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<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\r\n\r\n\r\nBirth defies belief.\r\nLove brings grief.\r\nDeath, relief.<\/em>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reaching After Realness<\/h2>\n
I ask: how do I make my dented self \r\n beautiful \r\nwith this old pencil? \r\n ~~Daniel J. Weeks, Self-Symphonies<\/em>\r\n\r\n \r\n<\/pre>\nOur legs look broken when light bends them in the swimming pool. Once our heads are under, immersed in the experience of wetness, the illusion disappears. Our legs are restored to us in their wholeness, where they can be repurposed as impromptu fins to propel us elsewhere. Which of these sets of legs are our “real” legs? The broken set, the restored set, or the Aquaman set?<\/p>\n
Entering a poem is like entering that other, underwater world. We are restored to a wholeness the pain of life and its deceptions has convinced us is missing. But, we can only hold our breaths so long before our imaginations burst! And still we go down like clockwork into the dark otherwhere of metaphor, easing past the shallow end of simile, our imaginations and lungs aching. However dangerous the journey, we will not be denied our diving, our entry into depths.<\/p>\n
The act of writing is a way for poets to break the surface tension, to transform and explore with all of their sets of legs at the same time–water-skimmer and octopus at once. The act of, not just imagining, but creating the distortion of a written record, a pool for others to enter, is part of the mystery. This writing things down, however, is not what may be called a clarification; that’s a mistake many neopyhte divers make, arriving back at the deck of their exploration vessel with the bends.<\/p>\n
Let me propose that both imagination and reality are equally real, equally imaginary. A grown-up Velveteen Rabbit has a smoking habit, perhaps; perhaps the dourest accountant over-charging on our tax prep is a weekend balloonist– or, more daring yet– a plummeting parachuting enthusiast.<\/p>\n
Whether this need for othering ourselves, appropriating the ocean’s indigo, pretending a purpler sky, being winged in imagination whenever we watch a bird in flight, is the result of an evolutionary symbiosis of inner and outer selves or some kind of meshuggeneh co-dependency, I cannot tell. But I know that it cannot be otherwise. Real or unreal, one hand will always be reaching after realness–a stuffed, velvety rabbit dangling from the other hand. \u2022<\/p>\n
Gregg Glory\r\nJuly 4th, 2017\r\n \r\n<\/pre>\nI Confused by Honeysuckle, Childhood Misunderstood<\/h2>\n
Memory is liver than sight. ~~William Carlos Williams, Shadows<\/em><\/p>\n
Night, Night<\/h2>\n
I sneak out to the fluid night \r\nSky bedizened and soft grass \r\nForever under my walking \r\nTrees besides assaying the hush \r\nEasing my looking, my seeing, \r\nStealth in each threading step \r\nHolding stones I ache to unown \r\nThrow where vastnesses hide \r\nA lurker unloved among cosmos \r\nAmong toads sowing yawps \r\nInto a black that is matte, that recedes \r\nAs far as pupils' going knows \r\nBlue iris shuttered on nothing \r\nBut stars' particulate light \r\nFine as dust distilled \r\nFalling in my hair, on my face... \r\nAs if the green, rackety backdoor \r\nFixed and taped against winters \r\nAnd loosened each year for spring \r\nWhen mellow all comes welcome in, \r\nNow as I pass through to dark, \r\nCreaking the lintel, begins again \r\nTo show the old summer places-- \r\nConstellations sleep had forgotten \r\nOpening straight into outerspace. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tree of Death<\/h2>\n
I climb the tree of death \r\nMy father climbed, his tree \r\nGrowing in the cistern of a pool \r\nDrained for a winter longer \r\nThan any he knew before \r\nWhere his bald cranium nailed \r\nThe roots with a cross of blood. \r\nThe tree grew with weeping, Dad, \r\nAnd I am climbing it, limb over limb \r\nFrom that empty pool, the cross \r\nThat lifts from your skeleton \r\nOnce quick with fat and wit \r\nFleshed with a scorn of smiles\r\nLies that made you rich as sin \r\nAnd lost your sons forever--\r\nHow you derided the sticks of time! \r\nThe sticks lift above me as I climb \r\nA brachiform blot on the stars, \r\nThe knock in the ribs the heart keeps \r\nMy only guidepost. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Niagara of Mothers<\/h2>\n
The maternal smell of water, \r\nThat arrogant brake where \r\nThe Falls drop into nothingness... \r\nPillar mirrored by pillar and all \r\nRoaring white a colossal edifice \r\nIn motion. Where an edge \r\nShould appear blindness remains \r\nMy hands empty before me \r\nReaching. \r\n\r\nBillows explode like ghosts \r\nPanting ripping toward the past,\r\nThe strained water--rapids \r\nGiving and failing like mothers \r\nEverywhere, and you \r\nNo different, no worse. \r\nMother, I would eat every lie, \r\nEvery truth, to see for one minute \r\nYou again! A crowded brace \r\nOf mossy wreckage is teething \r\nThe rubber bow before me: \r\nThe glass plank hanging \r\nOver nothingness, deafness \r\nRoaring and then-- \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Visit<\/h2>\n
\n divine sparks or burning calories
\n bodies and souls are on fire<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nThe so-little graves of parents \r\nAnd the parents before them\u2026. \r\nAre they only doused flames\r\nThe used-up candle wax sloughed \r\nOff, or resistless matches \r\nHeld bravely aloft in the dark \r\nTom Sawyer in his pirate cave \r\nDigging at crevices for treasure? \r\nI close my eyes for sleep \r\nAnd my flashlight finds you \r\nInstantly alive as Polaroids \r\nIn pantsuit and dungarees, \r\nBitching your way toward divorce\r\nEven now, even in death\r\nEven in the dreams I sought \r\nFor solace. I toe the muddled \r\nEarth between them carefully\r\nMother here, Father there\r\nLooking for daisies among the weeds.\r\nThey lay there looking up and \r\nTalking: Pity us! Let the past \r\nDrop from our bones like teeth\r\nDrip from our bones like wax\r\nOr fade at least to pastel at last\r\nSo that you may paint your days\r\nBy what wayward light you find\r\nAnd not these childish flares--\r\nVituperations, curses, our\r\nForever unfinished bonfire!<\/em> \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Sprung<\/h2>\n
A spring resists its winding \r\nA road would rather be left alone \r\nA ballerina's slipper doesn't need \r\nA restless foot to complete it-- \r\nEntropy has ensigns of its own \r\nSignposts of rust, dusty accretions \r\nA look worn to translucence \r\nLike the detective's trick mirror \r\nAwaiting its awful candidate.... \r\nFifty has given me a face \r\nThin as a sail, as changeable \r\nWanting only its original \r\nDarkness, the rubber bathtub \r\nThat squealed me here, applying \r\nDisasterous brakes in a panic, \r\nLeaning into soft headlights \r\nThat showed the indifferent road \r\nThe ballerina's empty slipper \r\nAnd 10,000 empty days ahead--\r\n\r\nBut what could I do about it \r\nSprawling in the icy nurse's hands \r\nThe red spring in my belly \r\nAlready loaded tight? \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
An Overturned Canoe<\/h2>\n
Under an overturned canoe \r\nWe kept tacked in lieu of a dock \r\nOn the edge of the old reservoir \r\nWelled like a waterbead overbrimmed, \r\nA height of welted skin but cool \r\nTo the touch, I found my breath \r\nEchoey with surfaces among the ribs \r\nOf the overturned canoe. \r\n\r\nFibrous light rooted in somehow \r\nCasting lines above me as I breathed \r\nIn all that hollowness no one \r\nVisited but me, the lines strange \r\nAs neon hieroglyphs racing bright \r\nOver my hands as I reached up \r\nTangling in their starry business \r\nThat swam the sky inside with me, \r\nAn intruder in the web. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What Drought Brought<\/h2>\n
When our reservoir was holding \r\nIts breath, low, baring a shamble \r\nHash of sticks, spills of pebbles, \r\nDead trees like ribs of black water \r\nOr inverted umbrellas lost \r\nStraying in a storm that stayed, \r\nI'd slide on my dungareed ass \r\nTo walk along the sandy skirt \r\nAnd saw how water corroded \r\nThe world, the whole overcast woods \r\nHanging precariously revealed \r\nAs cloud bellies, wattles of roots \r\nLumped above the nothingness \r\nI walked, fringed with iffy dust\u2026 \r\nFragments of the caveworks still \r\nWet with birthing and shy of light. \r\nI'd spend hours kicking stones \r\nAll around the res's tender rim \r\nWide as an eyelid limned in sand \r\nGetting the secret feel for once \r\nWhere water had lapped and stripped\r\nUnderground things unshadowed \r\nAnd made uncomfortably known-- \r\nTrees that couldn't run succumbed \r\nSpending years sometimes just leaning \r\nOver the horrible mirror. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Seasons in the Sun<\/h2>\n
