May or June, 1969

The Death

As I walk through the woods
I look around;
I see something like a grave
That looks like a pound.

There are many all over
But no one cares;
As they walk through
Those will be theirs.

By Kristin Woltjen

The King

What flys high in flaming fashion
With eyes that flash but to the ground,
With no kindness, no kind of passion
The action of the King makes no sound.

He sights a mouse or something of the kind;
He follows along with streamlined wings;
He has only one thing in mind
Down there lies a meal for the King.

He goes on, he knows his work;
To some people his work is absurd.
The animal below knows not what lurks
The hawk is the one, the Kingly bird.

By Tom Woltjen

By Ann Woltjen

The People

The people go this way and that.
They are so busy they don’t know
Where they’re at
They go down-town almost all the time;
Almost all of them like lime

Lonely People

Lonely people in these lonely towns
People always in their houses
Never making sounds.
Oh I’m glad I don’t live there,
It’s really lonely though.
I live in a place where people are gay,
And really really want to stay.

Poor People

Poor people cry
Poor people die
They are so poor
I wonder why.

Everytime I see one
I try not to run.
I just look, I just stare,
Their bodies are bare
I really do care.

Everytime I pass one
I feel a funny way
As if I were to say
WHY ARE YOU SO POOR?

The Tiger

Once on a very very scary night
I heard a tiger nowhere in sight!
And then, I heard him coming closer
I was so frightened I stood as still as a poser

Then all of a sudden, I saw him jump!
I ran as fast as I could, but I tripped over a bump.
And then he got me!
He killed me so fast there was nothing to see

Runaway Wind

Run away wind
Run away wind
Why do you spoil everything, Runaway wind?

It’s as if you were going to
Keep the summer pinned.
Oh why do you do this
Runaway wind?

When the children are
Going to school, you blow their books away.
They cry and try to say
Go away, go away
Runaway wind.

1985, English class

Looking Out My Bedroom Window

My yard is three floors below by bed
If you throw a rope to my window,
I’ll climb down to you.
What Mom? Ya, I’ll get up.

When I lay on my bed,
Sometimes the sheets are cool.
So I rock my arms across them,
To seep in the coolness.

In the cold snowy winter,
I open my window for a while
And let snowflakes fly in my mouth.

Straight down, below the attic window,
Is the tin balcony
Where I pour glasses of water
On my sister’s head.

Me, Kris, Erin, Johnny
Sleep on the tin balcony
And hide from clumsy June bugs in flight
That get caught in our hair.

When we open the bathroom window,
Moths fly in that I set free off the balcony
Sometimes a sparrow swoops down
And swallows the mouth

A small wood garage out beyond the yard
Has a heavy tree leaning on it that I climb
So I can sit on the green scrapy roof
I dig my feet into, not to slide.

The tree by the garage
Branches out
And sprouts bushes of leaves
I fall into.

The giant tree in the Kullatt’s yard
Was blown down by a storm
I blew away to California
Now I want to sink my feet back into black sandy dirt
While squirrels walk on phone wires over my yard.

Through the attic window
I look out on the schoolyard.
Boys run back and forth
From the gold brick wall the to the green fence.
Johnny come back.

Cold air blows in.

Laying on the grass in a courtyard

The crow on the pole
cocks his head and peers
over the ledge at the body below
On the green grass in the
squareness
of the courtyard
my eyes journey
and settle on singular images which conjure
visions from my unconscious
At once I am under a
spider umbrella that seems
to fold its tattered arms in
a circle that surrounds
my senses
With my eyes I can be
out of the body,
company with the lone
squirrel which stares at
me, waiting for my threat
to its sojourn

The Beach at Lunt street

I go there on instinct.
Its four blocks from my house,
and a long wait at Sheridan road
for the light to go green.
I have a spot I go to
by a rusty iron breaker that goes into the water.
I sit down next to the iron breaker,
on stones
that form a slope down to the lake water.
One one side of the breaker is deep water.
I hold the iron firmly and lean over the edge,
to watch the waves lap up
almost splashing me.
I look down through the green water
and feel an ache in my stomach
to think of the silence and depth of the water.
If I wade out to my knes and stand still,
fish come to my legs and touch me with their mouths.
But my greatest passion of all,
when I go to the lake,
is to dig my hands into the stones
and find fossil crinoids.
I fill the pockets of my jacket with them.
It warms my heart to possess them.

Retarded Boy

He burst in like someone had pushed him
and laid out his hands
palm upward before Janan.
She giggled a stifled laugh,
left over from her childhood
an overused response, penalty
of her immature femininity.
The retarded boy didn't know
that he had broken the rules.
He had committed a natural act.
His palms and fingers
that overly lingered in
a bag of barbecued potato chips
were orange and messy.

