Erstwhile, in the morny blue
abundant scrubbed the skies, & glisten’d
how a man of daylight, & eve
partook the afternoon, in moisture
now a man of hours, & shade
in the kettle, & the sound of the sun
passed through the air, invisible
humming scree, of all the pitch
a-layed on earth, & rained
needle of sound, volumous hush.
A husband
catches
all the tumbling die
life may stamp out
& deciphers the divots accurately
& designs the correct planting of moves.
A husband
learns
the stature of gestures & signs
a woman always confides
with the portrait of her stance & silences.
A husband
understands
which paths to not pursue
when there are barren at the end
the parities of content.
A husband
is patient
a tender
of kind.
There was a time
when the Princess wrote the Knight
“Why do you quest on such grail,
for am I not your fountain?”
but the Princess had faded
into the silver landscape
when the knight returned lean
on his horse-dog steed.
A husband
never neglects
to lay down his weapons
to be stronger than that.
Stream
deeply perilous if not acknowledged to a crunching of a crisp biscuit
littered crumbs & slivered wedges upon the linoleum floor can
Sojourn
across the city’s concrete alley pilfering in a grey smog & over-run
by anonymous cars one’s footstep insulted & struggling at the pavement’s
immobility & unforgivingly receding far beyond the girdered cliffs
through the trenches by the sediment
that how long does this gutter run
of a god’s colossus seething the ground & a god’s machine run down at the
end
& abandoned in the middle of nowhere’s desolation & uninhabited
fled from of human loneliness in a staler dampening silence
weighting of the flesh & sinking of the legs can leach all spirituality
& lose all hope this fading of an avenue into nothing
but scrub & titter-rocks on a maimed & plowed earth
dropped in mid-development by those hearts desperation
& wilted wills surrendered too far from home in this waste
which sapped even of the gods forlorned & despairing broke
Sustain
flitting & building by the dozens an architectual horizon
can tilt the planar surfaces & stack bricks & concrete blocks
make angles & angry markets obey the city’s clitter-clatter
tapping a staccato deluge of a colony’s madness
ticking to all expediency a hundred thousand thoughts and triggers
& twenty zillion synaptic pops sparking & gapping a city’s bustle
rushing a street light of fifty thousand intersections all frenzied & menacing
& horrored as a deep well of anxiety can motivate a motion unbeknownst
can smack that smile & slap each cheek from the inside of a cystic
can prod with an endless pointing & jabbing until work be done
any work the directions are unclear & difficult to interpret
this kicking & compelling
Settle
can an art love or satiate the soul’s grumbling hunger
or appease that appetite not of the body but of the body’s need
consuming of all directions yet sequential & randomly testing
of each boulevard run thinning & melting back into the earth’s maw
to one empty corner then another shattered landscape
a final footpath digested & deconstructed scattering to wayward footprints
left only of a man’s shadow circling as the carbon buzzards
& a throat too swollen to voice the sky’s oblivion
scraped & clawed its grinding vault on the bony trees’ phalanxes
Sing
to a rain’s pattering insult brought down from the clouds upon the shoulders
& fills the gutter’s arteries again with a thumping torrent’s spite
can the faces watch through fogging windows adhered with droplet’s spittle
does make the glassy pane be felt & closing as a barrier
from within can only wait & sadly seen the water’s mystic alignment
uncaring coursed the gutter grates & plunged into the drainage pipes
does carry the eye with its thundering alliance and & hypnotic rhythm squelching
does carry the eye & moisten their whiteness blurred to lost souls’ company
Stay
a storefront’s beacon may visit & exchange of hands an art
while the rain does mock amongst a man’s economy & trade
& mist behind the wheelwells trod its slinging sheets & whole precipitation
will purchase or feel the textiles’ weaved & contented textures
& browse through the retail display & finger a shawl to its plush agenda
of silk & fiberous wood & self-contained objects full of artful godliness