How strangely the artifacts of childhood \r\nGrow in grown imagining! When work \r\nLapses like a gasp at dusk, a red wagon \r\nRolls by the blue inflated pool \r\nSuzy splashed in, her puffy hair in knots. \r\nAfter dinner, among the table's bric-a-brac, \r\nEyeglasses aside, the trees we ran through rise \r\nAcre on acre between the plates, games \r\nOf chase and war, indians and aliens. \r\nVying like twin stags in the forest brake \r\nWe pawed and clashed, cracking dead branches \r\nFor antlers, bleeding after the prize \r\nOf who Suzy would take to the antic dance \r\nBeside her pink plastic Barbie player that spun \r\nHer one black record scratched to static: \r\nSeasons in the Sun. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Golden Keyhole<\/h2>\n
We hid crouched, bunched to see \r\nWhat Sally had got on and what \r\nTook off, all those summer \r\nDays ago when no one knew \r\nAnything about girls, or boys \r\nBeing dogs who wagged our tails \r\nAnd punched each other quietly \r\nAway from Sally's bathroom door \r\nHer brother had corralled us toward \r\nWith stories beyond our ears \r\nOf slope and dip and fluffed cleft \r\nDarkly lapping like a wave \r\nCrashing us to pieces while \r\nWe kneeled in mute accord \r\nBreathing the golden keyhole's steam. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Little Red Wagon<\/h2>\n
\n\twhen the thirst for love first came
\n\tit was not calm or tame<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nPell-mell and hell-all down the hill \r\nThe little red wagon we rode on \r\nSkirted roots that promised gashes \r\nSkittled swaths of pebbles in a spray \r\nAs the hill steepened its deepness \r\nAnd the battered path narrowed, \r\nA yellow ribbon in a dowdy wood \r\nDappled for hand-held dawdling \r\nThe naming of leaf and birdsong \r\nNot this rattled race to a quick crash \r\nHer smile big on my shoulder \r\nTo nibble an ear while I steered \r\nWith flailing handle in hand \r\nA gasp pushed back to teeth \r\nJarring our muscles in dusts \r\nWith an aftertaste of toothpaste \r\nAnd foretaste of ecstasy \r\nAs we wheeled the last hairpin \r\nSquealing until the tears came-- \r\n\r\nAnd laughter after as we tugged \r\nDisheveled shirts and skirts back \r\nTo playtime's regular order. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Penumbras<\/h2>\n
The grass burned with summer's green. \r\nWe burned like grass \r\nWith an end-of-school-fooling-\r\nAround-the-playground fire \r\nWaiting for the eclipse. \r\nA midday moon was coming \r\nLike Pac-man to eat the sun! \r\nOur science class stood in a circle\r\nHolding squares of smoky glass--\r\nHorizons looked a moonscape\r\nOur tree a hooded visitant\r\nThe school a blade of cave. \r\nAt first the world went dimmer \r\nA weeping edge of cloudburst \r\nClosing one slow eyelid over us...\r\nAnd then coldness seeping, a wave\r\nA snowy wind from nowhere\r\nHastening through the grass. \r\nHalf the sky turned turquoise,\r\nLapis lazuli wetted by a cloth \r\nBefore we caught the sun \r\nBegin its blinking off: \r\nIts penlight kept getting whiter \r\nAnd smaller than a soul \r\nWhile a line of midnight skirmishers \r\nAdvanced across the field;\r\nOur school was disappearing fast \r\nUnder the eclipse's dome! \r\nWhen we were fully underwater \r\nThe birds forgot their song--\r\nThe silence kept us looking up\r\nAt wild ill-lit fins of sun \r\nSurrounding a dot of blackness, \r\nA circle like ourselves. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cutting Copper, Welding Voices<\/h2>\n
When the welder's laser torch \r\nPuts a blue tongue to the throat \r\nOf pipe length, a thin scrying \r\nHisses pixel dust out of the pipe \r\nAs it reddens in its vise-- \r\nWhen the cut is almost through \r\nWhen ruddy heat at one end \r\nHurries hot air through the flue \r\nDark arroyos of longing open\r\nA soft moaning loosening\r\nA low vibrato bass note \r\nComing from the whole length \r\nOf scissored copper tubing \r\nThe hopeless hollow sobbing \r\nOf a boy \r\nNot wanting to be heard. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Handmedowns<\/h2>\n
Daily our fights like falling axes \r\nFelled love that buds in brothers \r\nLove that holds small hands like hafts \r\nChopping winter wood in unison, \r\nLove that shelves all razorthin leers \r\nOf anger too high to easily reach-- \r\nInstead he teased snakestrikes over \r\nNothing, over lies and pride, \r\nAn inch chalked on a doorframe,\r\nHis fist with a reach like a whip\r\nA slap that sounded like laughter\r\nOn cheeks red as slaughter\r\nUntil trust like a crumbcake was\r\nEaten, and your mouth full of spiders \r\nCursed the dapper little fellow \r\nYou first hugged, first learned to walk behind \r\nIn his bleached and patched handmedowns \r\nTo playgrounds and ponds and friends \r\nWho waved and climbed while you waited \r\nAlone, a little ignored, looking up \r\nUnder high masts of sycamores \r\nHis voice calling all pirates to battle \r\nAnd everyone in the neighborhood \r\nCrying \u2018Aye, aye!' but you. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Realness of Velveteen<\/h2>\n
At 7, the Velveteen Rabbit told me \r\nReal is a thing that happens to you \r\nInflating himself off the page \r\nLeft ear, right ear, a fuzzy balloon\r\nSquealing alive into raw moonlight \r\nDecolorizing my room like \r\nBlack-and-white TV into moon \r\nValleys and moon hills, the fish \r\nA moon fish circling her lunar bowl. \r\nTwo big feet thumped bopping \r\nOnto the polished floor, his rabbity \r\nGlance vulnerable as bubbles--\r\nI looked down in surprise unfolding\r\nSleepy in my bluebird PJs\r\nWatching his whiskers twitch\r\nUnrolling my arm to hold his hand \r\n(Or had he reached up to slap\r\nHis long velour paw into mine?). \r\nHowsoever, barefoot together \r\nFloating over whirlpool bedsheets\r\nWe became realer and realer and realer\r\nLike clouds do when their shadows \r\nDarken your house, a shiver arriving \r\nIn the middle of limitless day \r\nAnd walked out the window talking. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Confused by Honeysuckle<\/h2>\n
Where tentworms had set up the dog \r\nPlunged through blindly his nose afire after \r\nThe wet stick chucked amongst all them flowers \r\nGowning down to grass like a giant's wig \r\nOld Dukey stuck with that ratsnest cobweb \r\nBlob of gossamer grossness, a felt patch \r\nBattened in his mane and over one eye \r\nWhile I hold him steady carefully combing \r\nSilken gauze off in knots from his pelt-- \r\nA mistake yes I'm sure of it for my part \r\nThe throw all awkward at elbow and wrist \r\nCan't blame the stupid dog too bad really \r\nDumb dog's just gonna sit there and watch me \r\nCatch it with the switch when Dad checks on us: \r\nDon't worry Dukey I won't hit you for it \r\nConfused with honeysuckle is all we were \r\nReally if you think about it fair and square \r\nThe honeysuckle luminous today \r\nThat had been beige grey just yesterday \r\nA riot of blossom and the scent like candy\r\nAmid what yellow galaxy of stars--\r\nAs soft goodness as any nighttime Mommy kiss\r\nWhen pillowy dreams come sifting in like mist\r\nAnd now this unaccountable mess jesus \r\nMy hands all full of broken silver threads \r\nThe comb wrecked and suddenly I can feel \r\nThe worms' irritated circling on my hands. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cold Burial<\/h2>\n
One melancholy duty with a shovel \r\nWas chipping free bodies of birds \r\nWho threw themselves like snowballs \r\nAgainst our bank of 4x6 ft. windows \r\nSunset after sunset thinking \r\nThey're flying home to nests they know \r\nThrough what looked a bit of woods \r\nReal trunks repeated back in glass\r\nHanging over a gorgeous splash \r\nOf frozen reservoir so white \r\nWe played there wearing sunglasses, \r\nCool skiers in ads for spearmint gum. \r\n\r\nEvery evening like fireworks \r\nBirds thumped stopped against the view, \r\nStrange fish flat to aquarium walls\r\nLeaving behind halo puffs of dust \r\nLingering like fingerprints, then \r\nFlying off shaken and confused \r\nIn a tangle of awkward wings \r\nNot ready to abandon air.\r\nOthers hit the snow jingling,\r\nIcicles dismantled in a wind,\r\nSmall ribald scribbles of color laid \r\nAt odd angles like a swimmer \r\nPhotoed in Sports Illustrated, then \r\nHopped afoot in one blink, one twist \r\nFlying away with a warning: \r\nNot all woods are woods indeed \r\nNor home always where we expect \r\nFlying fast to beat the night \r\nAnd save our necks for sleep.<\/em>\r\n\r\nNext day I always found the worst \r\nPopsicled overnight, and carried \r\nNow by me to the frozen pile \r\nA pyramidal igloo sort of pile\r\nBigger every day until spring \r\nWhen wetwork and a proper hole \r\nBegan to be dug--until then I\r\nNestled them gently down with \"Sorry\" \r\nAnd a shovelful of fresh snow. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Greggo the Great<\/h2>\n
