A Centaur In His Dragon World

This appeared in The Flea, as I was reminded this week.

The sorcerers played in their own front yard,

Cardboard and crayon cutlery, no faith

Because no doubt. The little kings who lived

Regnant beneath the evergreens, concealed

By prickly leaves and bagworms, weren’t impressed.

The eldritch practices of kids on trikes,

Gray in good time, and teens do not recall

White magic. They require faith. They pray

To gods and spirits, wholly insincere.

Elder than all, and smaller than their sight,

The little kings bowed once and turned their hands

To caterpillars, lightning bugs, and soup

Brewed from a clover damp with morning dew,

Seasoned with berries poisonous to men,

And set the spiders watching, all those eyes.

In The Year Of Our Lord

In 1436 the gods of war

Changed their approach and stained their skins, their clothes,
Their reputations, and left the Roman world
For residence in gray geographies.
They bought clean papers, forged fresh fingerprints
From fish scales, and denied the love of men
A role in their affairs. They wanted blood,
Never a tough commodity, but chose
Abstention and the madness of no voice.
They broke their bows, inventing new disease
As more efficient and anonymous.
They drew bad dreams on hitmen fast asleep
And offered explanations via signs
Of nature—clouds and a chemical response.
It was a time of gravity and loss.
They raised the dead, then sent them back for good.
They ate their young and easily made more.
The story would end here, except that birds,
Disguised by night, concealed in brush by day,
Sang their way clear and called it parable.
Later the wise men said it was history.

A Short Course in Theology

An old, old poem. It appeared in The Ball State University Forum.

Nobody ever said that God was nice,
only that God was God. Picture Apollo,
that's Phoebus Apollo, flaying Marsyas
for the considerable crime of piping
as well, he'd said, as any god. How heinous.
What hubris. Whistling all the while, Apollo
peeled epidermal curlicues off of
the living sinner in his dextrous hands.
Now wonder what your friends' child did, that he
died slowly of a brain tumor at six,
first going blind, then losing all his hair.

And Then They Died

Ordered to make a narrative,
First you must say “First” and then
“And then.” It is by “then” and “when”
And “at the last” that stories live.

No princess unless “once there was,”
No prince unless “There came a day,”
No end until “They rode away,”
Whatever the red dragon does

Or sorcerer yellowed by spite.
Time takes them in and calls their dance.
Chronology bestirs romance,
Prompts it, promotes it, calls it a night.

Lovers insist the stream stands still,
Leaves never fall, the lion smiles.
Their collars droop, their Golden Isles
Occlude. They lie unchanged until

They can’t. And then. There is no next.
Overleaf, nothing, no pretend.
First there was then. And then, The End,
And then the tale is trapped in text.

The Weekend Gardener

You mock the flowers I can raise:
A grown man should find better ways
To sow his seed and harvest praise.

Mutual funds look good, and hiking,
Plumbing repairs, and mountain biking--
Hobbies manly and much more striking.

Adam gardened. Cain, who killed.
Onan bore seed, although it spilled.
John Ball revolted. First he tilled.

Let me manure. I fork. I spread.
Like harlotry, in white and red,
I raise commotion from a bed

For private pleasure, amply paid.
In shadow, color: sun and shade
Where Cain worked hard and Abel played.

Goin' Up The Country

Pish and Tosh rode into Broomfield, scents

Of Liberty and saddle sores, denied

Their basic rights of rye and brewskis, all

Because the goldleaf fell at others’ feet.

Not yet, they said, a floozy by each wrist

Of every taste in radical descent

Down from the mountain streams with rills so bare,

None ferried fruit. I say, no seams for me,

Said each, blaming the other, and the girls

Sang country blues before they had been born.

Epithalamion

Zeus the Thunderer sent his golden rain,

Which fell at the wrong address, like orange juice.

Not having been invited, Nereids

Did not attend. Nor wood-nymphs. Neither fauns.

The guests arrived by Greyhound, on the Beagle,

Borne by two wolves named Love & Happiness;

And Dionysus brought a box of wine.

Hephaestus hit the cake with hammer blows,

Which scarcely cracked the frosting. Siva sent

Regrets, cerise bacilli, and a drum.

And Dionysus took his singlet off.

