3 Poems by Bud Smith

Parties

Once again summoned
to a crater in the earth
where an asteroid has fallen.
Six miles wide, this one
would’ve wiped out the dinosaurs,
were the dinosaurs not already wiped out,
millions of years ago. You can move
a mountain for some people
and they’ll complain about the view,
please no! far too-much-sky
revealed plainly to me now!

​
p i n e  w i t c h

Mourning cloak butterfly.
Timber rattlesnake.
Brown thrasher.
Blackcapped chickadee.
Sweet pepperbush.
Hairy blazing star.


t h e  k n o w n  w o r l d  i s  b y o b

Or how one rainy Sunday is equivalent to thirty six
lemonsoaked Tuesdays while I am trapped in the
machine shop. Well, goodnews I just quit that job.
Took all my money out of the bank, acquired a junk
car, growling and hissing. Did you know ten
godsent apples are no match for one lowly ripe
pear and I am coming to visit. I see you being kind
while others give up. A prize is in order, rosewater
and morning glories. Yesterday while driving at the
beginning of your long road, I saw a goat eating
garbage on the wayside. All of us must be traveling
towards each other, whoever we are. I can’t figure
anything out. Listen, your flag is down, there is mail
in the box, go out and get it. I’ll be there at 9
o’clock, let’s take a pink bath. Usually I dream the
rarest clamshells sunk at the bottom of the sea,
opening wide, releasing scouts of bubbles to report
on the news of the topside world. Just know, I’m a
bubble on my way. The many shining windows of
your house at the precise second of perfect sunset.
The inaccurate religiously mathematical sciences of
love. Don’t forget, one hundred years only contains
seven perfect days. I promise tomorrow will be one
of them.

Bud Smith is a writer and union construction worker from Jersey City, New Jersey.