English 550 Collins poems

I gave it my best shot.

On the Road

I’m behind the wheel, again.
Today, I’m making a spontaneous trip to Crazytown.
This shimmering blacktop is apparently a popular and well-traveled by-way.
In fact, I went back just last semester, with Joan of Arc.
She drove.

There’s a folded and creased map on the passenger seat, but I don’t need directions.
Remember, I’ve been there before, more than once.
This map would tell the inexperienced traveler that
Just north of Crazytown one would find Looney Tunes,
Which is just east of Delirious
Which is south of the Tri-Cities.

As usual, I don’t plan on staying long,
I’m just a visitor.
The permanent residents find the living difficult.
The red brick at the lumberyard is consistently sold one shy of full load.
The cheap beer in your swinging plastic sack is two cans short of a six-pack.
The white porcelain shells of the eggs are usually cracked, their bright sun-yellow yolks spilling from the fissures.

So, I won’t be staying long.

But, now, I’ll turn off this busy two-lane mirage.
The bright yellow yolk of a sun is streaming out of its shell, is spilling into my eyes.
I’m looking for the exit to the freeway.
At the rate I’m going, I’ll need an express lane.
And, besides, expediency lessens pain,
And there is more than one way to get to there.

If you just happen to be driving by -
Speeding past on your way to somewhere else –
And you catch a blurred glimpse of me stopped by the side of the road, with, say,
A flat tire or a blown gasket
Just keep on driving.
Leave me there, even if you glance in your rearview mirror and see me waving my arms wildly or thrusting out.my thumb.

I’d better go alone.

Because, you see,
The only thing worse than being in a car on the road to Crazytown is not walking there,
It’s letting someone else drive.


The Art of Procrastination

There was a time when the bills,
Sitting expectantly on the edge of the table,
Would not have gathered dust

That was back when I bought into the idea that procrastination was a vice-
One of the deadlies – wedged
Between gluttony and sloth

Today, as a matter of fact,
I started over toward the bills, but
Was lured by the soon-to-be siren song of the

Teapot and drank deeply
And was entranced by the warmness of the tea
And the spirit of the steam.

But, I fully intended to return to the monetary matters of the day,
If it weren’t for my window
Open to the grass
and the sky
and the light of the sun

Annie Dillard thought
About seeing. How the world was fairly studded with
Pennies, unasked-for surprises.
But, anymore, who looks for pennies, let alone stoops to pick them up?
Who cares about nature’s pennies when there are dollars to account for?

I put my cup of tea
On top of the bills
Setting out expectantly to look for pennies.


Love Smart

I retrieved the package from my mailbox,
A book in a brown mailing envelope.
Love Smart by Dr. Phil had arrived anonymously.
I begin telling you in the dusty new daylight
Odd, I thought to myself as I tucked it under my arm.

The black type advised me to keep the heart, which is prone to flight, tethered to something sturdy, like that tree.
And I gesture to the silhouette outside.
The thick trunk where the robin sits motionless,
Black with the orange rays of the new sun -
Or, to something scientific, say, Newton’s Law
Or to this book.
A heart adrift on the wind may hope for clouds, sky, and stars
It may rise on the next breeze.

So, now, when the half-light reveals your eyes asking with your
outstretched and open palm
And while the ragged shadow of the bird leaving the branch crosses my face,
You need to understand

That before I met you, I was apparently loving stupidly
And, my heart stirred riskily with each updraft,
Courting emergencies, the kinds that ambulances can’t handle.

When my heart was returned to me the last time, it was
Not only broken but unwhole
The man who had mishandled it
Had kept a piece of it and tucked it in his breast pocket to carry
With his pens.

So, now, I need to explain that I can’t give you my whole heart
Partially, because I don’t have it all
And, also, because it wouldn’t be prudent.

But, please keep asking.
Because I think I can feel myself getting dumber already
And there is a soft breeze blowing in from the window.