He saw a woman, a human
who might help to clean
his sticky orange fingers.
He didn't see what a more intelligent being
would see.
Given more intelligence,
he would see an office with space
that was off limits
with resources that were not to be shared
with humans who could not be approached.
Intelligence has us conform to such alienation.
Maybe this retarded boy is blessed in a sense
to not have to intellectually cope with
such insanity of rules.

Playing Hooky

The sidewalk was long.
We tripped down it,
sideways and backways.
We threw colored words in the air,
and they got blown away by the wind
from off the lake.

A voice deep and round,
came barreling down
the sidewalk.
And fell upon us,
striking like a bell,
inside me.

Down the long sidewalk,
was my Dad.
In a suit and tie,
standing still,
like my heart.

The Spider

It will come
said the spider
just wait.
How long? said the other spider
Till the web shakes
Then you move fast
you do what's right
wrap it in silk
don't let it fight
If your web is too big
it might let a
good morsel through
Unless
Unless you keep all the
threads sticky
Quite a job
But not for one as
sprite as you.

The Dragonfly

The Medusa Dragonfly
Sinister as a Spy
Sees the World so Insectacled
through its Rose colored spectacles

The Tiger and the Lamb

Hot rains fall on leaves,
where mist hides the trees.
Then the tiger may rest,
when no scent lays upon the air.
The little lam of the same earth,
follows a wandering path,
but keeps close to its flock,
for reassurance.
The tiger knows the smell of blood,
as well as the stillness of a pose,
in wait.
The lamb knows the curve of the hill,
the feel of dew on tiny leaves of clover.
Did the same hands that made the lamb,
make the tiger?
Did he smile to see the one so fearful?
His creation.
In the forest, in the night,
the tiger hunts,
while the lamb sleeps
in the vale.

Rusbeltino

Tino has eyes
that are sad
a smile that is wide
his hands are rough
his body is soft,
like his kiss.
He drives a white van
and while he drives
on a road divided
two-way, narrow, dangerous
cars come close enough
to touch
he finds my lips
for an instant
the road is not watched
Strong is his desire
for a kiss.

Professor Cohn the zoology teacher

Consuming artful zest
ignites spirits of life
Exclamations of appreciation
zapping, stinging
illuminate the beauty of nature
A beacon that signals
Open your eyes
Invades your senses with light
Here before you are wonders
that enchantthe imagination
The revelations escape some
dog-eyed students
Other newborns are swept along by
an unerring consistency of amazement
The understated authority of a prince
small arsenal of quips
and eye glances that shoot darts.

My Tongue

On my tongue is a language
of this world
I use it to tell people
anything I want
But it will not move
unless a person listens.

When I have an ear
that is open and
leaning forward
then my tongue
can go to many places
unabashed and
it will invent,
recapture, define,
explain. It runs
free and unrolls
like so much paper
from a ticker tape
machine.

Some words I say,
know more than I do
and they take me places.
When I am silent,
words inside me grow too large
and are too heavy to carry.

Cars

Those metal boxes which I must surrender to provoke my meanest growl
No pleasant silence may I enjoy while these hard nosed bullies parade down every lane
This grand sphere has been unrelentlessly, inexhaustibly criss-crossed with tar and cement
So that four wheels supporting a hung of metal junk may roll along
We plunge deep into this sphere and harvest unripe resistant spoils
to feed these machines
This piracy will die a slow and stubborn death
Then the flat smooth by-ways will buckle and crack
undulate until they again conspire with the Earth's motion
Holes will mar the even tar
lines will crease the spots of grease
Folding, rolling, splitting, chipping to pieces with you to pieces
will go this belt buckle strapped around the sphere
And the earth will eat you up.
Gobble you, chomp you, crumble you to rocks and pebbles.
Fly you into the air and melt you in vaults of incessant fire
And then throw you up out of one of her growling peaks
and I'll watch as you roll down that bumpy mountain
And I will smile so wide that my nose wrinkles and my fangs show
For I am the wicked weed that delights in a chaotic path
As much as I delight in peace.

Lame Deer laying

The wind winds by with the scent of horsemint
A clang of metal hoof sending sparks
Looking around to see
An Elk dreamer
The flute song echos off the clouds
Drawing closer and closer
The does are restless and charmed

2014

Balsam Poplar


Calling it now
black cottonwood
or populus trichocarpa
(greek – tricho is hair, carpa is fruit)
The Tallest Tree       in the West
apart from the         trees with needles

The upside down green spade           shiny, flat and flowing
in the thousands             on the branches
sprouting from             the tree trunk

it waves
in
the
sky wind
softly
like the
cool breeze
of
Waterman's
eyes
the sweet smell
of the leaves
fills
the air
with cool
shade and balsam

2010

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