I still remember when I first \r\nSaw a fan of cards like a wingspan \r\nFlutter from a magician's tuxedo: \r\nOne fan, two fans, dozens fluttering, \r\nAnd from his upturned hat \r\nInto which a pitcher of milk \r\nHad threaded, doves--doves white \r\nAs milk, their fantails crested \r\nLike wheels of cards appeared \r\nFrom the nowhere of elsewhere \r\nBlack potentialities and spaces \r\nEmptiness like a new moon hiding \r\nThe full moon in its shadow-- \r\nThe trick of it invulnerable \r\nAnd real. Afterward, backstage, \r\nI ran up to him, up to Gordo the \r\nGreat, who simmered with the smell \r\nOf aftershave and success \r\nAnd asked if I, I too.... \r\n\"If you, too, can be a magician?\" \r\nHe flicked a business card \r\nFor his downtown magic shop \r\nFrom behind my ear with a whisk \r\nAnd a wink, into my palm, saying \r\n\"The first thing you need, kid, \r\nIs a really good stage name.\" \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
II<\/h2>\n
Earthquake Minor,
\nMiddle-Age
\nExplained<\/p>\n\r\n ... bet w\/ humanity \r\n not against it \r\nthat's the kind of animal you are \r\n not a robot, an angel \r\n ~~Jacko Monahan, One-Legged Poetry\r\n<\/em>\r\n \r\n\r\n<\/pre>\nShowering<\/h2>\n
The world slides off in steam \r\nNot fire, not ice; sweat runneled \r\nTo a drain, and that is all. \r\nSkin snaps like a fresh umbrella \r\nAnd I am lily-new, lily-white \r\nIn a rainfall of feathers \r\nDelighting the aging body \r\nFold by fold that leap by leap \r\nCartwheeled backyard sprinklers \r\nHammered puddles in rubbers \r\nThrough every storm that boiled \r\nInto cloudburst.... The world's no more \r\nThan a sentence away from youth, \r\nFrom death. This rain has come before. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Shaving<\/h2>\n
I run the razor on my face \r\nAnd wood shavings appear \r\nAround my bare feet, gathering, gathering, \r\nAs the mirror's camera records \r\nMy changes. Whoever I am \r\nBecoming requires this quick \r\nCutting away of old selves \r\nFace by ragged face, the razor \r\nSharp and smooth, etching \r\nOccasional detours into highways \r\nThe way a river basin ravages \r\nItself into existence, in a new \r\nGroove among the ancient hills. \r\nMy past lies in bleeding curls, \r\nFrets my wet feet--my ankles \r\nAre covered! And my jagged face \r\nIs guessing its way out of its \r\nRiverine box, a man's face \r\nNot yet ready for death \r\nSlaps aftershave on a totem \r\nThat slept in the treetrunk's grain \r\nAll the days until yesterday\u2026\r\nIt's rich itch of potential \r\nBearded by bark, by years \r\nAdding ring on ring of routine \r\nIn active indifference. Today, \r\nMy palm wipes condensation \r\nLike drawing a curtain--\r\nWith a shiver of hatchets \r\nA new, raw face arrives \r\nChopped into the pole's \r\nResurrected top. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Bag of Oranges<\/h2>\n
Looking up through blue drafts \r\nMy drifting boat spins, \r\nKnocks through narrows \r\nFrom the weedy wreckage \r\nOf an industrial wharf \r\nWheeling to where breakers open \r\nIn the flat-bottomed bowl \r\nOf simmering ocean. \r\nI left the dock I don't know when\r\nConfident as a oarlock\r\nA bag of emergency oranges \r\nHauled along for safety's sake \r\nIf the wind grew frisky\r\n(Their scent a sack of sneezes). \r\n\r\nNow sky in endless arcs \r\nRoofs my journey \r\nOf hairpin skids and lapses \r\nWhere water and weather \r\nGive no more guidance \r\nThan a drowning man's \r\nWeathervane arms-- \r\nI see that I am lost \r\nBut not how I got here, \r\nSense I am moving \r\nBut not my motive. \r\n \r\nMy rowboat's boundless arrow \r\nSpins like a broken compass; \r\nThe bag of oranges \r\nAt my feet \r\nIs nearly empty. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Dance?<\/h2>\n
The average hours of usual day. \r\nOf course it is a dance, of course. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Holy Mackerel<\/h2>\n
\r\n for Gabor Barabas<\/em>\r\n<\/pre>\n\r\nShellacked to a bullet sheen \r\nSet mantelpiece high and aimed \r\nFor the Azores or thereabouts \r\nWhere fins inhabited life \r\nEye more than a glass bauble \r\nScales more glittering than paint \r\nAlive to plunge and feel the weight \r\nOf water water everywhere, a bliss \r\nOf frisson shuttling the sea's loom \r\nAs I pace the shallow fireplace \r\nWeaving memories like wires \r\nRecalling taut strike and strife \r\nTapping my pipe in Morse code \r\nTossed between ashes and ocean \r\nA fisher admiring his rigid prize \r\nVisitor eye to museum eye \r\nArcheologist and the mummy-cloth,\r\nFingers flush against Pharaoh's belly \r\nLingering where silvering scales \r\nFall that flashed a fist for years \r\nA wake arriving after each flash \r\nA thousand wakes together like a flag \r\nWoven in meaning and motion\r\nInvisible threads thrashing, streaming \r\nPulling the living garment wet \r\nFrom the rack--supple, shoulderless \r\nSlim as in a dream but real \r\nTheir choir of buried voices \r\nLiquid in every ear. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Turtle Poem<\/h2>\n
An old turtle crossed west\r\nA primordial stretch of highway, wide\r\nWhere cars came on in thunder\r\nUnder sun's dead lightning whiteness.\r\nTime lay flat beneath his feet\r\nThat liked a sempiternal heat\r\nStepping to keep his slow appointments\r\nMade before his egg was digged\r\nAnd left mooning in the earth.\r\nHe is as a wheel of fire\r\nEating the strangeness of time\r\nEagerly in mincing licks!\r\nFor hours he walks the asphalt\r\nPushes grass with his hawk beak\r\nSeeking mud and reeds and release\r\nIn doppler ripples of the old pond\r\nWhere he sighs sinks down and shows\r\nShyly until nighttime only\r\nHis nostrils above the waterline. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Crossing<\/h2>\n
\n\tand the seagull flying like a crucifix
\n~~Emanuel di Pasquale<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nWalking into my long morning \r\nShadow where I stretch \r\nWhere tarry pilings stand \r\nLike me, like me charcoal-touched \r\nBy shadow, anchoring \r\nA walkway flatness for my foot \r\nWhere sand is slipping always \r\nAnd water winning landward \r\nThrowing coins of tideline light, \r\nI saw an arrow's smallness \r\nA seagull's crooked cross \r\nCrossing me with shadow wings \r\n(With shadow wings endowing) \r\nWhere forward wind had slowed \r\nHim, then he lifted slowly over \r\nThe glassware of the sea \r\nTaking my dark wings away \r\nTo rumors only ocean knows \r\nAnd keeps in a deepness more \r\nThan me--though ocean deepness shone \r\nMore homey, more close-in, more \r\nInterior after \r\nOur long morning walk. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dream Split<\/h2>\n
My head a bowling ball again \r\nTrying to make the split for the win \r\nFingers stiffed in mouth and eyes \r\nHer engagement ring in my nose \r\nThen screaming red down the lane \r\nThe room ass-over-tea-kettle spinning \r\nBlond boards blood-slippery, waxed \r\nA mile long before I knock \r\nPins apart, skinning my forehead \r\n(That'd been kissed to sleep last night) \r\nTo its nobbled and native skull \r\nThe one x-rays show rivered \r\nWith fine lines and cracks, the plates \r\nWhere thought first stitched to thought \r\nHanging my face like a grass skirt \r\nFrom its ball, a curtain which winks \r\nShowing live eyes, dead teeth and the whole \r\nVaudevillian rigamarole \r\nThat directs my life like a puppet show \r\nHas me bleat \u2018love' and mew when scratched \r\nObey all traffic signs, dodge hazards \r\nAnd generally walk erect when \r\nMy recalcitrant head's attached \r\nAnd not hefted on elbow and aimed \r\nA pinball flippered in an unknown game \r\nRolling, rolling, rolling. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Metabolic, Metaphoric, Metamorphic<\/h2>\n
Paint slops, and there's a daisy. \r\nAnother slop, and the reedy stem \r\nFattens to a skeleton a brush \r\nEmboldens into form, into firm \r\nOutlines on a canvas, all those \r\nAcres of whiteness that yet need \r\nTo be invented like the night \r\nGestating day in its egoless cradle \r\nTo see what shapes darkness dreams \r\nRevealed filleted by the dagger day, \r\nAnd changing even then through shadow \r\nRotations as a sundial tells the hour \r\nAnd events defeat imagination \r\nAnd love and hate and envy, pride \r\nDeride their painted lineaments \r\nBesotted by chaos as Rorschach blots \r\nUntil dreams carve the mystery again, \r\nPut paper people at their marks \r\nAssign the scripts and invent the day \r\nLike a play that only needs rehearsal, \r\nConviction that the fiction's real this time--\r\nAnd we awake fresh as paint to watch \r\nDay go incorrigibly awry. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Jazz Enjambment<\/h2>\n