tended by a shepherd proprietor set behind the counter’s tact
talking to a customer can smile & touch through money’s acquaintance
can touch & meet again through money’s acquaintance remade & circuited
& left in the end with a timepiece & the rain & a storefront’s responsibility
on an avenue shot to the Earth’s horizon can spin & streak
with white lights & red lights blinking & blue lights charged electrically
washed & blended to the rain-nodes’ swiftness & melting dribble’s ease
pooled to people’s footsteps & splashing attaches & pantcuffs
can walk or ride on feet in a car or on a sidewalk speeding to exchange
meeting again on a schedule to transfer & touch through money
& mend through money’s thread a heartache drunk & eaten
in a restaurant or a deli-case may do to touch through talking
on a street corner passed by automobiles & bus stops taxi-cab
can they part ways & remain in storaged contact merged with voices recognized
their timbre & metering tone routed through the city’s grid
of storefronts & apartment blocks & buildings to park & enter
& drink & speak in a restaurant’s hub in a bar or dinner table
draped with a vase & a menu of prawns
Sleep
in a club & racket rattled of a blue’s band on a side-street’s secret flower
tucked between two arteries may rest from the horizon’s vacuum
trumpet’s brass can absorb to men’s & women’s bodies clothed
in shirts & pants & dresses & hair & hands with beers & cigarettes
high-heeled shoes & wrist-watches & bangles or earrings & eyes
t-shirts & button-down skirts & mini-gowns smelled of scents & breath
can churn a brushing cloth of chests & breasts
can talk aloud & smile & look into eyes & exchange inside
of tables & chairs & music & people of cloth & skin can jostle or coagulate
rummaging to blare or boister in one hall & canyon
a closeness amidst the music’s sheet
Span
a hobo’s bench does bode the avenue’s appointment can an automobile navigate its current
& its long straight funnel as the wind may follow & leave the city’s gravity
then loose itself to the sky’s breath & disappear from earth & knowing
can weigh oneself with a scaling mound of amendments & rectifications
& tether to the circuit’s thread may net a hammock & bolster a soffit
tied a small airship through continuous sand-bagging & spilling
within these shoes can separate the skin from the pavement so not to touch
but transport the hand to other destinations a purlieu strand & eye-level
cross the street by the white line can focus a pedestrian’s intention
can do what needs be done to shuck within the city
can permit to dine in that bistro & spoon the soup & coffee’s cream
these opening doors can harbor the sky’s fugitive with a ceiling
can watch the rain without torment & bask in the wall’s soothing cradle song
so ripe an atmosphere with real objects & real thoughts
materialized as planters & pictures & shakers & yellow roses
& a brass rail about the bar & wooden tables set with oil
& menus can script & offer such selection already plucked from the sky
keeping an image focused with a lens a lacquered stand & potted fern
an ashtray with a name & a niche & dinner plates & silverware
can see & smell & eat & taste of succulent entrees and appetizers
chiseled free & clear & polished clean of the sky’s infinity
can be as a raindrop taken with such thought & skill complete
can save the mind oh beautiful mercy.
How he creeps when all’s asleep to stilt & slither upon the night,
On tippity-toes he slinky goes to wilt & wither the slumbering breaths,
He squeezes easily as the breeze wafts & drafts through slivers slight,
& standing above with ebon gloves he rallies & tallies the numbering deaths.
How he creeps when all’s asleep.
On tippity-toes he slinky goes.
He squeezes easily as the breeze.
He stands above with ebon gloves.
& he spoke unto the wildebeast
pardon my incongruities
& the wildebeast replied;
All of you who is me will understand,
& spill then through your speech as contraband -
for in their effort breeds an imperfection,
as true their oaths breach each a predilection:
How when you were me you rode the grasses
& into the rivers you waded bathed & drank
& steed to mount your lover’s spicing scent
then slept beneath the serene & starry trees.
