Doug Norris

In his work life, Doug Norris teaches English to adult immigrants in Rhode Island, which is the most satisfying and gratifying work I've ever done. He likes writing poetry, too, though.

His poems have been published in Frogpond, American Tanka, Haibun Today, Contemporary Haibun Online and elsewhere.

Dec 2013: "Dublin Scribe" was nominated for the Pushcart Prize by the Origami Poems Project.

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► Doug's microchaps are available to download. Click on the titles below to open & download/print single-page PDF.

Origami Microchap
Lines from Lost Notebooks
Click title to open microchap Cover by JanK •	TAROT A shuffled deck, a random draw, a flip of the card, the fate of my universe. The Joker turns over. What does it mean? Just a fool beginning some new journey The Death card arrives. How should I feel? Some skeleton celebrating the end of something. TITLED HAIKU QUARTET IN A STATION OF THE METRO fleeting faces blurred ghosts the screeching rails TURADH parting clouds gray skies give way to green hills glinting gold YO-YO AND STEGASAURUS His cigar box still smelling faintly of smoke, containing my childhood. MANGATA moonglow skimming dark waves spanning worlds	ELEPHANT RIDE Grand Opening: The local North Conway hardware store Selling hammers and sheetrock Advertising free rides On an African Elephant. People cluster Streaming past the Whippy-Dippy, Story Land and Dairy Queen Enduring steamy, spitting rain On a day made to order For these monstrous New Hampshire mosquitoes Tasting elephant for the first time. THE GLOAMING In the rising darkness boats parade the channel one by one under new stars the lighthouse blinks bridges bedecked in green the bay a constellation of beacons and buoys cosmos and maritime even the airport across the bay shooting rainbows into the kaleidoscopic night	AUGUST AFTERNOON (A Kidnapper’s Ransom) The sun demands I give up everything – mind, body, soul. No exceptions. AFTERWARD There will be no stone To mark my passing No grassy mound No Celtic cross No marble statue Or mausoleum No epithet “To be continued” No sandy pyramid Mummifying ego No Viking ship Lit by flaming arrows Blazing in the mist Just human hands Scattering my ashes Somewhere in the cove Where my spirit swam off Years ago • Doug Norris © 2022
Third Life Poems
Click title to open microchap Cover: Kloof St photo from Lauri Burke — Poet’s Comments I call these "Third Life Poems" because they all began as travel blog posts, where they still exist in cyberspace. Then they received a second life as Wordle images, push-pinned to a bulletin board. From the Wordles, I found origami poems. •	Metro-North Nobody platforms Consciousness necessitated Whatever maneuverings People without sky Without tracks Slow-moving sun erasing morning Seatmate strangers touching opposites No words Just sunglasses Blank as bees Locomotive nose blasting darkness Subway womb erupting galaxies Random Mamaroneck universe Awkward pause Stop train Manhattan Incident at Cape Town Crazy laughter Man on Kloof Drunk city night Smothered. Guarded. Raucous motorbike optimism Traffic at a standstill Hear Africa yell rooted wants - Deep bellied fears - Deep present uncertainty - Ever Stopping. Forgetting. Repeating. “We are crazy!” “We are crazy!” “We are crazy!”	Badgers! Headline: “Worthing Attacked” Reportedly yesterday. Quote: “Strippers exterminate government.” Society prepares for consequences. Headline: “Activist badgers causing murder” Quote: “Quizzically lead thousands of companions Deep into countryside.” Yes, blood. Years lost. Nuns bought. Cows mourning. Public mindless, yawning, Just another headline, Turning the page. Onto pigs. Ancient Tales Imaginary wastelands Talking libraries Memory curators Practicing revolution Seeing, showing Mechanical islands Token countryside Rubber villages Character factories Penny wonderlands When poets Blankly composed Darker songs, Scrambled life, Shaped conditions, Ended nations	Poem for Old Quebec This vast divine Woolen company Visitor snowmen Caribou heads Carnival invasion Cobbled and loose Walking twisted geography Sterile snow blowing Allée - White dunes down the Grand Layers of smiling life Stonewalling scowls and annoyances Ubiquitous bugles calling out Frozen beards Drunken tongues Stumbling strangers Holy creatures This muffled colony This common ground • Doug Norris © 2014
