Jon Wolston's Poetry Archive

Outside Rick’s Roadhouse
four birds in a wheel well
dodge the cold rain.

Tumalo whiteout
then down through the snowy trees—
we ski the weather.

Nuns get my poems
and send back their blessing.
If I claimed to know why
I’d only be guessing.

One possible clue
is a theme of confession.
If you’re red as a beet,
do they make a concession?

I wish they agreed
down at The New Yorker.
All I hear back from Gotham
is “This one’s a porker.”

My wife rolls her eyes
when I roll out my verse.
Instead of a blessing
I get a curse!

“You’re a big holy roller,”
she says with a grin.
“The poor sisters fall for
your sinister spin.”

She sees cloven hooves
when I tear off my sheets,
instead of iambic
pentameter feats.

Some birds stood around
under the Silverado
during the blizzard.

Their tiny ciphers,
so unwittingly impressed,
evoke quiet time.

My guitar’s feeling picked on,
my piano hammered.
In spite of the fracas
God is enamored.

I smile at my shredder
gobbling your chart,
and blush at the animus
hobbling my heart.

Its late-model choppers
cast quite a spell.
Titanium’s merciless.
Go straight to hell.

Last December
our tree man never showed.
Now with each howl
each wintry blast
a mammoth limb
menaces us all,
cradled by the living ones overhead,
just out of reach
lying in weight,
mottled,
shedding its gray bark
in death.

Disheartened I bathe
in a pool of worries

moistening my dry place
until the surface deigns

to stillness
and depth.

My poeticized zeitgeist
don’t sit well with scholars.
I roast on their spits
and rack up the dollars.

Who’s fueling who?
Who gnaws on my bones?
Who’s got my back
and who gets my koans?

In matters of gnawledge
they say go to college.
Good luck with the loans
and Professor Jones.
They’ll eat you alive
so call out their jive.

We came upon a fir lot
growing by the sea,
planted twenty years ago.
The burly man in the nursery
gave us directions.

I grew up on the other side
of that stone wall, he told us,
before the developers came in.

My uncle had some cash
and set the land aside.
Plant whatever you want he said.