A jazz voice never listened for \r\nEmanates in syncopation \r\nFrom behind the closed door \r\nInside a littered taxicab \r\nStale as wet cigarettes\r\nI duck to enter. \"Where \r\nAre you headed?\" the driver \r\nSays over the river of radio \r\nThe two voices braiding \r\nIn my ear live and lithe \r\nInviting as in a new-spun \r\nDream a night journey \r\nFrom the low-watt dimness \r\nOf the shut door behind me \r\nOn to where the roadway \r\nLies slick and glistening, \r\nWhispers of earlier rain leaving \r\nThe black wide pupil brimming \r\nWith overmuch of emotion almost \r\nSave that the jazz voice busking \r\nBroken hearts brings strange \r\nComfort, pain easing pain \r\nTelling me whatever dream \r\nIs rolling like a tear tonight \r\nHas rolled this way before.... \r\nForlorn elms and watchful skies \r\nNo strangers to what muted me \r\nTo what had those radio voices \r\nUnspool like talking smoke \r\nI could inhale, inhale, inhale. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Entire Sky<\/h2>\n
The gentlest racket \r\nThe rattle of a doorlatch \r\nOpening to beach fireworks \r\nCome so soon again \r\nWhile my quiet world grew \r\nWarm as two rheumatic hands \r\nHolding my face all those \r\nCold years ago. \r\n\r\n Grandmother, \r\nYou kept this house swept \r\nFor company, the model boats \r\nIn naval trim as Granddad had, \r\nFresh zinnias on the tabletop, \r\nLemonade twisted by hand \r\nAnd left sweating--once \r\nA bee struggled to his sweet \r\nDeath in the glass-cut pitcher \r\nLike Snow White in her glass \r\nCoffin, but a bee instead. \r\n\r\nTonight, the entire sky \r\nWill whistle and celebrate \r\nWhile I stand on the bare porch \r\nOf this now disordered house. \r\nMy life feels abandoned, \r\nA boat spinning from its dock \r\n Into darkness, the tide out, \r\nThe stars a chaos overhead\u2026. \r\nSo I think to turn back inside \r\nAnd slide into sleep when \r\nThe first crack arrests me, and \r\nThe whole bowl of the sky \r\nFills with zinnias. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Questions Are Beautiful<\/h2>\n
The wry neck of a swan \r\nWrenched into a questionmark \r\nAnswers as the beautiful always do \r\nA question with a question: \r\n--Are you graceful only on the water? \r\nCan you read what's written there?\r\n--Does your flight echo the soul's after death? \r\nI've never died before, have you?\r\n\r\nStill as a lotus on the pond \r\nThey float like clouds, like blossoms \r\nMirroring heaven, while beneath \r\nBlack feet revolve dark, strong webs. \r\nTaken altogether they are \r\nAn image of contemplation \r\nThat pushes the mind's mirror \r\nWith black feet, strong dark webs. \r\n\r\nFifty-five years and the pond remains \r\nCrowded with beautiful swans \r\nAnd questions; here the sunset grows \r\nMore lustrous as the minutes pass, \r\nAn ember edging the water's tongue. \r\nHalf-lifted swans batter their wings, \r\nShoulders like a swimmer breaking free, \r\nNecks straight out into darkness. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Earthquake Minor<\/h2>\n
Notice of it came like a nail \r\nJerked from a new-cut two-by-four \r\nA spiral squeal as if the walls \r\nWere papier-mache, fingered \r\nAt the seams, tossed unloftily \r\nAs last week's overtipping trash \r\nThat hit the kitchen floor rolling, \r\nA pup obscenely frisking; \r\nWater hiccuped in the goldfish \r\nBowl, lensing the orange fish \r\nInto a convex abstract. \r\n\r\nA neighbor at her balustrade \r\nShouted \"Earthquake!\" her infant \r\nSwaddled close and looking up \r\nBabyishly at a cloud. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Botanical Gardens<\/h2>\n
A thousand swats of water \r\nStagger leaf to leaf \r\nIn the Botanical Garden dome \r\nThe jungle flora breaking \r\nInto blossom like a swimmer:\r\nHelliconia, orchids, monkey brush, \r\nA thrashing passionflower \r\nStigmata-red and starred,\r\nGlow among moroser leaves \r\nAs we navigate the catwalk \r\nAnd consult our heavy guidebooks \r\nTo ogle this pulpy Venusian \r\nTerrarium in Brooklyn \r\nAs stranger voices skreak, and\r\nHidden wings restlessly emerge: \r\nMacaws, cotinga, oropendolas \r\nUnlimbering their leider \r\nTo tattoo our eardrums as we \r\nClimb a ladder stairway up among \r\nThrongs of heavenly feathery hosts \r\nWhose language is not our own-- \r\nClear panes of sky have exiled \r\nPure spirits with us sinners \r\nCondemned to eat the bread and \r\nBirdseed sweated from our brows \r\nSo hot to hear them singing \r\nEnchantments like a new beginning \r\nBefore brother beset brother \r\nBefore a sword bolted the gate, \r\nTurning slowly the great green leaves \r\nWherein we read their world. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Parachutist<\/h2>\n
\"Love is letting go,\" I hear, \r\nSlapped through the cutout \r\nInto a sprawl of cloudwrack \r\nImprecise as serried dreams. \r\nThe air pins my limbs back \r\nAnd pressures a rictus grin \r\nAs I swallow curls of screams: \r\nSuch beauty! Such beauty! \r\nIdealized shadows hang blue \r\nAs Plato's ruthless smile \r\nEnlivening the skies. Below, \r\nThe world's laid out like a grave \r\nPloughed for seed, all that Iowa \r\nLoam beneath clouds' pageantry, \r\nThe wind so loud it is silence. \r\nI never felt my body more than \r\nIn that moment of first falling; \r\nMy eye all eye, my stomach \r\nA helium balloon, hands claws \r\nLegs stiff in a sculpted vice. \r\nI realized all I was was a clod \r\nOf earth--misplaced, tossed up-- \r\nOut of my element among \r\nWhite spires, candelabra touched \r\nBy some genius of whimsy \r\nAs I fell my way back home. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Rembrandt’s Faces<\/h2>\n
Are the most human, rueful \r\nAnd ruined of masterpieces \r\nChafed into paper with a sad \r\nWit too aware of time and time's \r\nHumiliating erasures, pulling \r\nFrom the wreck the sensual \r\nWrinkles of Diana at Her Bath, \r\nHer rust-colored puckers piled \r\nLike a couch too long sat upon \r\nThoughts too deep and grave to give \r\nVoice to their sorrow, words to marrow \r\nUntil only a Zen charlatan's \r\nShinbone flute is left tootling \r\nThe haunting airs of fieldhands \r\nWhich Rembrandt also drew, noting \r\nA muscular rangy strength \r\nBundled arms and thighs bursting \r\nBunches of blood grapes unpicked \r\nWeighty with harvest, while in those \r\nHands so sensitively rendered hangs \r\nThe black heavy arc of the scythe \r\nSwinging the wheat headless, \r\nStroke after stroke of sketched wheat \r\nUnder a crayon sun. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Walking the Talk<\/h2>\n
Conversations rise around \r\nUs like hossanahs \r\nFlock after the Ark \r\nOf the Covenant-- \r\nA blessing that bathes \r\nThe ears that see \r\nThe souls it blesses. \r\nWords for the mendicant, \r\nWords for the wife, words \r\nFor the ticket-taker \r\nStanding at attention at \r\nThe theater of your life. \r\nWeavings, meanings, they \r\nHammock us in wholeness, \r\nTwo peas in a pod \r\nOf words, words, words. \r\nAsleep or swaying \r\nWe huddle together \r\nIn our sheltering web-- \r\nNot one, not one thread \r\nOf our woven home \r\nWould I snap. Together \r\nWe've talked the decades real, \r\nTogether our time \r\nAbided. Together \r\nWe pull the needle clean \r\nOf the housing shroud; \r\nTogether hoist up \r\nTo our narrow, old \r\nShoulders the Covenant. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
In a Parkinglot<\/h2>\n
Workmen in orange vests \r\nHammer at a cracked drain \r\nSeeking beneath the grate \r\nThe vat blackness where water \r\nLike a shadow goes only \r\nLately its been sitting here \r\nStiff as a mirror the sun \r\nBeats his gold face upon. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Landing in Bed<\/h2>\n
\n\ta country far away as health
\n\t~~Sylvia Plath<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nIllness, Illness, a brimful life \r\nCancered, ulcered, reduced, abridged\r\nTo a flat plate of licked gruel \r\nStinks and sinks and embarrassments \r\nUnending as a diaper rash, \r\nThe grinding doing of others who \r\nOrbit you, you who were Pluto, a \r\nPlanet demoted to a sick cot \r\nDown a few organs at last count, \r\nA chore for the devoted.\r\nYou issue mewling protests, how\r\nEven memories go icky grey \r\nIn the daily wash, how only the steel \r\nBedframe is real, the mealy \r\nPillow yellow with unworked sweat \r\nWhile dreams of drowning drip-drip \r\nTo wake you in a gasp of tubing, \r\nWalls cubed as an Escher etching \r\nReceding in series, a white mirage.... \r\nThe whole house of cards kicked \r\nFlat on its back--and you too, clueless,\r\nSure to the end that death's just \r\nThat fuzzy, unfazed after-light \r\nAfter a flash. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Michigan Lumber, 1886<\/h2>\n
