The Consolation of Poetry

Lumpen inhales this way and he can die here.

The head turns inwardwise to look at what drives out;  

Which obsessions commandeer, what silent hives abut

The bee glade, what constructions over cellar-fear

Are tilting toward effluvia. Odors of rose

Musk turn stink in the plexus that makes the world.

Despite, senses oppose: the projection is hurled

Upon the rocks and waters; while some suppose

The mind is bent under run-on propositions,

Thought experiments in a requisitioned skull,

Quotidian fissions blasting around a small

Wilderness in a universe of omissions.

Make it the case that the clock hands run widdershins.

That gnome doctors dig for the curative specie

Through cave-bound winds in a brain that bides uneasy.

Spring forward the horse, the rider and all his sins.

Is there art in the final illuminated

Hallways of the gods? The aggregate disperses

Into it’s several inks. The rare nib solved verses

Starring Sphinx― now he too shall be extirpated.

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.

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

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

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

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.

Compromise

Compromise: A bloody ornament that many have trouble with hanging on their motionless irritated trees, trunks engorged with something that is longing, their wish of being worthwhile.

Indian Sunset

Two undone ships passing in the night

Beautiful new creatures carrying on among the mists in the fading Indian Sunset.

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Sagging bulbous
    soft green fig
So ripe that it proves
    gravity is more
    than a theory
barely hanging by its failing stem
Sweetness filling the air;
Harvest.

Naked rutH

Deeper Earth

Fourteen miles off road, due West,
the horizon bleeds an oil slick
that stretches out for miles like a song
that you can't quite chase from your brain
where your feet melt like glass through your boot soles
and fallen men beg for water or death-

In that dense gnawed up bit of sand
too dry to recall rain,
you left behind a single bit of silver that wormed
loose from your dusty pocket
a narrow hole that your hand had worked
in search of matches and a lone cigarette-

You've come to love twilight
in her cool, dark robes
that pour to the ground like your sorrow
for a mother that never needed and
father that never loved or even remotely understood
a colt-legged boy who'd find his own way-

Across the wind warped territory, in the small space
between here and there
you've dragged your fingers through deeper earth
a resting place, a womb for bleached bones
the low restless hum that never was,
that never existed anywhere but in your skull-

Miles and years from here, like age
that cuts the corner of your eyes to slits
makes no promises to those without spines
bites like lead scathes the flesh
is a face that no tree will shade or hand hold down
that no looming ghost dare cross-

The Ross & Dalby Show

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Hearing laughter and
       light happy conversation
Joyous free movements
Breaking the morning stillness
       in the town center
The smells of croissants,
       bubbling mash
       in the local brewery and
       coffee roasting
Alternate
as I pass through the well tended landscape
On a sunny day.
Reflecting on
Healthy tax paying citizens
As a priority.
The value of achieving:
       fewer major illnesses
       and hospital and emergency room visits
       less obesity, malnutrition,
       homelessness, violence,
       more sustainable wage jobs,
       better education,
       and a healthier environment.
We can develop a sense of harmony and well-being;
Voting for Gross National Happiness is not magic.