The bride wore orange blossoms and a snood,

Which Ceres blessed with lucky charms, her vows

The death of childhood and a Liebestod,

The groom brought all his horses and a halter,

And even Fafnir, stag but looking, wept,

Especially since the wedding cake was hollow,

Busy with carpenter ants and worker bees,

Suspended in lemon custard. And the fall

Began. The groom would end dragged by his heels,

The bride pent in a harem, Ceres’ child

Stuck, still in Hell, and Dionysus’ date

The sport of kings. Zeus sent a nice clean rain,

And all was gone, except for the photographs.

Chains They Forged In Life

The poems no one heard of populate

This verbosphere, invisible and bleak,
Dottering incoherently in dry
And crumby cupboards, turning bedsheets gray
On sleepovers, making little girls pale,
Afraid that they have accidentally bled.
Elegiac and embarrassed, full of tropes
Disparaged by Seleucian kings, most tell
Stories of unrequited jealousy
Engraved on stone with sponges, vetted by
The underappreciated and the fat
Recipients of Golden Books and schmaltz.
A few are goodbye letters, never signed.
A few are tax returns, unaudited.
Some lisp. Some swoon. Some have these wild ideas
About the immanence of outer space.
They drool. They belch. Complain. Complain. Complain.
They like a mirror, write they backwards verse.

Not Dissimilar To A Speeding Bullet

At high speed, celerity like forked swifts,

Fast tracked, and scarcely time for banks and breath,

The world does business, busier than you,

Though you can’t find your hat, your heart, your socks

Gone walkabout; and all the bees are bright,

Even as summer hollers like a kid.

Be not afraid.  There’s nothing you can do.

The shadows swarm with life lived off the books,

And you all in the red.  These are attacks,

Happily falling like a falling star.

Doing Cambridge

Cambridge is just a town. The B & Q,

The Spar--they sell the things we buy at home:
Bacon crisps, bird nuts, those vacuum-paks of screws.
Doesn't seem much like wisdom habits here,
The flagman said, and pointed at the sign.
To Let or Toilet, one of those. The sound
Of mobile phones or angel choristers,
One of those, unsettled the browsing ducks.
Considered taking wing, they did, but stayed,
And after practiced evensong for crumbs,
Birds of paradise in their bright green hoods,
The porter said. You can't go in there. Them
Is proof of the existences of Jutes,
Angelic doctors, the actutest choice,
And girls so daft they make your head explode.
I pressed my face against the leaded glass.

Where the Woods Stop

Whose tale this is I think I know,

That darkness where the daydreams grow.

All made of gingerbread and cream,

It’s not a place I want to go.

I don’t like a collective dream,

A much attenuated meme.

Out here at least the air is gray,

And people only what they seem.

They think they’re more and sometimes say

A better world with better pay

Would treat them like the folks they were

And compensate them where they play.

There’s little cake and little myrrh,

Simplicities I much prefer.

Hamlet--Monarch Notes

Your arras, that's a dicey thing.
It keeps the damp away, the chill
old ghosts convey.  A curtain ring
moves by no wind and then hangs still,
though spirits pass on either hand.
A toast, a toast.  A rheumy dude
is run through unannounced, unplanned,
helped on into his desuetude.

Outside the sky in winkled shades
promises much, delivers few
from evil.  Here be younger blades
who row, who row, the sort of crew
no castle keeper does without.
The Prince himself prefers to doubt.

Ripe for Recruitment

Under the bridges, then, where can be found

Men lost, bootless, unready hands on fire
And hair they use as lockpicks. Or The Last
Piazza, where the contract killers meet
Their lawyers, to insert a venue clause
And limits on assignability.
Down by the tracks, it’s far too popular,
Crowded with scads of housewife-realtors
Who need time off to study Avila.
The Polo Club will take an application,
But not call back. And Kitty’s 24
Prefers you dazed, emetic but aroused.
Or there’s the crossroads. Sandwiches and smokes
Purchase apparent assent. Fruition is
Another matter: these are not the deans
Of Mayhem College; often they forget
Objectives, falling asleep on wiry doormats
Stamped with cardinals and black-capped chickadees,
Right at their victim’s feet. Such tasseled shoes.
Nothing says loving like a drunken bum
Sprawled at the doorstep, hunting knife in hand,
Asking, if kicked, for dollar bills and beer.
Try beneath bridges. Covered in newsprint there,
Soldiers with stories, drumheads fast asleep,
Forage for excess, settle for skinny sweets.

