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Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Nocturne: What Thing



The stairwell holds you in the light
The moon let slip over the sill.
Now remove yourself from the thin
Sample of air in which you’ve been.

Behold the Night! A secret chill
Sustains her silent chords. The slight
   White tremors on the Earth
      Craze the frost
   Into mute chinks of mirth.
      Night is fast

   Falling and shall uptake
   You in arms widely awake.
   That she knows you best,
   Let you contented rest.
Then, when she lays you in the brake,
   Her privilege to forsake,
Let Dawn say what thing ye shall make.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Thyrsus


Three spores in a thyrsus, divine,

    fly to my eyne! Under the sky,
a goddlet little thing of vine
    and leaf, drunken, splendidly wry,
    lifts up a beaming rosy thigh,
props a lolling tumid lily,
    nods and browses in her valley,
laps from his purple lips a sigh,
    “Is there no end to her folly?”

The milkmaids linger. Her dawn’s-flesh,

    black-rock eyes, mesh with old root-fires.
Like lasers in a fog at dawn they rush
    through fields of milling wind, loop flyers,
    valent, avid, their wombs like gyres
turning magnetic purple clouds
    piled in ventral glades; and lauds
pour forth from tongues as rain expires  
    damp breath the little deaths enshrouds.

Sobering one day the grape-faced

    barley-mad straight-laced bhang-farm czar
replaced the mortlette of all grace
    atop the staff of near and far
    (his ways of dalliance ajar),
let all the lithe days of sunshine
    and silk jet nights of wild feline
purring from the lush muscular
    foliage at last bend down his spine.

Little Nonette became taller

    by a cellar and a hairdo;
Autumn couldn't help but holler
    on arrival at the rare view,
    from the aft end of the purlieu:
set like a jewelstone in a timepiece,
    too fearfully historic, prime
for the mythos of the issue
    out of the field into the wine

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

On the night of the Waning Gibbis
she ran
golden in line to meet me
to her death
did she know?
the dog committing
suicide
tumbled her last breath

Last Dog

In her orange dress
she tumbles
her last breath
dancing
across the sea

Monday, October 1, 2012

Once on the Motor bike

Paramedics make flight
as the disc sails over storage
past mini malls
I ride to the top
of Franc Street
where she, continuing her ascent--
makes a mistep in not telling you
how nice it is to sleep next to you
not because you're warm
but that you don't mind being
close

sirens singing
during the harvest moon's
climb to glory

Sunday, January 1, 2012

That movie about the artists

Oh to live in the land of canvass and brush strokes
Terra cotta shades and smooth clay figures
Crusty bread and melon on the oak wood table
A slight breeze adding tree branch chatter
To the gentle patio conversation.

There’s a brilliant clarity to the scene
It reminds you of a dream that felt like home
A touch of humidity to spice the mood
Wood smoke merging with cumulus sunset skies
Twisting curlicue designs create the forgotten pattern
Of the time you saw it for the first time.

Oh to live in the land of swirling oil paint
Emotion tracing its transient forms
Bringing the sadness and the joy
Into an exemplary focus
Sneaking into hidden corners
Opening the dusty attic autumn light
Brushing final strokes from the comfort of the courtyard.

There’s an undeniable satisfaction
Even when sharing in solitary
Moving from the image that caught your eye
To its bundled trace in memory’s knapsack
To the scratch and slash and feathered brush
Of color, line, and Dylan’s Arabian drum
Paint spattered on your tee-shirt, on your jeans
You carry the creativity with you
Like a badge, like the fossil record.

Oh to live in that movie about the artists
Even their sadness seems purposefully heroic
Uniting inner isolation with the material world
Even their kitchen table is fascinating
And the pastel walls frame breakfast gracefully
All objects seem designed to inspire
To walk the halls is to dance in beauty
A coat rack is today’s poem
Light splashing the bedroom wall tomorrow’s painting.

Live then, and claim that realm
Find your own director’s chair
I’m cautiously calling for “action” myself
Always surprised when something happens as a result
Sometimes afraid
Sometimes sad
Often grateful
Welcoming the discovery
Of this new life
Godard’s wish for the movie
We secretly wanted to live.