Short Slaking Poems

We used to travel to the beach,
Fish and chip shops in our reach,
Fish so fresh and flaking,
Fanta orange our thirst slaking,
In newspaper, chips were wrapped,
Bayside trips, us kids were rapt!...

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Croissant making
Bread baking
Yeast slaking
Crust caking
Bread

Potato
Pumpernickel
Whole wheat
Enriched white
Bread

The smell of it
You will have a fit
Fresh from the oven
Your Grandma’s apron
Your mother’s way of buttering it
There is nothing more heavenly-tasting in the world.
Bread!...

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Those motel memories return.
The colored comic pages opened first
And water bubbling in an urn
And powdered coffee slaking my communion thirst.

Montana windswept plains outside.
Stark desolation’s existential rites within.
But earth I’ve trekked since then rolls wide:
And prayer, not newsprint, now assuages sin....

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calendar pages in the wind
super eight (up) memories
     whispering in
   thundering silence
reminding

time for counting tree rings
remembering

there is a time and countenance

i hear a timeclock taking
tocking ticking taking
     slaking
a thirst in sand

in time to measure shadows
remebering

there is a time and consequence...

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have you ever
wondered what life
could be if you
never had to sweep
another hardwood floor?
never had to fold
another fitted sheet?

i had a dream
where i was
a carrot; wrapped 
in loamy love,
green leaves slaking
their thirst on sunlight.
i don't wonder anymore

when i close my human
eyes, earth worms tickle
my orange stomach,
& i laugh my new
vegetable laugh....

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She walks like a traveller in her home 
a once familiar thing, lost to her
And bright-eyed watches the same night sky 
that demonstrates new things to her,
orchestrating new patterns for her in the stars to find 
and paving beams of light across leaves 
that were strewn for her
by the dawn wind slaking the limbs of her own trees
for whatever thing lost that still is,
She searches the dust from her own feet 
that she's brought from another land in a dream...

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The gurgling stream,

leading a straggling line

of cattails

down into the valley

to circle our sleeping village 

nourishing bright slashes of

golden rod

slaking the thirst of ponies

shaking out their manes

in moonlight

tickling the toes of wild children

splashing in the shallows

dousing out the dying embers

of the last campfire

carressing the form

of a maiden 

swimming at midnight

out to meet a warrior

in a white canoe....

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I spent days like this before
You made a difference at age three
Coming in the room
Directly to climb my knee.
It is my best hour of memory
When sunset sinks my shadow
Into the deep sea of salt loneliness.
Besides what I give away
I knew birth had no time special
To celebrate bundled clay
I was always bereft of loyal minds
Who cared to say what you said
Again today - your gift of ritual
Cannot make the bland the first
Slaking of a father's thirst;
Thanks anyway - I love you more....

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