Uncle Mike's Favorite Short Poems: Collection Five

Uncle Mike's Favorites

Collections of Short Poems
Collection #5
Female Poets from the West Coast USA

Cellphone Poetry Series II

Compiled by

Michael P. Garofalo

Female Poets from the West Coast USA
Short poems by Maya Angelou,
Helen Hunt Jackson, Ethel Romig Fuller,
Hazel Hall, Elizabeth Woody,
Marilyn Chin, Rena Priest, etc.
Uncle Mike's Cellphone Poetry Series 2

"I have known hours built like cities,
House on grey house, with streets between
That lead to straggling roads and trail off,
Forgotten in a field of green;

Hours made like mountains lifting
White crests out of the fog and rain,
And woven of forbidden music—
Hours eternal in their pain.

Life is a tapestry of hours
Forever mellowing in tone,
Where all things blend, even the longing
For hours I have never known."
- Hazel Hall, Hours

"A salmonberry is a
luminous spiral,
a golden basket,
woven of sunshine,
water, and birdsong.

I’m told that the birds
sing so sweet because
of all the berries they eat
and that is how you
can have a sweet voice too.

In my Native language,
the word for salmonberry
is—Alile’. In Sanskrit— Lila means
‘God plays.' Salmonberries
sometimes look that way.

Every year, they debut,
spectacular in the landscape,
worthy of their genus name:
Rubus Spectabilis, meaning,
red sight worth seeing.

Each drupelet holds a seed
and the shimmering secret
kept by rain, of how to rise,
float above the earth, feel
the sun, and return."
- Rena Priest, Tour of a Salmonberry

"I am less of myself and more of the sun;
The beat of life is wearing me
To an incomplete oblivion,
Yet not to the certain dignity
Of death. They cannot even die
Who have not lived.

The hungry jaws
Of space snap at my unlearned eye,
And time tears in my flesh like claws.

If I am not life’s, if I am not death’s,
Out of chaos I must re-reap
The burden of untasted breaths.
Who has not waked may not yet sleep."
- Hazel Hall, Flash

"O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know'st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds thee to a heart which does not beat,
Wraps thee in ice, and gives no smile, no kiss,
To break long wintry days, still dost thou miss
Naught from thy trust? Still wait, unfaltering,
The higher, warmer waves which leap in spring?
O sweet, wise shore, to be so satisfied!
O heart, learn from the shore! Love has a tide!"
- Helen Hunt Jackson, Tides

"It's not summer, but autumn
running its bony fingers up my legs.
And the leaves falling on my hair?

A blessed-be crown for the pagan goddess
I didn't want to become.

Today, I would much rather be indoors
shopping at Saks for a long wool dress,
Donna Karan tights in forest green.

But nature has played its spirituality card
and I slip beneath maple trees,
sort out litter from leaves.

Sparrows sing, while I consider shades
of blush: Shallow Pink, Red Doubt,
Anxiety in Champagne Pink.

Sometimes I want not just happiness,
but the light blue box it arrived in
—Bleeding Heart nailpolish,
diamond rosary wrapped around

my cellphone—and I'm connected
without sacrifice, I view the field
without having to get my feet wet
in the dew-filled wildflowers below.

But where is my life?
I wander through it in new leather boots,
crushing the ladyslippers in my path.

When I come to a black bear munching
on berries to fatten up for winter, I pause.

We see each other
like two shoppers at the same sale rack,
each rummaging through, trying to find
what we think we need to fill us up."
- kelli agodon, Hike to God's Point

"Along Ancona's hills the shimmering heat,
A tropic tide of air with ebb and flow
Bathes all the fields of wheat until they glow
Like flashing seas of green, which toss and beat
Around the vines. The poppies lithe and fleet
Seem running, fiery torchmen, to and fro
To mark the shore.
The farmer does not know
That they are there. He walks with heavy feet,
Counting the bread and wine by autumn's gain,
But I,--I smile to think that days remain
Perhaps to me in which, through bread be sweet
No more, and red wine warm my blood in vain,
I shall be glad remembering how the fleet,
Lithe poppies ran like torchmen with the wheat."
- Helen Hunt Jackson, Poppies on the Wheat

"I have spread wet linen
On lavender bushes,
I have swept rose petals
From a garden walk.
I have labeled jars of raspberry jam,
I have baked a sunshine cake;
I have embroidered a yellow duck
On a small blue frock.
I have polished andirons,
Dusted the highboy,
Cut sweet peas for a black bowl,
Wound the tall clock,
Pleated a lace ruffle . . .
To-day
I have lived a poem.

I have spread wet linen
On lavender bushes,
I have swept rose petals
From a garden walk.
I have labeled jars of raspberry jam,
I have baked a sunshine cake;
I have embroidered a yellow duck
On a small blue frock.
I have polished andirons,
Dusted the highboy,
Cut sweet peas for a black bowl,
Wound the tall clock,
Pleated a lace ruffle . . .
To-day
I have lived a poem."
- Ethel Romig Fuller, Today

"Armed of the gods! Divinest conqueror!
What soundless hosts are thine! Nor pomp, nor state,
Nor token, to betray where thou dost wait.
All Nature stands, for thee, ambassador;
Her forces all thy serfs, for peace or war.
greatest and least alike, thou rul'st their fate,--
The avalanche chained until its century's date,
The mulberry leaf made robe for emperor!
Shall man alone thy law deny? --refuse
Thy healing for his blunders and his sins?
Oh, make us thine! Teach us who waits best sues;
Who longest waits of all most surely wins.
When Time is spent, Eternity begins.
To doubt, to chafe, to haste, doth God accuse."
- Helen Hunt Jackson, The Victory of Patience