Beaches
Click title to open microchap Cover: View of Horseneck Beach from the web •	Narragansett Thirty years later The surf and the sand, The sun, the sea breeze, the scenes: Tanned, sinewy bodies of lifeguards and teens, Kids crabbing and sandcastle-building, Swells of surfers and body surfers and boogie boarders, Miles of swimmers and sailors and sun worshippers And the three of us, Who once spent entire summers planted here, Alternating hours between waves and beach towels, Now shooing away the herring gulls, Their irritated squawks Mimicking our own frantic talk Lamenting lost times in sacred places – Terminisi’s, Iggy’s, The Sunnyside, The meatballs and jukebox of Giro’s Spaghetti House, Where strangers recognizing anyone at the bar Would order a round for everyone, Free drinks piling up like rocks on a cairn, In empty shot glasses turned upside down Languid beach days lapsing into blurry pub nights Pints of salty seawater ale sloshing in frozen mugs The clink of four quarters dropping into the slot Voices rising in the starless, moonless dark Singing “The Ballad of New Orleans.”	Horseneck “If you listen carefully, You can hear the wind” Was the first poem I spoke – Uttered among dunes, Echoing wild waves, Amplified by emptiness, Resounding in the hollow Knobbed whelk of my ear. I was just a boy, Seven years conscious, Scratching mysteries From driftwood and sand. I did not know anything About poetry Until the night my father, Recalling my words, Tapped his typewriter, Clackety-clacking the keys, Transforming my line Into an enduring shape Made of windblown dunes. Sankaty The seal followed me, Keeping its distance Precisely angled 45 degrees, Watching from the waves While I walked the slanted sand To the lighthouse and back. Neither of us spoke Between glances and progress, Each of us content To merely indulge Our pleasures and curiosities.	Katama After work, When the dishes had been washed, The tables cleaned and all of the food Eaten or stored away, We built a bonfire Between the dunes and the tide, Laughed away the darkness, Swam under starlight and moonglow, Slept to a lullaby of waves Punctuated by crackling, popping flames, Dancing like blue ghosts above the sand. We never worried about sharks then, Only the beach police, making their rounds. If we made it through the night, By morning it was all just smoke, Charred skeletons of pitch pine and driftwood, Glowing embers that matched the rising dawn. We drowned the evidence with seawater, Buried our skeletons under glacial scrape, Hid from the sun’s glare in kitchens That fed the rich and famous, Scraping plates, rinsing glasses, Counting hours to the next Star-drunk moon-drugged sea-high. Race Point A day’s walk in the fog Staggering between strewn dogfish Abandoned by fishermen Their eyes black, hollow Still staring out at the ocean As if, even in death, They ponder where they came from, They wonder where they’re going. • Doug Norris © 2014
Toward Wisdom
Click title to open microchap •	The Eleven O'Clock News Tonight’s top story: A little gray moth Strumming the screen door, Moving wings in Monk rhythms, Tuned to the light of the lamp inside. The moth finds a hole, Makes it bigger, Squeezes through, Discovers the lamp. Zap! Sizzle, smoke... One last loud note. The moth explodes In surprise or ecstasy. Maybe this news Doesn’t mean much Except to me and the moth. Ash heap and smoke ghost, Lamp light hums its karmic melody. Murmuration Black as words - In a storybook Two looping, Swooping clouds Shadowing gridlock. So the gray asphalt Seems a green field. Billboards forge a forest. Automobiles roam Free as buffalo. Only starlings Winging as one, Waltzing in the sun, Proving to all How easy it is.	