Listening to the Gods
Did the Trojan soldiers
Guarding the shadowy feet
Of the great, tall horse and
Hearing the inevitable shift,
Of the cramped leg
Or the muffled sneeze,
Believe they heard
The muttered converse
Of the gods
Promising future glory?
They did.
Promises soon kept
When through the creaking
Trap spring dozens dealing death
And flinging wide the walls
That for ten years flung back the Grecian wave
To release the tide of fire and burn
Troy into the memory of man.
RBL, 2006
The Hospital
Death does not look like Ali McGraw
Waning delicately beneath a white sheet,
Nor weep Debra Winger-like,
Raccoon eyes streaming.
These masks are as monstrous as
The shuffling shadows in the mall of the Dead.
No, Death draws us into it,
Pulling us below the human surface
Like the flame sucked into the final ember,
As, after the quick, rich life of rain,
The desert draws its frog and seed memories
Into the sand.
RBL, 2006
The Morning After
Smoke rings catch the light
As if the grass was toking
Spiders in the night.
RBL, 2005.
A Computer Thinks on God
OffOnOffOffOffOnOnOn
StopGoStopStopGoGoGoGo
ZeroOneZeroZeroZeroOneZeroZero
NoNoFlowNoFlowFlowNoNo
DarkSparkDarkDarkSparkSparkSparkDark
NotNowNotNotNowNowNowNot
00111111
RBL, 2005
Everywhere I Look
Over there!
Over there!
Under where?
Everywhere I look
Crammed in every nook
All that I see is underwear!
Over there!
Behind there?
Stuffed in where?!
Under the bed
On your brother’s head
Stripes and greys and whites of underwear!
Over there!
Way up there?
Eww!!! In there!!!
But what is that you say?
No clean underwear today?
The drawer and hamper’s bare of underwear!
RBL -- 11/2005
Winter Crowfall
Crows fall before the wind
Great squalling black leaves
Driven mad by midwinter's howl
Will they clatter-shatter boughs
Tear out twigs and feathers
Only to be snatched aloft and flung along again?
Or creak and stick and stare
With tarbaby feathers and she-wolf glares
While the wind whips winter in
And drives the snow to these coals of Newcastle?
RBL, 2003
The Secret Life of Little Boys
Girls are different, he declared
They tell secrets.
Whose secrets?
Theirs--to each other.
Ah, but not to boys --
No.
Do boys tell secrets?
Yeah, but it's not the same.
Why?
Theirs are about who likes who
You know…Dumb stuff.
The boys' are?
No.
Do boys know who likes who?
Well yeah . . . duh!
Fer instance who likes who?
Michael likes Jennifer.
Does she like him? Yup.
How do you know?
He told me.
But that's not a secret?
No.
Where 'r you going?
Down to Kevin's.
Will you be long?
Naw, I just gotta tell him something.
Cassie likes him.
How do you know?
Jennifer told me.
But that's not a secret?
No.
Gotta go.
RBL, 2002
©Ruth Burridge Lindemann
Back to Meet the Librarian