Denee Barr

Four Spring Poems

“April is the cruellest month
…mixing memory and desire…” T.S. Eliot

“'Til April in Paris…
What have you done to my heart?” Vernon Duke and E. Y. Harburg

“Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote…”
Geoffrey Chaucer


By Now
By now, I’ve learned this much:
You can look—but don’t touch.

Does this extend to you and you?
Saw a chance, dropped the cover?

Snake, adder, Mad Hatter, and such--
All our brilliant would-be lovers!

Withdraw those snail feelers
So they neither feel nor touch.

You harden the fragile shell
So all’s well and love’s not much.

You look and look, and look--
But don’t touch.

4.13.10 revised


Four Haiku (Based on Prevention Magazine ad, 2010)

one

Spiritual, no!
"I lost half my body weight"
and feel the same way.

two

Taking down the gut
but keeping the breasts intact--
a tall order, yes?

three

South Beach is the best!
Two weeks away from all carbs.
I still want to drink.

four

Zen seems to fit now.
Spirituality, yes!
Thinner, still alone.

4.15.10


Nightmares
We woke, beyond words,
but short of love, reminders
of how it goes, or went,
how seams drawn close to meet,
can often fray:

With you gone,
the day's old rhythm returns,
a predictable pattern
of easy frustrations
and benign voids.

You might even applaud
this tight demeanor I keep!
Then, at night,
Somewhere between
the small familiar horrors--
I sleep.

1974


The Archeologists

Remember how
we scavenged the cliffs
for relics of yesterday,
how green we were
to coming back at all?

It was when
we were used to finding something,
unused to needing anything
that would re-assure us
we had really come—
howsoever small.

I remember how this one day began,
our calm search of the hill,
growing faster as it pulled us
to our knees
and the returns were nil.

We looked at each other,
then held on, as to a ledge,
but only slightly hurt.
And now, as I recall,
the moment we resisted most,
we took the longest fall.

c. 1977
Camilla will return in a week.
She said OK.
Kay Weeks