The saw blade worked white to lick \r\nDust from the living core of wood. \r\nHeld taut between us double-dutch \r\nIt's rhythm slithered like a lullaby \r\nOf bees cozied in closed peonies. \r\nSweat that felt the wind kept wary \r\nFor what might come to pinch our work, \r\nTurn the day to waste and wreck the blade. \r\nThe tree was balanced now on less than half \r\nOf what had held it lofty all those years \r\nBefore we came to use its strength for houses. \r\nWith a nod we doubled rhythm now \r\nTo surprise the pine that couldn't run away \r\nAnd keep our luck to leeward. We'd apprized \r\nIt'd fall between two garland oaks \r\nAnd lay obedient to be timber. At a crack, \r\nWe knew we'd psalmed the solemn child \r\nAsleep, and sang our saw blade backwards \r\nWith a twang to watch all sleepy nature sway \r\nLike a woman dancing for her man \r\nA moment--and then the horrible crash like\r\nTearing ears. \r\nAnd silence like a blanket after that.\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Haskell Invitational<\/h2>\n
\t for a quintet of poets <\/em>\n<\/p>\n
\r\nA constellation of friends \r\nIn a Pegasus configuration \r\nAbet my summer writing jag \r\nAs a fence abets a horse's \r\nJumping form, legs strained \r\nTo effort and flight, flashing \r\nMost where crossed \r\nHighest where hindered \r\nIn the muddy brown stream \r\nOf his strong running \r\nFrom the starter's gun. \r\n\r\nBeyond their stoppages \r\nI canter in circles, \r\nThe sacrosanct circuit \r\nTheir stars have lit for me: \r\nSpeech like a bettor's prayer, \r\nThe finish-line a typewriter ribbon \r\nThat breaks against my breast \r\nWhen a poem's intoning \r\nIs done. \r\n\r\nEach critique sticks \r\nLike a jockey's whip \r\nAnd foams my lips, the blinders \r\nTight beside my eyes that\r\nThe little man above me might\r\nWear a new hat, I a hoop \r\nOf flowers like a yoke. \r\n\r\nAll night I watch my brothers \r\nRevolve in races of their own, \r\nMyself a glimmering participant-- \r\nSummer's final star, perhaps, \r\nShining under a coronal \r\nFlare of tail. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Circumloquacious<\/h2>\n
Clouds rumble their thunder bubbles \r\nPiling nimbus on nook and crag \r\nOn etiolating white tendril where \r\nShadow shoots like a handkerchief \r\nPatting away effort and sweat \r\nWith cool assurances of talk. \r\nI talk my way around the lengthening day \r\nA simmer of indifferences\r\nAffinanced to the lazy scuds above\r\nReluctant to come again to ground \r\nThe dark of earth, the insistence \r\nOf grass... I am a brush that moves \r\nAmong watercolor clouds.... \r\n\r\nSuch afternoon summeriness \r\nHas left me leaning \r\nOn dreams, the rifted \r\nFabric of skies \r\nTall as my leaning eyes. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cry of the Cat<\/h2>\n
The cry of the cat \r\nFat as a baby's cry \r\nPricks me from sleep \r\nUp the long slope of day \r\nA ladder of witless pegs \r\nAnd serial embarrassments--\r\nThe stubborn self shudders away, \r\nA red stain licked on thick\r\nBruising splinters. \r\nQuickly everything is gotten \r\nReady and dispensed with; \r\nSpeedily the road rewinds \r\nFrom work to home. \r\n\r\nThe cry of the cat \r\nTakes my coat, seats me.\r\nLike a grinning cannibal I \r\nDine on the dinner of myself: \r\nMy heart a purple plum \r\nGone splayed with waiting, \r\nA liver in ribbons, lungs \r\nTwo worthless wordless sucks \r\nOf grey breath, a foot \r\nCoy and uncallused as \r\nA princess' palm.\r\nI eat until the sky \r\nIs black. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Smoking the Pipe<\/h2>\n
Pulling open the tobacco bag \r\nTo a stir of leaves \r\nAutumnal brown but moist \r\nAs breath, the careful \r\nMouth of the pipe \r\nRoots among rummage \r\nFor a shovelful of coal \r\nI bring to my lips \r\nThe bit between my teeth \r\nAs a feather of fire \r\nComes instantly close \r\nEnough to start a star \r\nIn the bowl of Cosmos \r\nThat had been blackness only \r\nWhile I inhale \r\nThe furious engines \r\nAs deep as lungs can go \r\nWithout remitting breath \r\nFrom lips as round as song \r\nWhich sends a signal \r\nOf heavenward smokes \r\nIn spiral galaxies, a wreath \r\nOf woven laurels \r\nI dream may yet come \r\nAs I shut my eyes \r\nTo taste it all again, \r\nRedolent and resonant. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dark Cypresses<\/h2>\n
Dark cypresses without sound, \r\nSoft upright voids, lofty flames \r\nErasing the mission of light \r\nStanding as you do for night \r\nNo matter how burnished the day,\r\nCut-outs hanging substanceless! \r\nWhere are you going, where arriving? \r\nYou black pantlegs on the march \r\nYou dancers moving in plush rows \r\nIn shoeless midnight dancing \r\nTouching the dreamer's cheek \r\nWith moon shadow and snow shadow \r\nDrawing darkness from what depths-- \r\nVaporous chill of damp earth, \r\nLiving earth we know nothing of \r\nWho wander its surfaces like grass \r\nNoisy and dry in our myriads \r\nLike grasses perishing innumerably \r\nFull of the empty sounds of wind \r\nPassing, passing \r\nBeneath your great, grown silences \r\nDark cypresses without sound,\r\nUnder sigils of your bonfire. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Among the Whales<\/h2>\n
Far off the port-beam sightings \r\nOf sainted spray, feathers \r\nHigh as houses, rollicking \r\nToward the tourist powerboat \r\nLike quilled teams \r\nOf Shakespeare's copyists \r\nHammering away at Hamlet. \r\nSoon enough their acres \r\nOf skin were all around us, \r\nA smell of industrial rubber \r\nEnclosing us in a dome \r\nAs the spouts circled. \r\n\r\nHills of humping muscle, \r\nAilerons of fatal flukes \r\nDark as midnight soil \r\nA midnight rain had wetted-- \r\nSheets of living tissue \r\nNear enough to slap, it seemed, \r\nAnd we enraptured in the dream. \r\nDown came the feathered \r\nWaters, the bowing plumes \r\nOf drum majors among us \r\nDancing a disparate rhythm \r\nOn the slick deck.\r\n\r\nAnd it was hot, hot as a kiss,\r\nHot as blood the spume spray\r\nSplatting about us in blots\r\nViscid as afterbirth, \r\nAnd we grinned like kids \r\nShamelessly running, running\r\nThrough tumescent sprinklers-- \r\nNo awe, no shame at all in all that \r\nFantastic whiteness blown \r\nHissing around us. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
III The Curve of Her World: Love’s Conundrums<\/h2>\n
[Women] will do what they can once again to warm our gut and heart ~~John Logan, Dawn and a Woman <\/em><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Seneca Doe<\/h2>\n
The white Seneca doe is rare \r\nAnd here; she nibbles on a swale \r\nOf cantilevered grass half past \r\nIts greenest age, more stale than hale--\r\nEven so, the eaten grass becomes\r\nA part of whiteness, swift whiteness \r\nStepping quick like a compass tip \r\nIn tentative exactness \r\nMeasuring the left-alone landscape \r\nTwo miles off the highway way \r\nAmid a mix of wood and field \r\nThis buttery day I came to sit \r\nStiller than a cenotaph \r\nAnd watch the Seneca doe awhile \r\nGo eloping with my hopeful soul \r\nPaper-white and puppet-limber \r\nLeaning through tree shadows like a ghost \r\nTo eat and depart forgotten \r\nHad I not come in expectation \r\nTo eye her oil-dark watchful eye \r\nIn silence, and count the motions \r\nOf her lips as if anxious myself \r\nOf a lover's kiss, or writing \r\nNow of what I saw and did not miss, \r\nA lover's kiss recounting. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Lost Rib<\/h2>\n
Flow gently, sweet dreamer who \r\nLies beside wandering lost \r\nA lax magellanic cloud \r\nOf impulse and perception \r\nShimmering rivery in summer \r\nWith a sheen upon which desire \r\nFloats downstream sweetly \r\nUnswattable as starlight \r\nReflected in water. Desire, \r\nIs that what had the lost rib \r\nRun off by herself and grow up \r\nInto this unknowable companion? \r\nYou would laugh to hear me \r\nSay it, but it was written \r\nBefore we were born--a story \r\nMore relatable than the news' \r\nImaginings that twitter \r\nAt us unprompted! Un- \r\nPrompted as the dream that \r\nSeizes you curling your \r\nFingers like ribs in tension \r\nOf a new birth; what child \r\nAre you shuddering into life? \r\nYour eyebrows bow, approach \r\nAnd meet each other where \r\nA stream appears between them \r\nDark in a pale brow, pinch \r\nAnd pang of the new-- \r\nNot novel, but new again, new \r\nTo us, the forbears of a dream\u2026. \r\nAfter a while your breath \r\nSlows re-regulates relaxes \r\nAnd it's as if the new thought\r\n(New as you lying here was \r\nTo me) was always here \r\nA ripple rubbing the stream \r\nSomething for moonlight to touch \r\nCascading beside me when I'm \r\nPrompted out of sleep; or not, \r\nAlways shining your own way \r\nOnward through what bonnie braes \r\nSweet dreamer, flow gently. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Birds of Summer<\/h2>\n
