30 Days: "Suburban Myths" by Scott Rhoades

Because April is also National Poetry Month, I'm going to post some poems from my yellowing chapbook, "Suburban Myths."

The Jar

       jar beneath
           broken
     floor of
      a school
              house in
       the Santa
    Lucias
       show and
                tell
        treasure
    discarded to make
        space for new
   grammars
            all boys
              chase
        lizards few catch
    a two
          headed blue
     belly

--Scott Rhoades


The Song

Listen to children
cries, laughs
sneezes, endless
questions, the
'Da" of an infant

Their song the breath
that catches trees
turns Earth like a
tri-colored pinwheel
made of foil

--Scott Rhoades


Wood That I Could
(for Kevin who can)

I tried to carve
animals like the
ivory whales and seals
at Juan's house
Cub Scout knife
bit too deep
blue whale became
brontosaurus
stallion
mouse
the world's greatest letter opener
Dad's pencil can
stuffed with a zoo of
sharpened sticks
supposed to be elephants
Not so Kevin
for Christmas Mom got
a plant stand shaped
like a spiral staircase
to guide Creeping Charlie
toward the Wandering Jew
I gave her a toaster

--Scott Rhoades


Ardenwood

Us kids passed that grove on Jarvis
eucalyptus stretched to Union City
trunks striped with peeling bark
the odor of Dad's cough drops

Deer fox rabbit coyote
Pat heard there were bears
they like eucalyptus he said
a farmhouse, deserted, rotting
haunted or a home for gangsters
Juan said. We laughed stayed away

Now I follow signs
Patterson's farm a regional park
railroad station slash general store
sells candy and permission to enter
the restored Victorian mansion

Upstairs a curtain moves
coyote shadows stalk the woods
white stag treats its throat
with eucalyptus, looks
at me with eyes like mine
I leave the trail, enter Ardenwood.

--Scott Rhoades