Like crystal milk the frost
embraces a Busch can
tossed with a hand’s wave
to the beachgravel road pocked
by double-crescent prints
of deer crossing in files
of four that bound up
the grassy rise in grey
light to stand in vigilant
profile against a hazy sky
flushing blood red ahead
of dawn’s rays running
across slumbering meadow waves
marked by the elongated shadow
of a telephone pole’s trunk
and crossbar trapping
shade and frost, night and death,
bathed now in the inexorable light
of the rising sun’s redemption.

David M. Frye
April 10, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Bread of life,
we break your body,
tearing you to pieces,
allotting our own portions.

Bread of life,
we crack your crust,
scattering you in crumbs,
serving our own desires.

Our hands raise you up,
clench and pull.
Our eyes watch you
split and rip in our grasp.

One loaf, offered for many,
one loaf, one body,
both crust and flesh,
broken and bleeding.

Bread of life,
making us whole,
forgiving all our sins,
you feed us.

Bread of life,
broken and in crumbs,
suffering for our desires,
you die for us.

David M. Frye
April 9, 2009
Denton, Neb.

The telescope dozes on its tripod,
head tilted back, one eye closed,
steady on three feet, waiting

patiently for gentle hands
to lift and carry it reverently
into the darkness of a starry

night, open its solitary eye,
turn its gaze to the skies
and peer deeply into heaven’s past.

David M. Frye
April 8, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Hands hold bat
unnaturally, left
snugged against knob, right
gripping handle above.
Stance still square to plate,
but left shoulder points
to mound and pitcher.
Head turns left, eyes watch
waiting for ball’s release.

Mind wanders in waiting,
wondering why the switch.
Life is left-handed, sinister,
a litany of accommodations.
Scissors digging into hand
pencil smudging meat of palm
ladle pouring soup backhanded
water fountaining from knobs on right
watch stems sprouting at 3 p.m.

Back to game and pitch
ball in flight toward plate
wait … swing … miss.
Mist blows across field
faceless pitcher fading away
hands suddenly empty no bat.
Eyes open to darkened room
head raises from dampened pillow
right hand presses button: 5:15.

Yesterday was Opening Day. Coincidence?
Who was pitching? Why no face?
What happened to my teammates?
Why a strike and not a hit?
Why the switch?

When I identify myself, I
give my name
tell my age
check my gender
say married
circle Caucasian
note Lutheran.
But no one ever asks
and I never answer,
“Left-handed.”

Then I wonder how my life
would feel if I were not ….
Not a man, but a woman.
Not a Christian, but a Buddhist.
Not white, but black.
Not straight, but gay.
Not a leftie, but a rightie.

Could I handle the switch?
What accommodations would I make?
Would I still be myself, know myself?

Would you still recognize me,
know me,
love me?

Cut the red seams
peel off the bleached hide
unwind the endless yarn
reveal the resilient center.

I hold the naked, diminished sphere
gently with my fingers
reach back and toss it to you.

God, catch me, please.

David M. Frye
April 7, 2009
Denton, Neb.

Today’s poetic attempts lie
on the page. Unfinished.
Entangled in squiggles,
dead ends, cross-outs.

But that’s the nature of experimentation.
Not every filament lit up Edison’s bulb.
Most flashed and crumbled into ashes.

So I’ve flipped the switch today.
A quick feeble light and embered darkness.
Time to strike a match and light a candle.

David M. Frye
April 6, 2009
Denton, Neb.

A party gathers in the streets
flash-mobbing by word-of-mouth
raising voices as one with joy.

Hosanna in rhythm
he’s coming hosanna
hosanna I see him
ecstatic hosanna

Amen shed robes
wave palms amen
amen he’s here

Yes look
see yes

Oh!

Now is the time!
This is the day!
We are the ones!
He is the hope!
We will be free!

Wait!
What?
Did you hear?

Have faith in God.
Give to the emperor.
Not one stone will be left.
Brother will betray brother.
Be aware, keep alert.*

Did you hear?
What?
No!

A crowd takes to the streets
flash-mobbing by word of mouth
raising voices as one with passion.

Crucify…

David M. Frye
April 5, 2009
Denton, Neb.

