Mouthful of earth, hair half a century silvering, who buried him.
With what. Make a fist for heart. That is the size of it.
Also directives from our DNA.
The nature of his wound was the clock-cicada winding down.
He wound down.
July, vapid, humid: sails of sailboats swelled, yellow boxes
Of cigars from Cuba plumped. Ring fingers fattened for a spell.
What’ s there to say? We didn’ t care for him much,
and you can’ t exactly commiserate
with someone you don’ t just not love
but almost (admit it) hate.
So the news just hung over us
like the dud summer weather we’ d had —
rain since June, the lawn sodden,
garden a bog, all slugs, late blight so bad
our sickened Beefsteak vines, our Sweet One Hundreds,
San Marzanos, the lot,
yellowed half black before the fruit had set,
which, when it did, began to bloat and rot
before it ripened — but like I say
A car’ s backfire
rifles the ear
with skeleton clatter,
the crowd’ s walla walla
draws near, caterwaul
evaporating in thin air.
Silence is dead.
(Long live silence.)
Let’ s observe a moment
of it, call it what it’ s not:
splatter of rain
that can’ t soothe
the window’ s pane,
dog barking
up the wrong tree.
Which tree, which air
apparent is there to hear
a word at its worth?
Hammer that drums
its water-logged warning
against the side
of the submarine:
I have nothing to recant, I am just
the decanter. You, the just destroyer,
have in faith become the role, recalling
for those gathered the noble fallen
with a prayer to his-grace-above-fire,
(“Turn me, I’ m burnt on that side”)
St. Lawrence. Well done, I applaud.
And you: Well executed.
This is it. Not much else to await
when our fates touch: I’ ve nowhere to be
but eternity, you’ ve nothing to catch
but the thatch. Dry on dry,
we keep our wits about us...
no one to meet but our match.
The first seated takes the chance he’ ll be
stood up. She’ s getting on with the hope she may
get off. One and one make one
in this riddle. Or, more closely, comedy routine:
first, impressions; second, observations.
Impolite to have thirds. Bachelors and bachelorettes
beware: more than tonight they can mess up your order.
Who would go for the lobster expects the claws.
No pets allowed, keep your shirt on, places this strict —
like loony bins — require a jacket, sir. Mark sudden pauses,
Frosty, green through gray rising steeply,
top of the bank a big top, red with a sign,
misty, fantastical on the walk to school.
“My sister can’ t express herself properly.
Imagine if those performers
were stuck in their caravans
forever. If round the back of the big top
the doors were locked. That’ s her.
She’ s a trapeze artist, lion tamer,
cramped clean-faced clown
drinking tea, practicing tricks,
movement through frosted windows.
Language is her caravan on bricks,
with tiny little windows in.”
On rain washed paper dried, ink
still blurs. But all words
are stains. The paper’ s rippled
lunar, mountain and crater,
and seas on the moon, misnomer
of plains that looked like
water once, no-end-to-it shadows,
fractal to fractal. The telescope’ s eye
fooled the eye. From there, does
earth rise and set? Or a thrush,
would it sing its trouble backward? —
the most private tremor first, then
An old man with a new hat
is running out of pride.
I want to tell the truth
but I don’ t know how.
The wind is our best pen
and it blows poetry out of the water.
I wait for days and weeks to enter
a feeling that’ s had years to leave.
The ocean keeps throwing questions
it has all the answers to.
A candle lights a room
and dims the stars.
It’ s now all about money
about which poetry rarely reaches
transcendence. But love must still fester
even under that. Everyone I know
frets if poetry can still matter,
but what about love? It’ s all become
too much for them, and they’ re all
on the soma. It makes sense
with these pills when the someone
they thought they loved for years
by never thinking about it says,
“I don’ t love you anymore,
but let’ s stay friends in that mellow
woebegone way poetry now
sings without singing.” Of course,
Birdsong, face it, some male machine
gone addled — repeat, repeat — the damage
keeps doing, the world ending then starting,
the first word the last, etc. It's that
etcetera. How to love. Is a wire
just loose? Build an ear for that. Fewer, they say.
So many fewer, by far. He's showing off
to call her back. Or claiming the tree.
