Lisa Moore

ICE STORM

We wake, paralyzed,
branches sheathed,
teeth clenched, breaths held.
Please don't let the wind blow.
Artists run for their cameras,
write poems about us,
call us beautiful. Lovely
glittering geodes-blue, gold, rose-
We are the porcelin corpses.
We are the hair-sprayed willows,
the Sextons and Plaths,
green teardrops of rhododendra
frozen in glass, gloved fingers.
We are the the cellophaned elms.
Others are piled along the roads,
mud-splattered, twisted twigs
who simply could not bear up,
poor darlings. Beside them
we appear strong but we are
reduced to teeth and bones and jewels.
The children say we are dead.
No, we whisper
so softly they cannot hear,
but we are
the closest to it.

Lisa Moore, Poets on the Porch, 7-7-07

'TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE FUDA

with apologies to Clement Clark Moore

'Twas the night before Fuda and all through the green,
not a creature was stirring, not even a teen.
The lighters were tucked in their pockets with care
in hopes that Old Aaron soon would be there.

The boys were all snuggled at home in their beds
while visions of Fudafest danced in their heads.
They imagined the beer and the smoke they'd breathe in,
and the cool hippie women who'd show off some skin.

Sometime around noon, there arose such a clatter,
Sam rose from his bed to see what was the matter.
A Mustang sputtered and coughed and complained
like an old Rastafarian who's smoked too much Jane.

With his towel and his cell phone, and his contraband stowed,
Sam ran to the Mustang. They peeled down the road.
They drove into H-Town to fetch Brandon and Lenny,
then over to Waterford for Travis and Denny,

To Oxford! To Hebron! To Minot there they go!
To get Steve and Tony, they drive to Sebago!
Then on to West Paris to rouse Chris and Cody
with a stop at Trap Corner for donuts and sody.

As they drove, they had visions of a grand Fudafest
with Old Father Fuda in his Cypress Hill vest,
a huge bag of herb he had flung on his back,
and he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes--how they twinkled as he stood without clothes!
Naked, buck naked, from his head to his toes.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.

He had long thick dreds and a little round belly,
That shook when he danced, like a bowlful of jelly.
"Drive fast!" yelled the boys without any debate.
"We don't want to miss it or even be late!"

So they drove to South Paris to pick up another,
then over into Poland to pick up his brother.
The back road to Oxford was was rutted and bumpy,
when they reached Jason's house, they were tired and grumpy.

They pointed the Mustang toward the North Norway line.
The car was now packed and they'd spent lots of time.
When, what to their wondering eyes should appear:
the gas tank was empty as a teenage boy's beer.

They sat, disbelieving. Could the Mustang be errant?
Sam reached for his cell phone and speed dialed a parent.
While their visions of Fudafest burned into ash,
"Mom, our money is gone and we've run out of gas."

So another year passed, and the boys missed the fest.
No drinking. No smoking. They'd avoided arrest.
But they heard Aaron call, in the fog of their head,
"Happy Fuda to All! Have a root beer instead!"

Lisa Moore, Poets on the Porch, 7-7-07

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