Yet lions did deceive you, as do they me
& in your eyes was born my horrored wildness
yet how you loved within your wooly flock
& loved the grateful fragrance of kinship;
For the earth itself did tame you
so bore your stride upon its ever lands
& raised its hand to feed your burning hungers
& accepted you back again.
“Likewise I reciprocate
Never! have I been always late
but of a time me cannot splice
nor resist a minute of the whisking dice.
So traveled was trove a mighty ripple -
which hassled & drove me slightly cripple;
Whence upon yon pond me sponsored a barge
but up and clunked whole my dependable bilge
& sunk at large with me swimmin trunks
& left me a-middle of a royal flunk.
Ne’er riddle I graft, but true as would;
me mast as an urchin lies under stood.
I towed to a trowler tracked to my wave
yet the water’s garb I lacked to leave
naked & laked I found me bravery
& stroked a-lee by a mermaid’s sleeve.
On landing & beached I seen me a constable
though weary mine leg wore quite unstable
I tried to sprite but the baton bore nimbler
to cite me in custody with others dissimilar.
Ye trust my staff in me crook be honest;
of my illustrious black book I rightly swear on it.
As bail I summoned down each me friends
yet Gail beared dry a windfall to spend
& Marsha’d been muddled a salty spell
& Semona mentioned her liquidity fell.
So me settled in sated by a tailor-made meal
having lapped on catfish & milky veal
yet adjacent of mine well a stricked woman’s cell
& her hoarse throat the pipings never did quell.
Believe my no dozing as I raise ye no puzzle;
many night’s eve I applied for her muzzle.
‘Twas released I staggered & tattered a-tooth
clad in rags and haggard uncouth
inclined me a vessel to forge the straight
through skill and hard swabbin I raised me to mate
but mutiny came ‘fore portage unladen
so the craft were turned on her voyaging maiden
& I was caught keeling her bottom hull
but once gotten out me stole the scull.
My oath as an oar ne’er twain should I pander;
this skiff did I rowed on me fullest candor.
Anon a lush shore-line I spied in a browse
there-after been washed up me placidly drowsed
on waking me took of an atoll epiphany -
’twas homed by nones but a penal colony.
Old habits t’were lifted graced to their guest
mine manners showed orderly me gratefullest best
head at their table crowned dressed and trimmed
I able was bade to eat ’round as I whimmed
Need wag-o-me tongue most flourished the ‘hood;
their mission of vittles nourished so good.
Ere three seasons cast expired when
I stowed ‘board a steamer passed for Ireland
& capt me a cabin’s breach from there
then boothed a-tight on a bunk to here.
Oh me master & minister I spare ye rest miseries
of mine misadventures & potluck histories
Oh me Honey, me Sweetpea, my bright-eyed Calf;
that’s where I passed the year last and a half.”
She sits within the delicate envelope of herself
behind her eyes her shyness is sharply alert
& she notices from behind her shocking hair
the goings of men & machinery.
There he was
eating homefries
& the largest goofiest & delighted smile
beaming beyond his forkful
You’re too old not to be bitter.
Well;
people need me
& that’s why I’m here.
My Grandmother in a hospital bed
cancer & morphine & a lifetime
looking into my eyes
& then they weren’t looking anymore.
But mine
still were.
Suddenly
some external snapping sound unrivets my attentive daze
it happens in the midst of my only night, while writing
I must not think I must keep writing
not to defer to any of the 3,876 various paranoias
that have shadowed the Human race through history.
I shall recite them all to ease my nerves:
- diplomacy
- sentiment
- automobiles
- edged weapons
- blunt weapons
- things outside the hut …
There it is again; that snapping back out there.
Her figurine balances on slippers of silk and shearling
& revolving about her, the dazzling forest clearing
of gesturing leaves, berries, trunks of trees, & thrushes
& sunlight partitioning upon the attendant bushes.
