PAD 30 Disappear

I saw a whale!

What? We don’t see it.

I’m not a kook.

T’was just a fluke.

PAD 29 commercial

Good God (It’s Alive!) Lobster

On Tongass Avenue

In a blue and white shop,

We sell specialty foods.

You won’t regret the stop.

Salmon (fresh, smoked or canned):

Sockeye, silver or king,

Lobsters, oysters, mussels,

Clams and crabs —just the thing!

Or go wild! Buffalo,

Venison, caribou,

Musk ox, wild boar, elk, and

Antelope—just for you!

Abalone, rock fish,

Halibut, scallops, cod,

Red snapper, prawn and shrimp—

Online or at Good God.

Day 28 Bird

The Bufflehead

The Buffleheads bob in the bay

Male black and white, female brown/gray

Compact ducks submerge to catch food  

Large, rounded heads and short, wide bills

Noted for their fine mating skills

Males swim in front as if they’re rude   

Nodding their heads like no control

Like to nest in woodpecker hole

Fly rapidly as if pursued 

PAD 27 Local

Ketchikan, Alaska

There are no roads to Ketchikan

of Revillagigedo Island,

the first city in Alaska.

We venture out by skiffs and ferries.  

The airport lies across the Narrows.

The dock seams the ocean

to the small town crawling up the hill.

Ketchikan Creek flows through

making houses on stilts look like women

holding up their long skirts in a flood.

We’re still the salmon capital of the world,  

but we no longer log the Tongass Forest.

The Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian live here.

We have more totem poles than most

and tourists toting cameras.

The Misty Fjords National Monument beckons.

We have a moderate climate

and you won’t find polar bears.

Yep, (silly) we take American currency,

and keep the change.

PAD 26 Free

Freedom to Eat

Bald eagle’s wings spanned

Beak down, feathers fanned

Talons out, approaches sea

Catches glimpse of swish

Swoops and captures fish

Eating—part of being free

PAD 25 Remix of earlier poem

Misty Fjords, Ketchikan

Gray sea breathes

High cliffs hide in mist

Falls form stripes

Whales emerge

Seals lounge lazily on land

Eagles nest in pines

PAD 24 quotes, Poetic Bloomings Thankfulness

Sharing

Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white’. Bing Crosby

If all my blessings were snowflakes,

I’d build a family of snow people,

set them around a dinner table

and give them long wooden spoons,

and the only way they’d be able to eat,

would be to feed each other.

(Long spoon allegory from Rabbi Haim of Romshishok)

PAD 23 I Shouldn't Be Here

I Shouldn't Be Here

(fiction)

I ran from my past.

But it followed me.

I build.

It tears down.

I connect.

It disconnects.

I take one step forward.

It pushes me back three.

I shouldn't be here,

with my past.

I’d like to run.

But where?

I've got to face my past head on,

so I’m free to step into my future.

PAD 22 Wordle: selfie, casket, ideogram, wretch, remora, eclipse

Funeral Selfie

(fiction)

The selfie of me

standing by his casket

served as an ideogram

for what a wretch I am,

practically a remora—

along for the ride

and fed by his scraps,

his life eclipsing mine.

No more. 

PAD 21 secret message

Suspect and Plan (double acrostic)

(fiction)

I

S  ee who you are now. The data

A rtistically hidden in your text may seem

A mazingly like drivel from a simpleton’s mind filled with fog,

C areless ramblings, but they were too

G raphic, too organized. I

R ealized none too soon,

O ver a long time really, that this was all a big

V icious set up from a wounded heart,

E rroneously implicating me. I’m so

S orry that you feel that way, but I will be much better

O ff without you.

N ow, this has stopped being fun.

PAD 20 Always blank, Poetic Bloomings Ae freslighe

Always Gold in Ketchikan

Always gold in Ketchikan

But not the kind that glitters

Help me out and fetch a pan

I’ll fry up apple fritters

The salmon is delicious

The shrimp scampi will enthrall

And scrumptious baked quail dishes

You must try them one and all

PAD 19 love

More Questions

I respect you and ask you questions.

I admire you and sing your praises.

You follow me around like a puppy dog.

I feel loved, but do you really love me?

Or do you just love the way I love you? 

PAD 18 Forget what I said

A Nice Place to Visit

Forget what I said about Ketchikan.

With mountains, forests, sea, it’s beautiful,

but rain pours nearly every day, and the sky

turns into a cranky old grandpa, gray and growly.

If your temper reflects the weather...

PAD 17 element, Poetic Bloomings Personification

Au

Like a carrot dangling 

before a donkey’s nose

I led men unaware

the value lay

in the mountains,

the forest,

the sea

themselves.

PAD 16 half way

Like the Duke of York

The tour guide in Ketchikan
A smart and friendly man
He hiked us to the top of Deer Mountain
Then he hiked us down again
And when we were only half-way up,
We were neither up nor down.
But we took lots of pictures.

PAD 15 What Blank

What’s Concealed in Ketchikan?

What’s veiled by the rain?

What’s hidden by the mist?

What moves in the depths?

What’s secreted in old attics?

What lurks in the rain forest?

What’s waiting in the mountains?

What message lies in totem poles?

What’s in the past haunting the present?

