QUIET SPACES

There are quiet spaces,

snow-covered fields without footprints,

deep forests without bird songs or wind sighs,

empty nests, architectural nooks, or

a creek’s lazy flow that soothes a finger’s touch.

Once the drive-in picture show shuts down and

speakers are set back on their stands;

once windows are steamed and fogged,

all eagle eyes, tied to motion, turn inward,

where words tumble around in vacuous spaces,

collide and connect, create symbols and metaphors.

Yet, there are quiet spaces,

at the end of a book or a song,

after a sunset’s burst of light,

before a storm breaks on the horizon,

where words evaporate and music is silence,

where time stands still and waits. 

©cmheuer, January, 2018

COUNTDOWN

Ten seconds are but a brief measure of time

to end the year with crystal balls and fireworks,

for merry-making crowds awash in winter’s cold,

their fortune-teller omens drowned out by noisemakers,

as the year’s boundary reaches a hair’s breadth away.

The rise in fever pitch slows down the descent,

flashes meteoric memories behind the eyes,

blinds any view beyond star-struck gazes,

as dinosaurs must have stared

before the K-T boundary was laid. 

The countdown gets closer to one,

the doomsday clock looms above the bacchanal,

unseen, it beats out a metric drum roll,

unheard by multitudes who believe in and

count down to

tomorrow.

© cmheuer, 2017

COLD WINDS

Cold winds sweep away fallen leaves and pine needles;

Make trees shiver and shake off loose foliage;

Enfeeble the last of the flower stalks.

Cold, gusty, air webs drop flies to the ground,

Send lady bugs scrambling for the south side,

Kill wasp colonies, and starve their queens.

Cold winds search and destroy;

Find and erase any trace of summer’s blush;                                               

Wield harsh sentences and slip away.

Cold winds plant headlines in the fields;

Grow minus signs, sharp thorns, and tears;

Harvest seeds of bad humor and knitted brows.

Cold winds make heads burrow in scarves and collars;

Hide hands and faces from winter suns and moons.

Cold winds skim the water and freeze into ashen waves.

© cmheuer, 2017  

WITCHES’ BREWS AND PUMPKIN SPICES

(This is just a light-hearted piece for Halloween.  It is supposed to be funny.)

Witches’ brews and pumpkin spices;

Costumes, masks, and black cat arches;

William’s ghosts and Haitian zombies;

Vampire teeth and dancing bones. 

They glide through fallen leaves and branches;

Breathe out cold air and diabolic vapors;

Gather into mobs on sidewalks and lawns;

Shriek from broomsticks and dark corners.

They knock on windows and front doors;

Haunt the night with evil howls and scary faces;

Sound like screeching owls and clanking chains;

As frightful as foul ghouls and screaming banshees.

Jack-o-lanterns stand and face them;

Stave off the fiends with scowls and indignation;

Light the night with candle glare and flickers;

Give the fiends an evil eye and carved-out snickers.

In retreat, the mischief makers and hell hounds

Leave tissue on quaking trees and bushes;

Curl back into a rising dawn and setting moon;

Disappear into faint shadows and fading gloom.

©cmheuer, 2017

NIGHT OF THUNDER

After the rapid-fire, flashing light gushes through the windows,

Olympic drums shake the double-hung frames like rattles;

Pound on the walls as if they were doors.

There is no sleep during the brute force of electric rage,

Insatiable and relentless, incessant, recurrent light and sound

Steal the darkness and the silence.

Even as the fierce wrath grows faint and moves away,

Another round appears to cancel the night,

To reassert the meteoric flames, shrieks, and howls.

While the window flickers like an old movie projector

With floods and winds that drown, with fires that burn,

With earthquakes that crush and trap, and

With guns that mow down crowds.

©cmheuer, October, 2017

ZEROS AND ONES

Zeros and ones swarm outside their overcrowded hives.

Some can be found in tree branches;

their humdrum buzz carried away on the wind.

Some can be found in the open eaves of old houses;

their telltale drone passing through attic doors.

Some can be found in old books and newspapers,

broadcast live on large and small screens, or

recorded on discs and hurled into space.

Some cluster in restless minds;

set upon ears like ringing bells

or summer-night insect cries.

Zeros and ones flood river banks and ocean beaches;

surge over flood-gates, dams, walls, and barriers;

seep under doors and through broken windows;

soak all porous things and rust away thin metals. 

Some travel in air waves;

Others make their way along cables and wires.

Some cover mountains, ridges, and trenches like

ocean waters rising higher and higher.

Some pour into restless minds;

Paint scenes of day and night

with bold electrical strokes of lightning hues and dark shadows.

Zeros and ones scramble messages, turn into static,

break apart and scatter into seeds like scraps of an alphabet.

Some divide themselves into two bits

where there was one bit and divide again.

Multitudes of them sing, vibrate like strings;

cover old nouns, blank pages, and hollow spaces.

Some gild all surfaces with gold leaf;

trap and suffocate with thin non-porous shells.

Some coat restless minds. 

Day by day, honey combs ooze zeros and ones.

Colony collapse disorder prevails.  Bees die off. 

©cmheuer, 9/2017

GRASSHOPPERS

Catching grasshoppers was my chore on

Sunday afternoon fishing trips.

Tobacco juice, my father called it,

When I held out my stained fingers and grimaced,

Because I thought the brown liquid was grasshopper guts.

He smiled and took the green-brown insect from my hands,

Speared it with a hook and threw it into the shallow water of

The Little Pond, the red and white bobber floating

Without moving on that August, windless day because

Rainwater ponds don’t have currents until

Frogs, fish, or storms break the surface.

I went back to work, walked about the hay field;

Watched the grasshoppers’ high, broad jumps;

Watched to see where they landed in the tall grass,

Tried to catch another one in the palms of my hands;

My eyes strained against the glare of the sun,

Strained against the insects’ camouflage,

Strained to see the slightest motion in the grass.

Not knowing that tobacco juice is a defense,

Not knowing they wait for nine months to hatch,

Not knowing they can catapult into the air, but

Thinking that they could jump farther than I could ever reach.

© cmheuer, 2017