*Mark 11:22, 12:17, 13:2, 13:12, 13:33 (NRSV)

A rough row of trees,
mulberry and locust and hackberry,
angles nearly south by west
on the brome-blanketed slope
too small to earn the name “hill.”

Entwined among the trees and stumps
run the rusted traces
of an abandoned barbed wire fence
bearing the marks of past owners–
patches and fortifications.

One iron post punctuates
the steady march of wood–
fencepost, post, post–
a machined milestone
amid tree branches turned on end.

Decades of wind and water
settling and sagging
hillock into valley
have buried the fence’s bottom strands
beneath a cover of earth and grass.

The largest tree, a mulberry,
“Stands athwart history, yelling Stop.”*
It faces the oncoming fence.
One barbed, rusted line of wire
pierces and exits its living trunk.

David M. Frye
April 4, 2009
Denton, Neb.

*William F. Buckley, “Our Mission Statement,” National Review, Nov. 19, 1955.

What makes a poem a poem
and not a piece of prose?
Is the spark a glint in readers’ eyes
as they pass across the page?
Or does the destiny of words descend
from tip of poet’s pen?

Beauty finds life in the beholder’s eye.
We know it when we see it.
Perhaps poetry emerges from similar alchemy,
the brushing touch of voice on ears,
the pausing gaze of eyes on page,
the lightning bolt that jumps
from fingertip to knob
when shuffling feet in winter.

Call it alchemy, intuition,
inspiration, divination,
a slantwise, twisted glimpse,
a tumble down Alice’s rabbit hole
to a land
of strange and odd
arrangements
where words and things
conjoin melodically
or in dissonance
depending
upon
the
poet’s need
to brush
self-mixed
autochromatically concocted
hues upon the page’s blank
and taunting expanse of whiteness,
a disorienting prairie blizzard
where one’s eyes go sightless
and wind-numbed fingers
can grasp in desperation
only a lone strand
of cold, sharp
barbed wire
and follow
its palm-piercing
length
from post to post
and hope
one heads for home.

David M. Frye
April 3, 2009
Denton, Neb.

In today’s Holocene epoch,
Nebraska lies far from the ocean,
but the dry grassy stems
of last season’s brome
shift and sift into a sandy beach
through eyes slitting and squinting.

I lie on my back in the field,
crunching the brittle blades,
and close my eyes.
The sun, tame at this distance,
warms my cheeks,
leaking blood-red through closed lids.

The breeze shuffles through leafless trees,
a steady whispering susurration,
sounding like littoral waves
breaking upon the beach at tide’s ebb,
too distant to distinguish,
a hushed rush churning sand and foam.

The birds of dawn and dusk
are quiet during midday.
Religious brothers of two Hours–
Matins and Vespers–
owl, cardinal, mallard, and turkey
hold a sustained ornithic fermata.

This silence floating on windy waves
parts gently for a run of rhythmic crunches,
a muted crescendo from padded feet.
A shadow passes over my face
and returns, eclipsing the sun.
The man in the dog’s head moon has come.

David M. Frye
April 2, 2009
Denton, Neb.

So much of a story’s telling
depends upon a strong beginning,
a word that declares
here is the root, the foundation;
know this and you begin well.

A brazen bisection
to place upon a page
words that enliven
a thought, a memory,
that speak a mused image,
but also in silent negation
declare all else outside,
beyond, ignorable, enshadowed.

Arrogance, hubris? Perhaps.
But a slicing of necessity,
borne of limits,
else writer and reader alike
succumb as much
to unbeginning as to unending.

Is it an irony
that finitude demands
such godlike decisions?
Hear this first word,
see this painting’s frame,
touch this sculpture’s base,
listen to this opening chord.
Encounter the boundary.

We trace the edges with our fingers,
we gaze upon penumbrae between sun and shade,
we hold our breath and cup our ears,
to catch, to glimpse, to feel, to listen.

And in the end or at the beginning–
it doesn’t really matter–
each story, painting, song, poem, sculpture
feebly, nobly, humanly echoes
the Voice who speaks the Word
evoking order from chaos,
calling light out of darkness,
resurrecting life beyond all death.

David M. Frye
April 1, 2009
Denton, Neb.