2 Poems

no lilacs

there is an absence of something that will be

fragrance not here yet wafting not yet sweet

green means there is not purple and nothing

is not as good as the purple something lacking

here are forsythia daffodils even dandelions

sun lighting clouds breezes in treeses trying

to remember what is missing and even now

in this lack of lilacs I am thankful to remember

where looking back is looking forward to

May and may they bloom wet and heavy

and fragrant as I imagine them but not yet.

Living with the Sting

It is a sign of the advance of age to feel the impulse to give advice and to feel you

have some worth the giving, and even worse when it takes the form of a parable.

So I was trapped in my car with a hornet, nasty striped yellow jacketed variety, out

of nowhere  buzzing on my windshield, and I am  swerving to avoid oncoming

cars on a curving narrow downhill slope. A few near misses later, both with cars

and hornets, I have the wisdom to pull over and remove the buzzer stinger sharer

of my space, and the moral is that you will have bees in your bonnet,  ideas people,

problems, you can’t let go buzzing the enclosed space of your brain, you swerving

and slaloming, bouncing off the walls of your mind, but the danger is not the bee

or buzz   but your trying  to kill it    that    is going to get you killed.

David Banach is a queer philosopher and poet in New Hampshire, where he tends chickens, keeps bees, and watches the sky. You can read some of his poetry in Prairie Home, SoFloPoJo, Etymology, Mulberry Literary, and Amphibian Lit. He is editor of Touchstone, from the Poetry Society of New Hampshire.