Gum-ball Jump*
Racing to the gumball machine
it came crashing down
its glass dome cracked
like Humpty Dumpty
spilling four pounds of rainbow
brains, red yellow orange green
black and white stampeding
down the sidewalk,
cascading off the curb,
guttering down the street,
as a couchant girl
parts her pink lips
corralling a mouthful.
Chasing the waterfalling balls
into the street
my mother lifts a hand
to her mouth
the penny in my hand
unspent.
*a buffalo jump is a cliff used by North American Indians to slaughter bison in large quantities
~
Pruning the Synapses
My crazed friend parks himself
on the Seal Beach pier
arm around the neck
of the life-sized sculpture
of a seal. Bronzed by association,
he yearns for acceptance.
Like my orange tree
whose fragrant blossoms
carpet the garden
in a crushed white velour
that scents my bare feet,
it’s about shunting aside abundance
so the few survive to fruit.
The synapses
assigned to clean his house
took out the trash too often
leaving his cupboard bare
a schizoid
with no fruit to spare.
~
Ounce for Ounce
did you know
ounce for ounce
hummingbirds are the most aggressive
animals on earth
they will attack beetles butterflies birds
anyone who enters their territory
locked in mortal combat with other hummingbirds
they will tailspin to the ground
from great heights
I am told they are curious about people
napping in a hammock
I wake often to their wings
fanning my face
while they study me
what if they are secretly planning
to attack
diving their needle-sharp beaks
into my eye
my hammock spinning me blinded
into the ground
~
Roger Camp lives in Seal Beach, CA where he tends his orchids, walks the pier and plays blues piano. His work has appeared in Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Gulf Coast, Southern Poetry Review and Nimrod.