
          of my run