Ladylike birds gather summer \r\nLike a brace of arrows \r\nSnapped in a fist, \r\nTheir fetching feathers fletched, \r\nTheir beaks stone arrowheads \r\nOut of pre-Colombian mists \r\nDarting at a spillway of seed, \r\nEating the grain I gift them \r\nWith the quick attention \r\nOf surgeons plucking shotgun pellets \r\nA childhood accident had left \r\nInside my scarred left knee \r\nKeeping me bent-legged \r\nAs a bird up any stairs, \r\nMy ascent slow, unfeigned \r\nOn wounded and winded wing \r\nTo where Jenny sits at table \r\nGrading boughs of assiduous sheets \r\nHer student flocks have gathered-- \r\nBirdscratch of pencilmarks, false \r\nFlights and failed landings-- \r\n\r\nHer face in a nest of lamplight \r\nLooks up at my entrance, \r\nOffers me the golden grain. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Curve of Her World<\/h2>\n
Tears that pepper her cheeks \r\nRefresh a softness in her gaze, \r\nGive back grace now the monster \r\nSorrow has swum away to sea \r\nTo bother other deeps, other shes \r\nWhile my darling thoughtfully \r\nWalks barefoot back ashore to me \r\nFrom over the curve of her world\r\nSpatted amazed, pinching her top \r\nBack into place, even smiling \r\nAnd almost meaning it, meaning \r\nTo mean it in the near future, \r\nHer face a new polaroid \r\nShaken slowly into focus-- \r\nA dolphin of shadow darts \r\nInto tidepools of her eyes \r\nCome from her lone sea-sojourn \r\nNot all the days ahead will keep \r\nFrom circling the boat of us \r\nAs she approaches my hammock \r\nSwinging like a hanged man which \r\nIn tarot simply means \u2018change.' \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Without Thought of Harvest<\/h2>\n
One summer we were proud \r\nTo watch our overmuch of flowers \r\nOverpour their beds and out- \r\nMatch the virtue of their stems: \r\nDownward nodded every head \r\nAs if golden damozels \r\nWere bowing in rows. It was \r\nAn avalanche of flowers! \r\nSome tidal wave had landed \r\nAnd left the coastline richer-- \r\nFlower on flower beyond bounds \r\nWith woes of colors cresting \r\nWith splendid displays of petals \r\nUntil overfull of feasting \r\nWe closed our eyes to rest them \r\nAs if blind inside the rainbow \r\nDumb with a moment's prayer \r\nAmazed at what summer had made \r\nOf our refusal to be of use, \r\nTo stop and stoop and pluck \r\nTo sell at a corner stand \r\nAt two dollars a bunch \r\nSharing our garden bounty \r\nWith the whole neighborhood,\r\nRefusal to dazzle\r\nWith blossom and art the household \r\nVases left shelved, closeted in dust \r\n That last year blazed the tables-- \r\nHow instead this untended gift, \r\nThis unweeded bounty, had burst \r\nWithout thought of harvest. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Housewife<\/h2>\n
\tNature frightens us into love.
\n\t~~Richard Poirier<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nI kiss my husband's cheek, \r\nA fine grit that acts like teeth. \r\nEvery day I wear away another \r\nLayer in a kind of decay until\r\nI wear a face like a knob. \r\nTurn me, I'm too smooth to complain! \r\nI fall backward like an open door, \r\nAn empty rectangle you lean on-- \r\nCome in, I'll lead you everywhere. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bandamages<\/h2>\n
I feel that she might just be \r\nThe medicine that I need \r\nThe bland to allay my acids \r\nThe dagger to scissor my spasms--\r\nHer blas\u00e9 cloud covering \r\nA sun of pain like a figleaf,\r\nTinsel edges forge-orange\r\nA spiky halo hinting fire. \r\nBut a bandage is not a cure \r\nFor self-harm, self-alarm, for\r\nAll the selves I peel back, rank \r\nTooth and sputum in a dish\r\nSordid splats of blood, of blood. \r\nStill, I feel that she might be \r\nThe balm-calm bee in a mad hive \r\nDancing the buzzing huzzahs \r\nIn my mazy eyes to hush \r\nMe to sleep like a spill of inks \r\nBlotting out the bastard day \r\nTo dream and dream again, the dream \r\nForgotten as they always are \r\nTelltale shreds of mist diminishing\u2026 \r\nThe bandage renewed as the \r\nWound's renewed, my hacked scabs \r\nGrowing spider legs \r\nTearing themselves off and running. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Mistake<\/h2>\n
Love has torn my life in two: \r\nBefore and after the--then glad, now sad-- \r\nMistake as I have come to call it, \r\nDefining my eras by error as \r\nI look back upon my footsteps' track. \r\n\r\nLove had pulled me through the needle's eye \r\nAnd stitched me witless with desire \r\nTold my tale upon a pillow seam \r\nAnd rocked my soul from its lonesome groove, \r\nLocked in a dance I could not unchoose. \r\n\r\nWhen the ship of me then foundered sundered, \r\nMy wreck picked to ribs by bony crows, \r\nNaked I arose to mosey onward, \r\nA worm escaped from Eden's apple. \r\nA gate slid shut with a sound of oceans.\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fianc\u00e9e<\/h2>\n
A tourniquet of love \r\nEnwounds my finger now \r\nLike honeysuckle holding up \r\nIts triumphant yellow bloom \r\nOn a dead net of twigs \r\nToo long alone with the sun. \r\nThis ring of elfin silver \r\nBraids my knuckle white, \r\nBrands me with a lash of fire, \r\nConnects beyond abandonment \r\nAnother's troubles with my own. \r\nMy fear that love would loosen \r\nLike teeth, and leave me to worm \r\nMy way to death alone, \r\nOur small ceremony atones-- \r\nHands held lightly, like branches cross- \r\nIng, two pines that share a shadow \r\nIn acidy sandy soil for all \r\nTheir lives, bristling against the weather, \r\nPinecones cuffing like coughs \r\nWhen wind beats them sideways. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Spines of Light<\/h2>\n
The black conveyer belt \r\nHauls rivers of diamonds \r\nTo a mouth of slush, \r\nA slurry of vomit \r\nOnly patience can screen-- \r\nPatient implausible fingers. \r\nSome raven that lives in \r\nMidnight with a beak \r\nLike a drill-bit pecks \r\nEarth's holocaust crust \r\nTo perch upon a finger \r\nOne tear of the sun. \r\n\r\nIt takes a diamond \r\nTo find a diamond: \r\nThe three-faced drill \r\nCores stone and coal \r\nSeeking a vein \r\nOf light, a ripple \r\nIn the earth where \r\nA finger, a snake \r\nOf sunlight died, \r\nCrushed multifaceted \r\nInto permanence-- \r\nSpines of light. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Juliet Manqu\u00e9<\/h2>\n
The moon pulls me from bed \r\nLike taffy in my long gown \r\nTittering slipperless on marble; \r\nIts wide craters effervesce \r\nChampagne I drink pinkly\r\nPearling my snub nose. \r\nI am pitiful and alone. \r\nMy legs ache for embraces \r\nLike a bad tooth--pull me\r\nOut, pull me up, dentist moon! \r\nThis pain's too intimate \r\nTo forget, too stimulant \r\nTo ignore, painted wet \r\nWith every cup of breath, my \r\nLoose arms open like a noose \r\nTo hug the tainted stone flying \r\nAway, away from love, from me.\r\nCome down! Come down!\r\nYou foolish light! I am your perfect lover-- \r\nA windowed prisoner pressing \r\nHer moon-face to the glass. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Beauty<\/h2>\n
She cut off her nose \r\nAnd offered it up. \r\nShe trimmed her ears \r\nAnd offered them up. \r\nShe kissed her lips numb with a shot-glass \r\nAnd offered them up. \r\nHer skin broke out from her makeup, \r\nBut that was to be expected. \r\nShe punched her feet into guillotine shoes \r\nAnd offered them up. \r\nShe prayed on a yoga mat \r\nUntil her back broke. \r\nShe despised her eyes as too small \r\nAnd offered them up. \r\nShe coaxed her nails into claws \r\nAnd offered them up. \r\n\r\nShe offered them all up \r\nAgain and again in ritual \r\nUntil there was nothing left \r\nUntil she was finally beautiful. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Streamers<\/h2>\n
Hazel streamers from your eyes \r\nEntangle in ribbons from mine \r\nAccording to Renaissance lore-- \r\nLove pulls us through the eyes \r\nFeels the ganglia tugging taut \r\nAs rainbows arise between us. \r\nI hold your nipples like a rosary \r\nSensitive this week as eyelids \r\nWhile always this prayer is rising \r\nTo dissolving lips a red scarf \r\nThrown over the bedroom lamp \r\nBurning swollen as a heart. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Finding Fossils<\/h2>\n
\tI hugged the ignorance of stone.