Scintillating, the scents & untamed spice of earth
that a hart’s wild nostrils succumb to the clearing’s girth
displaying its crown of limbs & wilderness fur
to the quietness that radiates from the maiden’s tranceful stir.
She motions with her arms, and her arms send spinning
All the honest world, bright & sinning.
Laughter solicits tears from the eyes, sometimes.
Crickets scattered & sewing through the wild lawn
crochet in tufts of grass too much lyric to isolate individually.
The noisy stream beyond them is
a frightening example of fuzzy logic
as the thousands or millions of leaves focusing on my house
while I’m inside.
They say it’s randomly quantum & statistically chaotic
while marveling at the recognizable patterns.
Relativity;
Hey! there’s always a macrocosm careening up ahead where random makes sensible statements, people,
only we dwell here heratical in the corner of a curve stolen from an aloof & unprejudiced logarithm
where we live in the middle of a somehow infinity
& the best that can be said
is that it seemed that way.
The present world circulates like a laboratory mechanism
People shake their heads and hands in a clandestine agreement
The remainder is hurled by its denominator into a somewhere bin of quickly forgotten
smaller people never find that quite location of
Or Understand Exists
Trespassing
all over the fenced acreage of my estimations.
Free verse
in every niche of the Internet.
Mail sent & delivered just for You May Have Won
too,
I have my own array of expectations
I heard they smile in Guatamala even
even when the children in dug-out canoes pick-pocket away the sheaves of your life.
There is no place like home.
This is no place for children.
I gave at the field office;
For Hell does have a Dominion here that lies in the eyes of Legions.
not a site for children sighs
Governing what might they get for gifts
politicking, breadlines, ranks of rations, heroins’ rifles, window washers, peace pipes;
What a War.
where proper thought is hard to stumble on
in the battlefield
each lone man is at his own
a necessary officer.
The Sea sings Odes and Favors
to each the Mariners many
but when on Land at the Wishing Well
please toss in a penny.
I do not worry of the dimly trees -
they will be here after I’m gone.
Their hearts beat capillating once each season
& their thoughts are very slow
as Giant the Sky
sings them dreams of the rainfall and sunlight they worship.
The thunder of earth unites them
& they seek their roots deeper
never striking the same place twice.
For I know that each & every tree
belongs to the forest they come from.
I bought a graviton for the hallway to my living room
There’s artifacts there;
a copper helmet, a chalk pedestal, a plastic palm, a painting, & a
gentleman’s knife
In a restaurant;
white linen, white china, fine crystal, & silverware.
I recognize the Maitre d’ from that other Maitre d’
I recall that manager’s moustache from the previous wholesale outlet.
People categorize themselves all over for me
so we can disregard each other as we scrape passing.
If I tell you I am lost
I’m needling you;
I know I’m right here
I just don’t know where here is.
1. To prison
2. Divorce court
3. Psychiatrist
4. To the office again
5. Hollywood to play heroes
6. Joined a baseball team
7. Home, writing epics
8. Anywhere to do with sirens and flashing lights
9. Anywhere but here
10. Drawing cartoons
They say time will tell,
yet times ticks ever resolutely.
People will tell,
when they tic occassionally.
I have thoughts
that tempt themselves;
But these shushing leaves continue
to induce the sweetest lullabies
& I find myself
inebriated anyway.
& How can Ferocious, the furnace of the Sun
yet remain & still stay stable
& mightily think such softly thoughts as to warm
my upturned face.
& there the Plea of river-murmer
flows forthing with a frothful milk beyond the bank of trees
& gargles anon each new morning for the next decree of day
I dwell within.
I examine a long strand of grass, drinking
bowed with a crown of benign dew
in the amber slant of sunlight
it looks just like honey.
& the photographs I captured for myself
in yesterday’s foggy morn
haunt me with the spice of Goodness
I cannot ignore.
So perhaps I am just one of the villagers
who smile while taking stock in the store
& hell hath no dominion.
