Mike Pulley
A Short Spin Out
These are my poems, my enemies, my arms, my mask.
The trees are on fire burning to the ground.
The fields have turned golden.
It’s my touch, my grasp, my memory
of grass, skeleton corn stalks,
little flaming oaks in among the green pines.
There’s possibly some power down in the pond,
fish-frozen, frog-frozen
in the mud,
moon fog pulling strong tug,
tendrils, teeth, torture,
tonight’s the night.
Published in The Hangtown Fry, No. 3, Sept.-Oct. 1987, p. 13
Published in Poetry Now, Vol. 4, No. 5, May 1998, p. 8
Looking Back from an Undisclosed Location
It was a worn-out empire,
Old in its slums, ruts, and infrastructure,
The collapse of bridges nearly a daily occurrence.
Most disturbing, the loss of songbirds and frogs,
A perdition that broke the spirit of the people
Surely as hordes eating the enemy’s young.
Starvation set in with the death of the bees.
Nightmare segments on the developing world
Something to avoid for sanity,
The lost species count, too, for that matter.
I left the flatulence and paranoia of the South
And hitched a ride west across an arid plain
To a place to be alone and in love
With my own indulgences,
A place to be a relaxing artist
And die like an animal abandoned on a tarmac
Of potholes. Some nights
I woke up late and peered out
My apartment window
To catch a pair of rabbits in frivolity,
In teasing movements associated with smiling dogs.
It was a time of new parables and alchemist formulas
Embedded in paperbacks sold in drugstore magazine racks,
The time when young, mannish women performed music
Of primitive elegance in the remaining venues.
The Devil was apparent
In the spiels of desperate car dealers.
They sold obsolete vehicles for tickets to Vegas
Where they gorged on the last female legs.
They were determined to die
Like shrink-wrap in landfills.
Ultimately, the guns got the best of them
And it was up to grievous angels to intercede
And speak the language of old washing machines,
Talk of water as pure as protected maidens in spring dresses.
Published in Canary, Summer 2014 http://hippocketpress.org/canary/archive_by_author.php?id=226
And Alarm Clocks Rang All through the Night of Dark Spirits
In my sleep,
I straighten out crumpled dollar bills
on a bedspread of white chenille.
These bills are nuclear bombs,
according to the man standing next to me.
He gives me directions,
tells me how to detonate
while clinging to the belly of a plane.
Deeper within the wound up spring
of my backwards sleep,
what poised animals are ready to strike?
Who did I murder in another life?
I have five minutes to tell you my name.
I have two seconds
to pick up the glittering hammer
of animal flight and sling it,
a bone of spiraling fireworks—
Mother Fuck God
before the white face of the virgin moon.
Tonight, seeded clouds drop alarm clocks
like nuclear raindrops.
I am looking for a trigger
for my tears.
Do you have any ideas?
Published in Poet News, Poets for Peace Issue, Feb. 1991, p. 10
Published in Sex in Public, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 1999, p. 22
Backyard Prayers
To be in the backyard of your own year.
To see white blossoms on the Rose of Sharon
sharing nectar.
To love the clay-laden dirt
upturned in the garden bed,
its reddish brown darkened
by the latest rain.
To sit in the silence of Sunday dawn,
in the dim light of cloud cover
and receive the rain
that comes on easy,
a quiet crackling.
To hear chittering, vibrating,
birds and insects interjecting,
static, buzzing,
beaks and racket.
To sense the skin
a signal, an indication
of minute winds, soft
on limbs, miniature winces.
To smell the mint,
the pungent marigolds,
the smoking air.
To look at the fallen leaves,
a tan, feathered mosaic
at the foot of the tall oak.
To touch the thorns of the bloom
and bring blood, stinging the tissue
and bone of the finger, forgetful,
forgiven.
To add to the compost
behind the brown shed,
to the collection---shedding,
cut offs, cut-downs,
the discarded.
To shiver whenever longing
leaves you seeking release.
To realize what you missed
is of no consequence
despite the desperation of nostalgia.
To pray for respite from the noise of sin.
To need repose over punishment.
To notice the sun warming you.
To witness your breath.
To feel at ease with time’s elapse,
all these events.
To hope for moments
in the music of a new century
when the rhythms of rain mumble
like notes of an undisclosed symphony
then the barn door left open
like a mouth of toothless value.
Inside the darkness of moments
in the dead heat,
given like hard truth
swallowed in easy sweetness,
glistening like an acrobat,
the gift horse arrives.
Published in Cold Mountain Review, Spring 2014, Vol. 42, No. 2, pp. 32-33