PAD 14 Exploration

Chase Ketchikan

Chase Ketchikan until it catches you

Unlike the harsh Alaska you may think

No polar bears or snow to your wazoo

Chase Ketchikan until it catches you

With temperatures 40 to 62

 A place with nature you can feel in sync

Chase Ketchikan until it catches you

Unlike the harsh Alaska you may think

 And everywhere you’re treated to a view

Chase Ketchikan until it catches you

Where you can zipline, fish, hike, and canoe

Where air and sea acts as the transport link

Chase Ketchikan until it catches you

Unlike the harsh Alaska you may think

PAD 13 self help

Self Help in Ketchikan

You’re wounded and broken and sad.

Let Ketchikan repair

you with its waters  and wild life,

its mountains and fresh air. 

Make Misty Fjords your therapist,

the Narrows your wise guide.

The Tongass woods wait when you need

to run away and hide.

Let kayaks be your counselor

on dark and dreary days.

Let hiking play psychiatrist,

and fishing always pays.

If that is not enough, let go,

please pull out all the stops!

And get your retail therapy

at local tourist shops.

PAD 12 Happiest Moment

Proposal

(fiction)

In a land

Called Ketchikan

With boats along the docks

Then up a hill

And steeper still

A tram car like a box

That’s where he

Proposed to she

As they looked out on the town

Happy going up

More so going down

PAD 11 Ekphrastic

                                                                            Photo by Robert Dawson

Waiting Still

Along the shore of Ketchikan,

There lived an avid fisher man.

His hair was blond, his skin was tan.

One stormy night he drowned.

As time goes by in lengthy span,

His old house tumbles down.

PAD 9 sweet PB hero

Sweet-Solstice Success

It’s in the news,

They auctioned shoes

To raise the dough

For folks you know,

Those with cancer

Who need an answer.

The chemo and infusion suite

Help our heroes who can’t be beat.

http://www.peacehealth.org/ketchikan/Pages/Sweet-SoleStice-Success!.aspx

PAD 9 The Other ?

The Other Islands

Everyone has skiffs in Ketchikan

so they can boat from island to island—

Gravina, Annette, Pennock Islands,

but none like Revillagigedo.

Skiffs rest in its outstretched docks

like babes cradled in Mama’s arms.

PAD 8 object

Totem Pole

Many crafted faces

Speaking through the ages

Exuding mystery

Marking history

PAD 7 hardship, Poetic Bloomings Mirror Sestet

Hardship

Fishing for king salmon is what I’m wishing.

Wishing for creatures as big as my boat for fishing.

So I venture forth, in the early morning, I go.

Go out in the ocean ten nautical miles or so.

Ship bears down on me, I hear my boat rip—

rip just like paper. That’s a hard ship!

PAD 6 Perspective

Tourists

They descend on us like a plague of bees

doubling our quaint town of Ketchikan.

They ask us

if the Inside Passage is a river,

why we built the docks so low,

why we built the docks so high,

why someone doesn't clean the glaciers,

which road they should bring their RV in on.

They ask us

where we live in the winter,

if it gets down to fifty below,

when we turn the Northern Lights on,

why the islands don’t run into each other,

if we all made crafts to fill the souvenir shops.

They ask us

why salmon jump,

if we speak English,

if it rains in Ketchikan,

how many hours there are in a day,

why someone called their Chihuahua eagle bait.

They ask us

if Alaska is as big as Texas,

if we still use kerosene lamps,

if we accept American currency,

where they could see a Woolly Mammoth,

if they should apply the pepper spray before their hike.

(Here, let me apply it for you.)

I would wish them to go the way of the honeybee

if they didn't produce the honey.

PAD 5 Concealed or revealed

God Revealed

Bigfoot, aliens, ghosts.

I must admit they give me shivers.

I do believe in the super natural.

After all,

God supernaturally impregnated a virgin,

expressing Himself, His love,

to all mankind in the form of Jesus.

I don’t know

if Bigfoot lives in Ketchikan,

if aliens visited Roswell,

or if ghosts haunt European castles.

But I do know

God is real.

PAD 4 Sheet

Misty Fjords, Ketchikan

Sheets of ice send

water winding

through granite cliffs.

Falls stripe mountains

Pines house eagles

Whales surface,

loop, submerge with tail slaps

Seals lounge lazily on land

Dark hills like sleeping monsters

hide in mist.

Large and lonely

Terrible beauty

PAD 3 The Last Time I was Here

Nowhere to Somewhere

The last time I was in Ketchikan

I was a cruise ship tourist.

Now I’m a permanent fixture

like the New York hotel

with its multi-layered history.

And here I am with mine,

looking for a job,

love,

a new start.

Searching for You. 

PAD 2 In the News

Thrills—Or Not

Wowser, wowser, wowser

wrote a Ketchikan reporter

obviously wowed and thrilled

that US Today listed

Ketchikan’s airport

in the top ten

most thrilling airports

of the world.

What was so thrilling

about Ketchikan’s airport

when some airports

are little more than goat paths?

Ketchikan’s airport sits

between the Tongass Narrows

and the Gravina Island Highway

 which sit between mountains.

Not thrilling,

the water doesn’t freeze

like the Potomac

and mountains are all over Alaska.

The puzzled reporter

concluded that the most thrilling

thing about Ketchikan’s airport

was the popcorn.

(The Sit News/In Ketchikan We Have Our Thrill, Dave Kiffer)

PAD 1 Appearing

Appearances

Mountains melt into midst.

Pines lose their color in darkness.

Lonely lakes mirror shadows and clouds.

Grayness seems to take over the world

as if blues and greens never existed.

Depression is like that.

But despite the gloom,

the sun's still there.

It will show itself eventually,

revealing lively colors once again.