And This Was Only Monday

What do you say when trees begin to dance –

I see you, though I don’t know what you are?
Look at the starlings fall out of the trees,
Indignant anyway, now mortified.
There in the moonlight, starlings on the grass,
What will they tell their mothers? I was mugged
By Terpsichore? The world is just as strange
At Adam’s desk, where the blue screen of death
Devoured a fortnight’s work complacently,
And he has organized Consuela’s name
In paperclips. A pigeon on the ledge
Begins to sing a Kindertotenlied.

Balance Sheet

If you are such a big deal, the real thing,

Where are your merit badges, where your stars?

Where are your fancy crockpots and your cars?

I fear you are not such a sichy ding.

Have you appeared at late night, on a stage,

Drunk, vexed, and barefoot, hooting like an owl?

Have you been told by witches, Fair is foul—

And put that robin back into its cage?

I didn’t think so.  When the big black van,

Equipped with no restraint, no jaws of life,

Waves bye-bye to your trouble and your strife,

Try to remember when you were a man.

Before you had a credit history,

You had a rock, a jackdaw, and a tree.

Modus Vivaldi

This may not be the moment you propose
To change the world, to bring it budding on.
I can't remember anyone who chose
A season: this became the house of sun
Without you. It will fall. These are the days
Of rain and roses. There the clover lies,
Bumbling with bees and ready to be mown;
And if now cut, then what? It will come down

Soon enough. Happens, where the lift of birds
Desperate to get it on, is just the place
For acrobats who do not know the words
To set the songs they sing. They interface
And separate and scold. And when the price
Is to be paid, these are their bids, these bards.

The Exclusionary Rule

"Newton's apocryphal apple"

I swear it wasn't. When the core decayed
on Eden's floor, the seeds took hold. The bole
blossomed and stained the air with pink, a whole
spectrum effect inferred from sin. It made
an atmosphere of perfume. And more trees.
They propagated emigres, and these

pinked England, and the apples fell and fell.
They rolled. They bounced. They made it into verse.
The bobby bowed and handed one to Nurse.
At all times they claimed sweetness led to Hell,
but emblematically. It was a nap
in symbol as he sat there. And his lap

bore stains which he could show you, because all,
at fruited feet per second squared, must fall.

Farmer Brown's Village Play Set

This appeared in No. 1.



The world is not constructed as it might be.
A clever set of brightly colored blocks
could fix a lot; given a Providence--
a child's bad temper, adult salary,
carpet enough and time--the houses would
show smoking chimneys in July, a fence
a cow could lean against, and portable
tulips, which would display themselves where put.

And when the circus tumbled into town,
the teachers would be clowns, down at the Bank,
old Mr. Wheeze be wearing saffron robes,
have shaved his head and changed his name to Harry.
The cutglass parking meters could dispense
one shining nickel per velocipede.
The ringmaster and his lion would walk by,
talking of spangled tights and tenderloins.
A bigtop makes a 3-ring barn. The ewes
can pile pyramidally for the careful.

Our insufficient, firmly rooted world
needs pigs and saxifrage in every closet--
hang the expense. The roofbeam would be fine.
Poppies are just as good as coffee tables,
and better dyed, if tea-time is pretend.
The elephants, like schools, have principles:
give them an office, let them read announcements.
Take them apart to be put away at night.

From the Homefront

No, not a mansion, an estate,

Nor a chateau.  It’s just a house.
The taxes here are second rate.
No pheasantry.  The famous grouse
In the odd cupboards never call.
We have a lot.  Who has it all,

He works downtown.  His hands are clean,
He’s made of iron, cap-a-pie.
He is a gent we all have seen.
The women claim he ran away,
Just at proposal.  We are sure
His kind is weak and won’t endure

A liberal incumbency,
Yet there he is.  And here we are.
We mow our own.  And you can see
The oil which needs a newer car.
We have a vision: Saturday
We’re going to scrub those stains away,

Uncreak the door and love our wives
And make our children sweet and smart.
Life after life, lives after lives,
We barely finish where we start,
Exceptional in no detail,
Tepid and permanently frail.

The heat increases.  As we sink
Beneath our debts, the clocks explode.
No one has asked us what we think.
Our recent bills have come in code.
It’s later than it used to be,
We translate one.  But there are three.

