Bob Schofield is the author and illustrator of The Inevitable June, Moon Facts, and Man Bites Cloud. He lives in Rotterdam. He likes what words and pictures do. He wants to be a ghostly presence in your life.

2 poems by Bob Schofield

Streaming

Today I crashed over you like a river of green tea. I rolled through the hills. I pushed every boat to shore. I sank through the dirt & made the trees move with my worry. It may come as no surprise, but I much prefer to be lazy. I’d always rather the long silence. That sacred slice of Sunday afternoon, when we sit on the porch, sweating over two bottles of something cold, & count the teaspoons sailing overhead like made up stars. At night I come home. I fall headfirst through the kitchen window. I brush myself off, and undo both my black antlers. I sling the burlap sack from my shoulder, & allow its contents to pour over your body. A simple waterfall of red leaves. The finest feathers of a trumpeter swan. & your bare toes wiggling in the dirt. Our arms locked together. Bodies pressed together. Nesting as the dead grass turns green around us, & every blessed screen starts glowing. As we slide into the evening’s preselected entertainment. The curtain rises on one thousand tiny men with axe hands. Dancing for our affection, all across the length of this world’s lonesome woods.

Ill Omen

What young &

heavy bones

you have

the old wolf says

vanish.

Outside, the faintest clapping.

A carnival wilts

over the sea.