holding out at the window

she was there
when it had come down

to doing nothing but

keeping watch as

shadows stalked shadows

across an empty yard
until they dissolved like ice

in gin and all she wished

was to feel,

just once,

as light as she imagined

her ashes would someday be
straining to locate

jasmine and rose somewhere 

in the bluish grey 

as twilight conned the eye

with its monochromatic palette
holding out 

           though nearly convinced 

they’d never

existed at all
(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead 

out here

where
rain does

what rain does best
I’m not content 

to let mere cleansing

be enough
drowning upright or 

nearly so seems better

in understanding the process
so I let

torrents beat twitching 

lids of eyes
& storms fill 

      hollows where

neck meets clavicle 
I will stay

until wracked with spasms

    – fighting to stand
stay

until the deluge moves on

only then
can it

be determined

what, if anything,

has been washed away
(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead 

a glancing question

it came like a gnat

momentarily bothersome

briefly distracting
this:
would I be inhaling October

and pulling the last of the carrots if Goliath had ducked?
leaving a prospective King

to stare at his sling like

it was as faulty as his faith
I suppose it possible

– if a distant grandfather

held a membership card in

that particular tribe

as was fleet foot enough

to lead the retreat

to find a nice girl waiting

for him

in some backwater

far from the troubles
or it could be that

I came from

the guy who helped

the lumbering goon to the challenge

feeding him lines written

to intimidate and promising

a substantial raise in pay

if he waved his sword

convincingly and

the whole shindig

came down in their favor
I swatted it away

mostly because
getting to answers

for questions such as this

is not not unlike

trying to hit a knuckleball

in a windstorm
and besides

there were tomato cages

to nest together and lean

against the back of the garage

next to the bamboo sticks

and rolls of rabbit fence

corn stalks to pull and stack

a hedgerow to whip into

an acceptable shape
and of course

horse shit

to spread
if history teaches us anything

there is

always

that
(c) 2015 Fred Whitehead