\n\t~~ Stanley Kunitz<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nShe lies next to me sleeping \r\nQuietly alive, foot off \r\nOne end of the double bed \r\nSteadily paddling home \r\nOn a pool-float, her breast \r\nMilkily over the summer sheet \r\nDraped loose in summer heat \r\nThat breath might sustain an ease \r\nAnd stillness enter at last to rest \r\nAs at last she rests, yes, while I \r\nRemember her ceaseless wheels, her \r\nDoing that goes like a hummingbird \r\nIn circles of forward and back \r\nAround the daylit apartment \r\nAround work and it's circuits \r\nPacing the corners, igniting \r\nWith fingertip tricks and a match \r\nCandles when evening loving comes \r\nAnd touching stretches, being thrums \r\nUntil at last this sleep arrives \r\nSlows the breath undoes the eyes-- \r\nHer able hands for once so calm, \r\nA fernprint on a stone. \u2022 \r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dream No More<\/h2>\n
Wordlessly you rise wary \r\nInto day, pitch awake \r\nOn an L-elbow, pried eyes \r\nCarnivorous for coffee while \r\nBirds pinch your face with their \r\nEnviable singing outside, \r\nThe flimsy scrim of screen \r\nInundated by waves of sun \r\nDefining you out of darkness \r\nLike a rediscovered key \r\nPicked out by drunken headlights \r\nLast New Year's Eve, or last before-- \r\nAnd you moan into the mayhem \r\nOf consciousness again \r\nPressure of bladder and bowel \r\nHow feet flatfoot the earth after \r\nFlying for hours in nightgowns \r\nKnowing nothing but wind \r\nThe occasional cloud-fluff \r\nStars everywhere like friends. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Needlework<\/h2>\n
I mend an image worn \r\nBy sitting, by fluffing, by naps: \r\nA spatter of nasturtiums \r\nIn a delightful but unnatural pattern \r\nPrinted on the drugstore's \r\nTwo-dollar needlepoint kit \r\nIn 1983. Now I mend \r\nA confusion of nasturtiums \r\nBack to crimson, petal by petal, \r\nA task for Ariadne \r\nMy spidery fingers finesse \r\nIn evocations of thread. \r\nMy heart dreads \r\nI shall not survive to renew \r\nThis pattern again-- \r\nSome stranger's backside will come \r\nTo endorse all I've done, \r\nAll I've left undone... \r\nMy basket of needles long sold \r\nGarage sales ago. \r\nI pause my pace \r\nAnd stare at the half- \r\nResurrection in my lap, \r\nHow the new infects the old, \r\nHow the old degrades \r\nBeautifully as a sunset \r\nBy Turner perhaps, or some \r\nByzantine icon touched \r\nBy too many lips. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
IV Tightropes: More Formal Poems<\/h2>\n
Wisdom changes hands among the wise. ~~Sophocles, Oedipus Rex <\/em><\/p>\n
Trying<\/h2>\n
Gently, without hurrying, try it: \r\n Be the bowl of shadow in the valley, \r\n Go with the river over knowing stones \r\n Smooth as a catfish belly. \r\n\r\nLet pine trees breathe needles in your hair: \r\n Follow that compass where it points, \r\n Walk until your feet are padded, \r\n Your toes as black as a fox's. \r\n\r\nThe wind is trembling to begin it: \r\n Are you ready to be led by the nose? \r\n Forget your own life and inhabit it! \r\n Gently, without hurrying now, \r\n\r\nTry it. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Tightrope<\/h2>\n
Walking curb edges for practice \r\nThe tracks of departed trains \r\nI've sought, I'm always seeking \r\nA kind of balance in the brain \r\nAn equipoise, a perigee, a grace \r\nWhere thought and its subject \r\nEqually displace \r\nEach other (and themselves) \r\nOn principles of mutual alliance \r\nThe way Earth pulls back \r\nHer punch into the sun, and sun \r\nHis enthusiasm contains \r\nTo less than hellish flame. \r\nSo that survival might feel \r\nRestful, I beaver at my niche: \r\nI count my words like beads \r\nInto the sorting dish: red, \r\nBlue or black, alive or dead, \r\nI've all the signifiers assigned, \r\nAll the labels that I need \r\nTo have my cuss\u00e9d abacus succeed \r\n--To keep my accounts unsettled \r\nThat entropy would nettle. \r\nI count the wordy beads: \r\nCharity, dignity, hope; \r\nKeeping your head up is like nothing \r\nSo much as walking a tightrope. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Water, Water<\/h2>\n
…deep dark surroondin’ darkness I discern
\n Is aye the price o’ licht.
\n ~~Hugh MacDiarmid, Milk-Wort and Bog-Cotton<\/em>\n<\/p>\n\r\nDowncast as thoughtless waters' face \r\nWhen a stormfront steals the light\r\nI boot the edging muck and wail at fate \r\nA boxer simmering for a bout; \r\nBut when the spry sun cast coins \r\nIn cash on bricolage waves \r\nMy spirit like a new-washed face \r\nShines benign, myself am salved and saved. \r\nWell long lying I've watched for dawn, \r\nWell known the subtle cups the moon \r\nPours on darkling waters' scorn,\r\nSibilant ease in which night is born\u2026.\r\nAnd oftener still felt sprigs of spray \r\nWhip, dot and whisker me for spite \r\nTurning my inmost grouse of thought \r\nTo imp-laughter and wet delight. \r\nA thousand hours down on elbows, low, \r\nI breathe the skirl of air from off \r\nThe dance, the mantling of the lake-- \r\nShavings, glintings of light and self. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
One Afternoon<\/h2>\n
The sun swarming on my upturned face \r\nWarms me into place. \r\nIf ever I moved from where now I lay, \r\nLove, it was not today. \r\nLong hot summer holds me so hammock-snug \r\nGott could call, and I would shrug. \r\nI'm a cat whose paws overstretch its stoop; \r\nNight is when I leap! \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
New Places<\/h2>\n
I thought we were going somewhere new, \r\nA place undiscovered, at least by us, \r\nWhere new day would startle us quietly \r\nAnd new night silently confound. \r\n\r\nBut there were all the old stars above us. \r\nWe hadn't taken the turnpike far enough \r\nTo reach escape velocity, despite our losing \r\nHome and cell phone coverage along the way. \r\n\r\nAll around us, trees kept on being trees, and \r\nAlthough the land crept up the sky somewhat \r\nMore than usually for us in old New Jersey, \r\nThe clouds came down to meet it just the same.\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
A Map of Bones<\/h2>\n
Tiptoe on the mountaintop was not enough. \r\nSome part of me sparked up crying: more sky, more sky! \r\nMy eyes swept the flowered hills, and the gulfs \r\nWhere the water went, and sometimes hazed, \r\n\r\nAnd none of it, sparkle or living quilt, was enough. \r\nInside me, full of burning teeth, was the eater of days, \r\nDissatisfied dipsomaniac of incalculable thirst \r\nDragging me from mountaintop to top \r\n \r\nFor vistas so magnificent they hurt. \r\nThe body follows its map of bones, laying out \r\nFingertip, fingertip, fingertip--or tilting \r\nThe pelvis upright to see how we're not alone \r\n\r\nAs we walk the flat unpatterned plains between \r\nThunderclaps of mountains that help us up, \r\nWhose stone bones grow so long that they poke \r\nThrough the scenery. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Dancers of Sleep<\/h2>\n
The dancers of sleep hold flames in their hands. \r\nWe follow them down into caves, under the earth. \r\nStones glare into existence, bursts of incredible light. \r\n\r\nTall blade-shouldered creatures fearless in daylight \r\nWalk like Egyptians down the dusty path clapping hands \r\nTo awake the napping bats entangled in edges of shadow. \r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Reluctance<\/h2>\n
All day the steeple bells \r\nHarangue an empty sky. \r\nThe sky is crowded with clouded \r\nNow, and will not answer why. \r\n\r\nThe trees themselves are swinging \r\nLike bells held up to skies. \r\nThe sky is silent and itself \r\nAnd will not answer why. \r\n\r\nThe birds compete with tinny \r\nBells alert in tree and sky. \r\nThe sky is blue, alarmless \r\nAnd will not answer why. \r\n\r\nA man comes late on silent feet \r\nBetween trees and bells and sky. \r\nThe sky he looks at satisfies; \r\nHe will not answer why. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Day and Night<\/h2>\n
Into the woods we ran at ten like Indians. \r\nInto the pond we dove at twelve like crocodiles. \r\nInto the grey fields we walked at thirteen \r\nHolding hands until stars nosed close \r\n And loneliness fled. \r\n\r\nII \r\nBefore the old fire's fine red we sit, and stare \r\nInto the old years we've passed together here. \r\nInto our old eyes unbidden rise grey tears \r\nAnd old stars come down close to us \r\n And loneliness flees. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This Soil<\/h2>\n
The soil is ready before I am ready. \r\nAlready a youth's beard of weeds \r\nGreens the garden plot, and March \r\nJust barely by. \r\n\r\nThis soil has turned up old arrowheads before. \r\nWhen the hoe tapped a hardness more than stone, \r\nI bent and cut a finger open \r\nDown to the bone. \r\n\r\nThis soil loves a tender thumb pushed in, sighs \r\nAt the tamp of my palm under our one sun, \r\nThe gurgle-tinkle of water from the rusty can \r\nA baby's cry. \r\n\r\nThe soil boils with vegetables all summer long. \r\nI stoop like a mother, attend to weeds \r\nAnd pack my ratty baskets to a crown \r\nWhile singing songs. \r\n\r\nThis soil needs turning under, now winter's here.\r\nHoe, rake and shovel lean idly in the shed. \r\nDry leaves blow among the picked stalks lisping \r\nDeath's easy hiss. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Trouble with Simple<\/h2>\n
