Book Spine Poem # 1: Cry Wolf
(composed of book titles)

Why I wake early:
seeing things    before the dawn.
La luz que no puedes ver.
Ruby    owls and other fantasies    red mist    surfacing 
a spool of blue thread   spinning silver 
 
At night we walk in circles. 
Some sing, some cry    words in deep blue.
We who would not kill    for the relief of unbearable urges
fear   a world lit only by fire.
 
De amor y la sombra.  
The shadows we hide    hunger  
like trees walking   a long walk to water. 

Clock, dance   a wrinkle in time.   In such hard times    
the eulogist    tracks    little murders everywhere.
All that remains:
dust,   a feast of snakes,   the beautiful dead. 
 
Beloved    valley, forge   dreams of joy: 
a voice from the mountain, the botany of desire,
the return of the wolf. 
 
Women who run with the wolves, 
tell me about history.  
The house of broken angels,
the war that ended peace.  
El amor en los tiempos del cólera,
  
Lady Oracle,  kind one,   wash   a thousand mornings    
where the sea used to be.  
I am missing     a home at the end of the world. 
House of light   too bright to see.  
The House of the Spirits,
La casa de las lobas. 

Tell the wolves I'm home. 
 
Book title authors, in order of appearance: 

 Mary Oliver, Seamus Heaney, Nicholas Wade, Anthony Doerr, Cynthia Bond,  Ann Hood, Mary Oliver, Patricia Cornwell, Margaret Atwood, Ann Tyler, Naomi Novik, Daniel Alarcón, Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza, Cath Crowley, James Peck, Nathan Englander, Bob Woodward, William Manchester, Isabel Allende, Allen Eskens, Roxane Gay, Ravi Howard, Linda Sue Park, Anne Tyler, Madeleine L'Engle, Wei Ying-wu  (Red Pine, translator), Terry Gamble, Louise Erdrich, Rebecca Morgan Frank, Patricia Cornwell, Hugh Howey, Harry Crews, Belinda Bauer, Toni Morrison, Bob Drury, Lisa See, Anthony Caponi,  Michael Pollan, Steve Grooms, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Emma Beare, Luis Alberto Urrea, Margaret MacMillan, Gabriel García Márquez, Margaret Atwood, Laird Hunt, Margaret Wrinkle, Mary Oliver, Rick Bass, Tim Weaver,  Michael Cunningham, Mary Oliver, Linda Gregg,  Isabel Allende, Juan Jose Rodriguez, Carol Rifka Brunt






Book Spine Poem # 2: Workers’ Rites
(composed of book titles


What work is -
ordinary grace.  Convenience store woman   
flat broke with children,  unsheltered.  Awake at dawn, 
even the stars look lonesome. 
 
Field work.   One hundred years of dirt,   black potatoes. 
The life we bury,   mudbound, 
digging knee deep. 
Hammer and hoe   the field of blood. 
 
Lumberjack   tracks   where the forest meets the stars. 
What the woods keep:
timber industry ghosts    leaving time.
The lumberjack's dove    flying solo  -
Grief is the thing with feathers.
 
Begin empty handed,
ten thousand working days    at the construction site. 
Strategies for a foreman's success: 
total control. 
 
The miserable mill.  The factory girls
working   loom and spindle, or life
among the early mills girls.    The boys 
working   the cutting room - 
cut, stapled and mended. 
 
Go find the birthing house.
Midwives nurture.  Holy labor   is, is not
in the flesh   of women born.  The women will howl.
 
Howl the radium girls,  howl    pinery boys,
howl   the lady in the ore bucket,
howl   the breaker boys,   howl 
the girl with no name. 
 
Howl    there is power in a union.  Howl   it.
Howl    bread and roses, too.    Howl   it.  Howl.



Book titles by:
 
Philip Levine, William Kent Krueger, Sayaka Murata,  Sharon Hayes, (check) Barbara Kingsolver, C. C. Hunter, Maya Angelou, Seamus Heaney, Rick Morton, Susan Campbell Bartoletti, Allen Eskens, Hillary Jordan, Donna Gill, Robin DG Kelley, Joanne B. Freeman, William Kurelek, Louise Erdrich, Glendy Vanderah, (check), Katya de Bacerra, Jeff Moore, Jodi Picoult, GennaRose Nethercott, Ralph Fletcher, Max Porter,
Gail Martin, Robert Schrank, Max Walther, David E Winpisinger, David Baldacci, Lemony Snicke, Christine Seifert, Studs Terkel, Harriet Hanson Robinson. Garth Ennis, Studs Turkel, Louise Welsh, Roanna Rosewood, Christopher Ranson, Chris Bohjalian, Erica Chidi Cohen, Aubry G Smith, Tessa Gallagher, Christa Wolf, Adrienne Rich, Mary Deborah Petite, Allen Ginsberg (all subsequent uses of "How" reference Ginsberg), Franz Rickaby and Gtetchen Dykstra and James Leary, Charles L. Keller, Patt Hughes, Serena Burdick, Philip Dray, Stephen King, Katherine Paterson, Stephen King





The Dictator’s Dream Job: Naming Paint Colors

shades of pink
Ballet Slipper 
Cemetery Bouquet
Smallpox Outbreak
 
shades of white
Wedding Cake
Child Bride
Death Pallor 

shades of gray
Andalusian Horse
Battleship Gray
Ashes, Ashes

shades of red
Valentine Emoji
Chokehold
Firing Squad

shades of yellow
van Gogh Swirls 
Police Tape
Hangman's Rope

shades of black
Blackberry Jam
Blindfolded
Charred Remains 

shades of off-white/beige
Antique Lace
Mushroom Cloud
Linen Shroud
 
shades of brown
Homemade Brownies
Prison Cellblock
Mass Grave

shades of metallic spray paints
Silver Earrings 
Brass Knuckles
Guillotine Blade 

Ellen LaFleche:
The first two poems honor many great writers in the form of book spine poems, using titles of books in creative ways. All author titles are credited at the end of the poem. There is also a poem about a dictator who changes the names of paint colors. This poem is an ironic view of peace by blending images of beautiful paint colors (ie., ballet slipper) with images of a dictator’s death and destruction. Thank you for reading and considering. My short bio: winner of Ruth Stone Poetry Prize, Tor House Poetry Prize, among others. Author of three chapbooks and one full length collection, Walking into Lightning