Write Naked
                       
Forget adjectives, adverbs,
articles’ precision, tense and mood,
gerunds,  or those pronouns
standing in for what you said
before.  Goose-bumped,
bare-fleshed, stripped to nouns
marched hyphen to hyphen,
verbs hyperventilating in the draft,
shiver in the eternal present:
nouns and verbs from here on out. 
Image. Action. Collage. Fragment.
Lightning buckling sky to earth.

Sky Writer

Choose a page wide as horizon for bluejay flight,
flocks of goldfinch, the heron rowing home,
the pelican’s high drift. Shoulder change
as frequently—sunrise, sunset, the freight
of rain. Inscribe those roiled inhalations of mist,
volcanic ash, high icy bits in their varying puffs,
strata, stacks, and skiffs, wisps on which sun
paints slant light. Capture the sundogs
of a weathered life. Be mindful of starstruck,
moonlit; write of darkness as well as light.  

Robin Chapman is author of nine poetry collections; a tenth, Six True Things, about growing up in the Manhattan Project town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, is forthcoming from Tebot Bach in 2016. Recipient of the 2010 Appalachia Poetry Prize, she lives in Madison, Wisconsin.