Simply put, is the loss \r\nOf detail that staring entails \r\nUntil a total blur besets \r\nThe doilywork, and only \r\nLoops of cloud remain. \r\n\r\nThe trouble is where to begin \r\nSanding the filigree finial, \r\nErasing the Hindu panoply \r\nAnd awakening the grain \r\nOf Amish monotheism. \r\n\r\nThe trouble is when to stop, \r\nWhen polishing reflects the polisher, \r\nWhen steel and stone, spoon \r\nAnd moon, are one--and only \r\nA mirror to your circles. \r\n\r\nThe trouble is with hummingbirds \r\nAnd bees and butterflies, all those \r\nEccentric improbable flights stopped \r\nCold, or reduced to arrows, or \r\nGravity's earthy entropy. \r\n\r\nThe trouble with simple, simply \r\nPut, is how one keeps forgetting \r\nTo edit, adding totem on totem \r\nTo the pole, chop by magnanimous \r\nChop, in beneficent indifference. \r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Skinny-dipping<\/h2>\n
Childhood's millpond margin smells of peat; \r\nThe black water drowns thirty feet; \r\nMillenial mulch slowly sifts to silt, \r\nSoft on my ankles as tongues of guilt. \r\n\r\nOur laughter echoes to where woods turn wise \r\nAnd dark beyond intelligence; \r\nThe pulpy water we swallow and spit \r\nWith shredded swimming light is gilt. \r\n\r\nArms to arcs, we frogleg to the mill-wheel, \r\nCatch an edge where supple water spills, \r\nTurns small voices to shouts against the rush \r\nOf liquid Time's naked churning push \r\n\r\nPiggy-backing shoulders, while the stone lip \r\nSyllables oblivion, invites a slip.-- \r\nWe grind ourselves red-handed as we grip \r\nAnd watch the jagged water jump. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Homestead<\/h2>\n
The house that had me call her home\r\nWhere I went from pip to grown\r\nShowed me, among her nestling trees,\r\nOur reservoir's sparkling restful ease\r\nWhere a thousand flattish stones were skipped,\r\nQuizzed the surface of what is with ripples\r\nThen sank to nothing known by man or wish\r\nWho would not plunge awhile and be fish.\r\nThis house that had my childhood kept\r\nHas herself grown double with subdivision\r\nAnd invited others into her provision\r\nTo hear new voices slide from treble down\r\nAnd down and down and right on into ground.\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Time-Piece<\/h2>\n
Time, faceless, stares all faces \r\nTo tatters; unarmed, disarms \r\nQuick bullets with slow rust; \r\nLegless trips the sprinter \r\nWith age's crutch; breathless, \r\nBreathes first and last. \r\nOf all songs the tempo, time; \r\nOf all debates the winner. Time \r\nFurls the trimmest sail, marches \r\nCrowncrest mountains down \r\nTo hills, pounds hills to sand, \r\nAnd sand to I know not what. \r\nKiller unkillable, time; death \r\nThat dies not. Time is free \r\nThat imprisons me, that, \r\nSenseless, robs me of sense--is dust\r\nThat drowns my every word \r\nIn oblivion and silence. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Bouquet<\/h2>\n
Where our engagement flowers have fallen \r\nFlares awaken, soft forceful eyelids \r\nLike light-stitched depths of gems held close \r\n(As this amethyst ring in earth was held, \r\nLoved for the fireworks it reflects: \r\nDiamond-pointed lotus petals--perfect.)\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Fox and Rabbit<\/h2>\n
She knew all \r\nAnd I knew naught; \r\nThus the Fox \r\nThe Rabbit caught. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Gift Refused<\/h2>\n
My mistress is throwing away her scarves \r\nThat had wound in her tresses like tentacles \r\nTightening coils of beauty like the stars \r\nIn the black of her night hair, heavy and full.-- \r\nOne by one they flutter in bright spirals \r\nDropping to the pebbled earth below her, \r\nA pile of starshine like vines in piles \r\nThrobbing with wind only, no longer her fingers. \r\n\"Out of my hair, threads and deeds of yesterday; \r\nOut of my house, Tommy, whatever you say.\"\r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Pig of Day<\/h2>\n
VanGogh's hills arise like muscles \r\nBlended with broken sky--a blue \r\nOf veins and midnight tears and \r\nMuch else besides. A wand loaded \r\nWith oils random enough to curse \r\nClarity from eyes' wilderness of use \r\nUntil the pig of day had ravaged him \r\nCalm with truth or tooth. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Minatory<\/h2>\n
Age is a nylon stocking \r\nPulled distorted over the face \r\nThe waxen features melt and fall \r\nThe under-eyelids distort \r\nLike gutters torn from the roof \r\nTheir salty waters tumbling \r\nPast a warty demeanor \r\nInto weak neck-drapes tacked back \r\nTo showcase the final act \r\n--A farce, a tragedy, whatnot. \r\n\r\nChase the kisses you once reviled \r\nIn your most secret heart. \r\n\r\nYour grave's turned down like a bed, \r\nGrasses pulled up to the chin; \r\nThe time you had is passed, is passed \r\nNever again to begin. \r\nYour last supper is laid with wine, \r\nFillet the time most finely; \r\nTaste the avid meat upon your plate, \r\nTuck in, tuck in! \r\nTear the knotted nylon from your chin \r\nThat faded lips may part: \r\n\r\nChase the kisses you once reviled \r\nIn your most secret heart. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What Scent<\/h2>\n
What scent is this but dust: \r\nLilacs in their manifold bloom \r\nBluebells dangling from vein-thin stems \r\nRed roses reaching up in wrath \r\nThistles with their blistering hats \r\nDogwood eating its feast of whites \r\nMoonflower showing her face at night? \r\nInhale, inhale, till lungs burst! \r\n\r\nHere's silly Annie, not two, not yet, \r\nOld Stan crotchety in granddad pants, \r\nWhat scent are they, what role fulfill? \r\nMarjorie panting on the pink bedspread \r\nAll those kisses new love's been fed, \r\nWhat scent they, for breathe we must? \r\nWhat you, what me if't comes to that, \r\nWhat scent are we but dust? \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Deceptive Airs<\/h2>\n
I \r\nSpring again has brought \r\nSuch loveliness, such access \r\nTo one's pores \r\nHow can one conceive \r\nOf death the ogress, or guess \r\nOne's rotten to the core? \r\n\r\nII \r\nOppressive summer sweats \r\nToo aggressively, undresses \r\nOur thoughts of nimble ambling \r\nThrough woodlands and the wild-- \r\nReduced to indoors and nude \r\nIn a tub of ice cubes: \r\nLess adventurous, more umbilical. \r\n\r\nIII \r\nAutumn's rousing storms \r\nReminds the body of its bones \r\nDrops fruit in wanting buckets,\r\nBlonds trees, hawks walks; \r\nWith every wand'ring breeze \r\nFills bellies fee free \r\nWith a salesman's generosity. \r\n\r\nIV \r\nWinter's icy indifference \r\nDeepens the sense of deception-- \r\nThe false clarity age manages, \r\nBut only in its cage: \r\nTrees scribbled with a writer's rage, \r\nThe sky an empty page. \u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Like Cake<\/h2>\n
\"God's a phony,\" my professor said, a hipster.\r\n\"Even the news is fake. Prayer never works.\" \r\n\r\nAt midnight I drink my Pabst, kneel \r\nAnd throw the dice; prayer never works.\r\n\r\nI emptied my pockets and took my hat;\r\nPulled over halfway home; prayer never works.\r\n\r\n\"Three hundred dead\" the newscast said. \r\nI sobered in the dirty dotted light. \r\n\r\n\"Sarin gas smells like incense at first,\"\r\nThe translator said, \"like cake.\" \r\n\r\nBy daybreak, my eyes a sandpaper glitter,\r\nI hear myself say: \"Gregg, prayer never works.\r\n\r\nPut a prayer in every word you make.\" \r\n\u2022\r\n<\/pre>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Playing in the Orchard<\/h2>\n
You had run up into an apple tree \r\nIn a springtime game of hide-and-seek. \r\nAll the world was empty as you hid from me, \r\nAnd I ran down aisles of apples for a peek \r\nOf your skirt disappearing, or a shoe fallen off \r\nInto the green green grass, empty and soft. \r\n\r\nIt was apple-blossom time, and time \r\nTold me you were lost, the last year's \r\nApples weighty and rotten on the ground, slimy \r\nBeneath my hurrying feet. In fear \r\nThat you were lost to me, I collapsed \r\nBeneath the scent of blossoms in the air. \r\n\r\nI was looking up... it was the nearest thing to heaven...\r\nA soft blindness of flowers everywhere... \r\nI looked up... it was heaven... and you were there!\r\n\u2022\r\n\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Birth defies belief. Love brings grief. Death, relief. Reaching After Realness I ask: how do I make my dented self beautiful with this old pencil? ~~Daniel J. Weeks, Self-Symphonies Our legs look broken when light bends them in the swimming pool. Once our heads are under, immersed in the experience of wetness, the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1749],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-night-nght","category-1749-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7365,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5649\/revisions\/7365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregglory.com\/blastpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}