That is why I am here
not among the ibises. Why
the permanent city parasol
covers even me.
It was the rains
in the occult season. It was the snows
on the lower slopes. It was water
and cold in my mouth.
A lack of shoes
on what appeared to be cobbles
which were still antique
Well wild wild whatever
in wild more silent blue
O my Luve's like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June;
O my Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry:
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
The driver has no knife. He has no knife, no,
you think, and lower your head into his car.
A ride in the rain? The dark clouds bellow.
You saw him drinking at the local bar,
you think, and lower your head into his car.
Rain taps on the roof, falls on this familiar man:
You saw him drinking at the local bar.
He shrugs and offers up his empty hands.
Rain taps on the roof, falls on this familiar man,
and sugarcane stalks bend in the breeze.
He shrugs and offers up his empty hands.
As sewer pipes burst, flooding the street,
(from her to ravish meaning ravine On the other side
artifice slumbers in the green. The shadow follows hour
by hour hollow and gloomy and which call me forth)
………………………………. grafted onto the sentence
o a long time distant to hang on my belly obscure parallel
images and tattoos age suggestive of the fingernail grazing
the thigh the valley get turned on
A Route of Evanescence,
With a revolving Wheel –
A Resonance of Emerald
A Rush of Cochineal –
And every Blossom on the Bush
Adjusts it’ s tumbled Head –
The Mail from Tunis – probably,
An easy Morning’ s Ride –
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,
To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see,
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.
A sailor went to sea, sea, sea,
To see what he could see, see, see.
But all that he could see, see, see,
Was the bottom of the deep blue sea, sea, sea.
Except when once we drew identical lots
nothing’ s ever come between us.
We keep our drifts of space
spare and daily shake our down.
You’ ve glanced beyond your dirty cuffs
and caught me hand-washing my clean shirts.
Stuck with sharp wind, both
bloods are rare and rarely do
we taste the walnut’ s knot of oil.
We wake between our fitted sheets
and shake our fists or pretend real fright
but not in this do we dare touch.
There are rooftops
made of cloud remnants
gathered by a trader
dabbling in car parts and burlap
At night, I dive onto the breeze
fermenting above the dirt
and dream that I am a crocodile
a tin of shoe polish, an audience of two
In the morning, before the smallest yawn
becomes a noodle, I am offered
a ribbon of yellow smoke
I opt for fuzzy rocks and clawed water
and, of course, the perishable window
I am one of the last computer
chain errors to be illuminated
I tell you there are rooftops
All the old photographs, hidden like buried
Treasure. Broken prayer sticks under my dreams
And my worn mattress. Each one like a postcard sent back
Home; wonders only seen in slick travel magazines.
Boxed up under my bed, colored souls on Kodak paper —
I can still see Grandma’ s smile next to her resting sheep dog.
Like a blue lightning strike over the northern sky,
Over two black houses, I pull the first leaf out, at random.
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.
Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.
And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
