Poem of the Week #26

How Poetry Came (after Neruda)

Poetry came to find me,
came to search me out
and shake me up.
It came to tell me
there was something to say,
and I had better say it
or spend the rest of my days
with all the unanswered
questions dangling
on the tip of my tongue.

I heard no voice,
saw no word,
felt no kiss.
There was no pole star,
no guide post;
not even a silent wind.

Did it come from winter
or river? Did it have wheels
or wings? I don’t know.
I don’t know anything
about it. I only know
it came lurching out
of the shadows,wide-eyed;
waving its white page
and stub of coal,
needing a meal
and a place to sleep.

Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #25

Ella’s Mysteries

A little girl
in a pink dress
sings and barks orders.

One minute
she is sweet
the next minute, salty.

Her dress is covered in mud.
It was touched by a dirt pig,
she says.

She says,
I’ve got a potluck.

She says,
Who likes elephants,
raise your hand!

She says,
Let’s go to my water factory.

She says,
Maybe my bed
could be a computer.


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #24

Roy G. Biv, Father of Rainbows


Roy was a bit of a rowdy in his youth on Mount

Olympus. He balked at being a lesser god, a mere device.

Years passed when color flashed only from malice, not joy. Why?

Good question, Roy. For the courage it takes to ask, a body can fly.

By and by, Roy married a nice girl from Queens and had seven children.

If ever he forgets now who he is, he need only look at the faces of his kids:

Virginia, the baby, Ignatius, Bertha, Georgina, Yolanda, Oscar, and Rinaldo.

Vast stretches of time on the mountain top have taught him that life among the

immortals is not all it’s cracked up to be. The fleeting is what lasts the longest.

But don’t hang on—not to good works, name, or keeping up with the Joneses.

Great sums of money cannot replace one’s legacy of love; this spectral gift.

Yes, and nothing makes him happier than the chirp of a small child

on a hill, late in the day, after a summer rain, breathless, calling:

Run, Daddy! Come! Quick! Don’t you see the rainbow?


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #23

The Day We Met

Music, on the day we met
cracked the earth open.
Upon our hearts we set
a promise, spoken.

The earth cracked open
and butterflies flew out.
A promise spoken
in whispers within, without.

Butterflies flew out,
leading us to meadows
whispering within. Without
each other, no tomorrow.

Leading us to meadows
where we lay our heads
upon each other. No, tomorrow,
we could easily be dead

where we lay our heads
upon the hallowed ground,
we could so easily be dead.
Leaving only sound

upon the hallowed ground.
Our hearts we set,
leaving. The only sound—
music—on the day we met.

Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #22

Zen Catechism


What day is it
when I wake up
and know less
than I knew yesterday?

Why green,
and who decided onions?
Do butterflies care
about tomorrow?

When the horizon
grows ever more distant,
am I coming to the end
or the beginning?

What reflects the moon to me
when my heart and I
return ourselves
to cherry blossoms?


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #21

Cloud Reader

Remember when you were small—
before you read words—
you taught yourself to read clouds?

You’d lie on your back
for hours and never tire
of the stories the clouds told.

There was the one about
the dragon who became
a three-legged elephant

and another about
a thin, bearded man
who chased a fat lady

so far across the sky
that they became
a herd of buffalo

and then a fish
who leapt to his last breath
from a pinky purple sea.

You thought you’d grow up
to make a living at it—
reading clouds—not knowing

that cloud reading
is a thankless task
left only to children

and dreamers. Good days
those were, when reading clouds
was your bread and butter.


Lisa Vihos

Poem of the Week #20

Machine Dream

I ride the train past fields and fallen houses
that sit together like watchdogs in the snow.
Barns lay their backs against the hills to sleep
and silos stand saluting the machine.
The train takes no heed of what they know;
runs past them like a hand

passing over weeds. I trace the lines of my hand,
familiar lines, like wood grain in an old house.
Train of people, bound by paper bags. I know
our eggshells cover the floor like snow.
We chew our yokes as one, our teeth a machine
that turns and grinds even as we sleep.

I cover my face with sleep
and let the train carry me in sure hands.
I am no match for the laws of machines
or the pipes and wires of my house.
No match for ocean, stars, or snow,
why we breathe or how we know

our purpose. Though we ought to know
the reason that we dream. Is sleep
an empty field that waits to fill with snow?
What happens if I take you by the hand
and lead you through the rooms of my house?
This journey we call love, a strange machine.

You see, the heart is also a machine:
its auto-pump always going. It knows
the soft chambers of its fleshy house.
Faithful to this sturdy muscle, I dare to sleep,
buzz like a willful beetle in a closed hand,
grope my way, a traveler blinded by snow.

We can build mountains, cover them with snow
but no one has yet invented a machine
that can duplicate the lines of my hand.
Familiar lines, laid for a train that knows
the dream, when night falls and we go to sleep
safe under blankets in houses.

Sometimes, when it snows, I gaze exhausted, and think I know
how to muscle the machine. I awake refreshed from sleep;
cup all this goodness in my hand: trains, fields, hearts, houses.

Lisa Vihos