Toward Wisdom Just a duckling, Yellow and limp, Like a flattened tennis ball In Dusty’s drooling Dog mouth. The dog Wants to know What to do With this thing Plucked from the pond. Something happened When they were playing And now The thing Isn’t. The dog Walks in circles, Won’t let go. She has done Something wrong December Morning In winter I wake popping - pop - To the pop Broken dawn. The fog lifts. A dream disappears. Somewhere explodes a duck. From bed I lurch, Grinding coffee over gunshot, Wincing at the aftertaste.	I Crossed A Country Crow Road I crossed a country crow road The woods were black with crow I wondered which would steal my soul There was no way to know I crossed a country crow road The sky was black with crow I wondered which would flay my flesh There was no way to know I crossed a country crow road The fields were black with crow I wondered which would eat my eyes There was no way to know I crossed a country crow road The snow was black with crow I wondered which would take my tongue There was no way to know I crossed a country crow road The road was black with crow I wonder when the road will end There is no way to know • Doug Norris © 2013
Marginalia
Click title to open microchap Cover: Detail from medieval manuscript, unknown artist •	These poems were inspired by a trip to Dublin, the Book of Kells, and a commonplace book I picked up in a used bookstore Dublin Scribe Here and now Moving my ink Across an empty manuscript White as the New England snow I wander Through mist and moss Up cold stone steps Into the land of lost memories To glimpse a ghost A daydreaming Irish youth Glancing out his little window To the wild green world beyond Death of a Poet (To Li Po) Such ancient light, Seen so clearly Dancing silver, Between the lily pads, You considered A lifetime Looking for the right word, When wordlessly The moon compelled And you found Zen: The awestruck poet Losing himself Smooching the moon.	Just Before Waking The moon Between blinds Like a washed copper penny Note 147. Sunshine Through the Window Pleasant To me Is the glittering of the sun Today Upon these margins, Because it flickers so. Four hundred - thirty - eight Thousand suns Have risen and set Since that pleasing light Fell upon the manuscript, Glittering upon the margins, Gilding the vellum. I am pleased to report, In the slanted light, Through the frosted window, Across the scribbled notebook On this bright winter's day, It continues Flickering so.	Siesta, 800 A.D. Twig and root, The blackbird's song, End of the day, - A lover's grave In the margins. Even this Book, With all its weight, Can't keep the minds Of simple monks From wandering. So what if A few harmless dragons, Inklings and beasts, Take flight, Escape the parchment, Evade the vellum, Slip out the splashed window? • Doug Norris © 2013
Rhymes & Enchantments
Click title to open microchap Cover photo: Monkey Dreams By Robert Schlenker •	Rhymes & Enchantments grew from thoughts that were all scraps, written on napkins and bar coasters over the years. Napkin Poem I love the Earth But cannot stay. It's not my choice. It's just the way. And so I ask, And this I pray: To learn To love To live Today. Genesis We find a place Among the stones To watch the rising sun. Begat, begotten, Forget, forgotten - Too late. It's begun	Feeling Frog Head drowsy, Sinuses lousy, I feel a frog Coming on. In my wallowing, Sludgy swallowing, Muddy disposition, I feel frog. Slimy sheen, Turning green, Head to toad, Frog explodes. My thoughts are dark Like a frog. My skin is moist Like a frog. I am jumpy, Slightly bumpy. My bed's a bog. I am frog.	My tongue is fat. I cough and croak. I mump and mope. I am frog broke. I still dream: From kiss to king. But I'll take any action I can get. That's the thing About being frog: High aspirations, Low expectations. Monkeytown The monkeys wake in Monkeytown Leaving beds of monkeydown, Monkeydreams of great renown, For uniforms of monkeybrown. They monkeydrive and monkeywalk, Monkeycurse and monkeytalk And jog around the monkeyblock As days tick by the monkeyclock, As days tick by the monkeyclock, As days tick by the monkeyclock. • Doug Norris © 2013
GET HAPPY!
