A Wretch Like Me
From the porch I attend a funeral
in the field in front of the cabin
An open casket with thick rope handles, pine
The dust-to-dust kind
with no metal, plastic or satin lining
Displayed under a madrona tree that has lived
longer than the woman in the coffin
Yet she hovers as host
in her written words read by proxy
In the "Amazing Grace" prayer a bagpipe
sends through air so ocean water dense
it can easily float a soul
The sound echoing through the hills sweet
as dried vanilla scent of last season's clover
She must be struggling to open her eyes
Dispirited by the Olympic Mountain shadow
Cadaver grey that robs the madrona's red glow
Too early for the ten thousand year halo
of summer sunlight to transform its bark
of eczema blotches to fiery brilliance
Today she must look elsewhere
for the grace required to ascend
I offer an invocation that she
can see through squint
the pink of flowering plums
The flock of swallows keeping vigil
from the power line over the nest
under the cabin's eave
That she can smell the balm of lilac
Its purple salvation
Haiku Sequence
On Pacific coast
shark shaped rocks protrude from sand
High tide encircles
September high tide
swallows yesterday’s debris
Footprints disappear
One Night Stand
Twenty six miles of insulation
from Los Angeles insanity
lies Santa Catalina island
Ocean mountain merged
in a past paradise
Where people drive
golf carts instead of cars
And mail isn't delivered by either
Where economy is the shape
of sightseers brought by boats
I arrive spent from deadlines
Energy fogged over
and solar lifeline depleted
European atmosphere envelopes me
with back-to-belly bodies
But populations of poppies
fish, fowl, unpredatored cats
and outback buffalo
lure me away from
the tourist tug of war
I lodge with Zane Grey
my idol-author ghost
in the cactus-covered hillside haven
To lie in literary lust
at his Pueblo Hotel panacea
Ride the purple sage
Discover desert gold
Spark my wildfire spirit
in one sleepless night
Like a quickie with
an accomplished lover
Catalina will shadow my trails
on the next sunlit day
Ellaraine Lockie is widely published and awarded as a poet, nonfiction book author and essayist. Her fourteenth chapbook, Sex and Other Slapsticks, was recently released from Presa Press. Earlier collections have won Poetry Forum’s Chapbook Contest Prize, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Chapbook Competition, Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest, Best Individual Poetry Collection Award from Purple Patch magazine in England, and The Aurorean’s Chapbook Choice Award. She also teaches writing workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, LILIPOH.
From the porch I attend a funeral
in the field in front of the cabin
An open casket with thick rope handles, pine
The dust-to-dust kind
with no metal, plastic or satin lining
Displayed under a madrona tree that has lived
longer than the woman in the coffin
Yet she hovers as host
in her written words read by proxy
In the "Amazing Grace" prayer a bagpipe
sends through air so ocean water dense
it can easily float a soul
The sound echoing through the hills sweet
as dried vanilla scent of last season's clover
She must be struggling to open her eyes
Dispirited by the Olympic Mountain shadow
Cadaver grey that robs the madrona's red glow
Too early for the ten thousand year halo
of summer sunlight to transform its bark
of eczema blotches to fiery brilliance
Today she must look elsewhere
for the grace required to ascend
I offer an invocation that she
can see through squint
the pink of flowering plums
The flock of swallows keeping vigil
from the power line over the nest
under the cabin's eave
That she can smell the balm of lilac
Its purple salvation
Haiku Sequence
On Pacific coast
shark shaped rocks protrude from sand
High tide encircles
September high tide
swallows yesterday’s debris
Footprints disappear
One Night Stand
Twenty six miles of insulation
from Los Angeles insanity
lies Santa Catalina island
Ocean mountain merged
in a past paradise
Where people drive
golf carts instead of cars
And mail isn't delivered by either
Where economy is the shape
of sightseers brought by boats
I arrive spent from deadlines
Energy fogged over
and solar lifeline depleted
European atmosphere envelopes me
with back-to-belly bodies
But populations of poppies
fish, fowl, unpredatored cats
and outback buffalo
lure me away from
the tourist tug of war
I lodge with Zane Grey
my idol-author ghost
in the cactus-covered hillside haven
To lie in literary lust
at his Pueblo Hotel panacea
Ride the purple sage
Discover desert gold
Spark my wildfire spirit
in one sleepless night
Like a quickie with
an accomplished lover
Catalina will shadow my trails
on the next sunlit day
Ellaraine Lockie is widely published and awarded as a poet, nonfiction book author and essayist. Her fourteenth chapbook, Sex and Other Slapsticks, was recently released from Presa Press. Earlier collections have won Poetry Forum’s Chapbook Contest Prize, San Gabriel Valley Poetry Festival Chapbook Competition, Encircle Publications Chapbook Contest, Best Individual Poetry Collection Award from Purple Patch magazine in England, and The Aurorean’s Chapbook Choice Award. She also teaches writing workshops and serves as Poetry Editor for the lifestyles magazine, LILIPOH.