Monday, October 28, 2019

When Birds Divorce

When wrens divorce, the children fly.

Young tits from broken nests decry
The wounded tree, the severed song,
That feathered fate who hopped along
A bobbing branch, while in the park
A lone and separated lark
Complains to the under-birded blue
That there is nothing more to do
Than lean on a pelicanic thorn
And end with song this garish morn.
Or so the ornithologist
Explained. Perhaps a point was missed.
I caught the gossipy detail,
Who’d been distracted by her pale
Brow and her raven hair, a thing
Reminiscent of a wing.
So scientists construct a plot
That shows themselves where they would not.

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

When Nighthood Was In Flotsam

The staff has snapped; the flag has been misplaced.
The Coconino County Bar & Grill
Breaks both its windows, locks the doors, and posts,
Send me a kiss by wire.  Bourbon flows
Through the arroyos.  Canteens burst with beer.
The news does not report.  Tequila leaks
Upstream.  The fish are dying for a drink.
No, sir, my realism is not an art,
Says Jenny Wren, the brickbat in my pie,
The neon in her undies, my patootie.
She shines from both sides now.  The Bar & Grill
Has set cane chairs out on the promenade
And pointed them with seashell, which it sells
By the seashore, if only it were there.

Friday, October 18, 2019

Outgrabe Days

A fire on the staircase,
The body in the pantry,
A woman in the confessional
Reading Elmer Gantry.

Cutworms on the salad.
Bats below the eaves.
On the doorstep pamphlets
Claiming Jesus grieves.

Children in the parkway,
Placards held on high,
THINGS WILL ALL BE BETTER
When the piggies fly.

When the door is opened
And the stairs ascend.
When the teller flaunts his
Tales at either end.

Sunday, October 13, 2019

The Tempest

The air is full of music, but the isle

Gets bad reception. Under every rock
Scamper the grubs that were somebody else--
Will be again. The Ghost of Christmas Past
Or The Nobel Prizewinner for the Blues.
Thrones go unoccupied, but fires set
At twilight smell of camphor, and great moths
Sing little liebestods while sailing in.
The stars are green. True love never runs smooth,
But walks at a brisk pace. The wind blows warm
Across the bay, where seals on plaster rocks
Snore gently, dreaming dreams of fish. The eyes
Of magi close as well. The roads are waxed:
Young lovers slip away, concealed by mist
Imported just for them. It rains and rains.
It rains and rains, and ships capsize, the crews
Borne to the shore on water wings. They find
The aborigines, diaphanous
In raindrops, dancing pas de deux, de trois,
Wrapped round themselves and singing, Liberty.

Tuesday, October 08, 2019

Goodbye to Poetry Month, And About Time, Too

They asked for something simple.
They asked for something plain--
Something about a flower girl,
Something about the rain.

I really don't do simple.
I really don't do clear.
That's not what these eyes look at.
That's not what I can hear.

Obfuscatory nonsense,
Effete and out of touch,
They told me, and I thanked them.
I thanked them very much

And offered them a sonnet,
Recondite and blue.
They said they didn't like it,
Not that it was untrue.