Odds and Ends

There was an old woman from Taylor
Who read the books of Norman Mailer.
“The Naked and the Dead”
Lay on her empty bed,
But she would rather have a sailor.

* * * * *

Lonely leaf slowly
Drifting down onto the earth
With softness and pain.

* * * * *

He sits on his perch
In yellow song and flutter,
Eyes deep and coal black.

* * * * *

Sweetheart, you don’t have a wicked bone in your body:
Accept mine.

* * * * *

She’ll die in the arms of a rich man--
As she does every night.

* * * * *


Dripping icicle:
The last diminishing dirge
Of winter’s demise.

* * * * *

The trees so full of
Nothingness, utterly bare,
Yet standing upright!

* * * * *

The red leaves pay
Homage to the bare, brisk
Structures they abandon.

* * * * *

The lake
Like a pool of tears
Waiting to be
Released.

* * * * *

The lake is as smooth
As worn away dates
On a flat gravestone.

* * * * *


A mallard swims by--
His great green head
A slingshot
Target.

* * * * *
Lonesome?
Bone some.

* * * * *
March is set afire
By the spark of sunshine
Inside bare arthritic trees.

* * * * *
The sun flickers in the water
And the universe
Bleeds into its ripples.

--Boris Victor Stecko