Click title to open microchap 20 poems inspired by tracks on the album, 'Elvis Costello and The Attractions' •	Love for Tender and others Can be a love for money Or a love for kindness. Choose wisely. They are very different sorrows. Opportunity Knocking, knocking, knocking at the door. Avon? Death? Jehovah’s Witnesses? We need less doorbell. The Imposter Seven company pens Clattered on the counter, Falling out of the pocket, Under the noose of the tie That had squeezed my soul dry. Secondary Modern The post-post modernist has come and gone. Back to the caves, people. Back to the caves. King Horse King Horse ruled with an iron hoof. Zebraphobic, slightly off-centaur, Equine equality neighsayer. Exterminated unicorns. Persecuted Pegasus. Consorted with sacred cows.	Possession All possession is obsession, More impression than expression. Who needs another piece of clutter? Own nothing. Owe nobody. Man Called Uncle Woman called aunt. They make cousins you don’t want. Clowntime Is Over Doomsday is nigh. Angels high. Horsemen fly. Release the mimes. New Amsterdam Sold for trinkets. Beaver pelts, Wampum belts. Knickknacks. Gimcracks. Gewgaws, kickshaws. Bibelots, curios. Baubles, trifles, whatnots. Yorked anew. High Fidelity Def, when music was - Before Hi The center of the universe, There was Nirvana, there was Hi-Fi. I Can't Stand Up For Falling Down Too many Guinness, the hangover Abandoned to the channel Televising lawn bowls.	Motel Matches The blue light of the TV Turned to a Forties noir. Warped when they kiss. Human Touch No sense makes sense Absent the heartfelt hand. Beaten To The Punch That thunk you hear is the thunk Of a thought I had one day But then forgot to copyright. Temptation If the apple had been offered to me, I could have said no. But the fate of mankind Would have hinged on a meatball grinder. I Stand Accused Of not living up To the universe’s plan. In my defense The dog ate my holywork. Riot Act Text a manifesto. Tweet a screed. Blurb an epic. Origami an opus. Don’t let this shrinking world stop you. Say something • Doug Norris © 2011
Minnows (Summer Haiku)
Click title to open microchap	The graveyard shimmers Somewhere beyond, a plane flies, Someone mows a lawn The fisherman's bridge A crow watches the current A father's ashes	A tanker arrives Making the bay look tiny These darting minnows Orange daylilies Turning away from the church Stones casting shadows	Fading lavender Absent the purple flowers No white butterflies • Doug Norris © 2010
Omitted Tales
Click title to open microchap •	Death and the Goose Boy A boy approached a pond when he noticed Something streaking up the hill toward him. “Who are you,” the boy asked. “Where do you come from?” The shadow faced the boy and spoke. “I am Death. I came from the water.” “I am Johannes,” the boy responded. “The village goose boy.” “Where are your geese,” Death asked. “Drinking,” the boy replied. “Uh-oh,” said Death. “What’s wrong,” asked the boy. Death hesitated, awkwardly Searching for a way to explain it. “Never mind,” Death shrugged. “It doesn’t matter.” MANHATTAN DREAM shadow sprays the sidewalk - A half In front of an Italian restaurant With a water hose. It is dusk. The skyline is sepia, like a 1940s tintype. In twilight, Manhattan is even more Crowded with ghosts and lost souls, Exiled from past lives, taking shape In wraiths of steam above city grates. Some of the ghosts frown as the living Saunter through them without apology Or awareness. A flower girl peddles ghost orchids. A fruit vendor tosses pale banana peels. A phantom taxi circles Times Square Endlessly, searching for a fare	FOUND CHARM (NEW ORLEANS) The Frog Charm: Kill a frog. Dry him Thoroughly in the sun (Or put him in an ant’s bed) Until the flesh is removed from the bones. Among the bones you will find One that looks like a fishhook, Another like a fish scale. To win the desired person, Hook the bone looking like a fishhook Discreetly in her garments. If her devotion proves too irksome, Flip the bone looking like a fish scale At her as she walks away. Her love for you will immediately disappear THE GRASSHOPPER’S VERSION It was cold and I was hungry. The ants were drying their grain. So I asked for some. They said: “Why did you not Treasure up food during the summer?” I said: “I had not leisure enough. I passed the days in singing.” They said: “If you were foolish enough To sing all summer, you must dance Supperless to bed in winter.” Just then an anteater shuffled by. It ate the ants. I took the grain. Moral: Work or shirk today, Tomorrow there are no guarantees.	SUNDAY IN PROVIDENCE Stragglers ignoring The raggedy stranger Hogging the street corner, Smelling like hamburger, Hawking his newspaper, Backing the socialists, Begging for change. They go next door – To Johnny Rockets Neon blinking, Burgers sizzling, Speakers blaring: away, - whim - “A away, - whim - A The lion sleeps tonight.” • Doug Norris © 2009

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