Borrowings
Stitched into my brain, Dad’s favorite saying:
A job half-done is better not begun.
When I start a poem I’m only playing.
But it’s my job and I’m my father’s son.
And so my duty is to make you feel
as if the top of your head were taken off.
Anything short of that has no appeal.
To write a half-baked rhyme’s not good enough.
Is a job worth doing not worth doing badly,
the perfect not the enemy of the good?
So many questions I would have asked my dad,
but I was busy doing what I could
to garner his approval, honor the old man,
and emulate the little engine: I think I can.
The Swimmer
I undulate my body, dolphin kick,
windmill my arms to breach and dive back in.
With a flick of my fluked tail I’m dolphin;
airborne, I torque my pec-fins, flip and spin.
My podmates, wowed by my new tricks,
celebrate with whistles, squeaks and clicks.
Bobbing on sleep’s surface, drownproofing,
davening before the Wailing Wall,
I rise to clear my blowhole, stoke my lungs,
plunge into the depths of the Kabbalah.
Belly-up, spread-eagled, I embrace
the feathered pillows of the ocean-sky,
enter heaven’s rainbow-pattern gates,
see my face reflected in God’s eye.
John Whitney Steele is a psychologist, yoga teacher, assistant editor of Think: A Journal of Poetry, Fiction and Essays, and graduate of the MFA Poetry Program at Western Colorado University. His poems have been published widely in literary journals and both his chapbook, The Stones Keep Watch, and his full length collection of poetry, Shiva’s Dance, were published by Kelsay Books. John lives in Boulder, Colorado, and enjoys hiking in the mountains. You can visit his website at www.johnwhitneysteelepoet.com.
Sparks of Calliope 