A civil servant with a broom
Is dancing.  There’s a gravid fox
Has moved into the rumpus room
Where cellotape obstructs the locks.
Lawyers assumed to boardrooms rain
Upon the gold and fruited plain.

An organ grinder plies his trade
At 6 o’clock: This is the news.
We waltz in the diminished shade
Between our house and Duncan’s Mews.
The children write, We have been lent
By LSE to Parliament.

Thus we, content, replant the mint,
Repaint the windowbox, and wait.
My wife takes off her clothes.  Her hint
Is good enough.  We shall be late,
We shall be last.  We shall be saved,
Our names erased, our dates engraved.

The Midnight Train

A lantern on a lanyard on the last

Train out of town to Anywhere at All,

Which happens to be east of Little Jugs,

Gives more illumination than you’d think.

A carrot and a stick and several shoes

Piled on the platform where the caboose becomes

Thin air; and you, you weren’t expecting that.

The elegance of emptiness does not

Include a carrot or a pair of heels,

But Anywhere at All will be amused.

A milliner’s, a pool hall, and a new

Patisserie, in case the gentry come.

A Church of Holy Holiness, a cow

Walking the streets, and then, of course, a bank.

Life can be fruitful, Anywhere at All

Instructs its children, who are dreaming of

A better world, offered in Somewhere Else,

To those catching the midnight train, which leaves

Tomorrow afternoon at 6:15.

Passing Strange

This appeared in Blood Lotus.

Here we are in Oklahoma, the next
stop Strange, where no one you know ever lived
and popsicles are served up for dessert,
wrapped in serviettes, where the dogs are bred
never to bark until they're spoken to,
and finger puppets entertain the kids.
Look quickly. Strange won't last long. Kresge's there,
one story, is the tallest store in town.
The 7-11 locks its doors at 10.
The newspaper is trucked in out of Enid.
It's gone, Strange is, you can see it behind,
an El Dorado, full of dust, the home
of unwed girls, pretty, each one, so briefly
their hearts grow dense, like cherry crumble squares.

Apocalypse Now

This first appeared in The Shit Creek Review

The end of things may have come yesterday,
When frozen sparrows dropped from budding trees
And spectral hordes on smoke-stained ponies rode
Suburban streets. With swords. And women gave
Birth to stones. When red anacondas hung
Like plastic icicles from guttering.
Those all seemed predicators. Like the voice
Who spoke out of the sewers, “Be ye not
Amused. This is an actual alert.”
And yet the network news provided live
Detail about absconded brides and junk
Bond status for GM and Ford. I watched
Game 6, and no one said the final match
Was cancelled for Apocalypse. I spread
Fertilizer, clipped a forsythia
Whose day had passed, but which will bloom again
When spring returns and all these frogs are gone.

That Voodoo You Do

The recipe is principally blood
And Aunt Jemima Pancake Mix, stirred till
All bubbles have been beaten out, then fried
To burnt beyond description in cast-iron.
Cooled and crumbled and sprinkled on a brush—
Tooth or hair, macht nichts—it can be observed.
Debs may grow blue and die, Associate
Professors watch all hope of tenure fail,
Children shift into Senior Homes. And still
None of them finds a hint of consequence.
Sometimes, however, conscience gone on break,
The air will fill with lust and violins,
Like soundtracks at an old Italian dive,
Ladling the night with syrup. There is hope
For magic, then, and sweet unlikelihood.
But, geez, you would have had that anyway.

Geoffrey, P.I.

Just moments ago the kings and princes left;

Priors pleading engagements to buy and sell
Indulgence futures, they commanded peals
And hautboys to blow them off. I drank my beer.
Pale enough, sure, but nobody would mistake
Moi for a prince, me for the high command,
The stuffed lark on my mantel for a hawk.
I ate some pretzels. Somebody's dead duke
Had fucked with the wrong archbishop's piece, employed
A crucifix between his jersey legs.
You shouldn't ought to do that on a nave
Made shiny and kept clean by novices.
I missed my lunch, and nobody seemed sure
If dukes were to be solved or disappeared.
My ex had opted for the latter, left
For some deer park outside St Smithereens,
And me and Buster sifted through the clues
In ashpits, huts, and shabby priories.
I could tell tales, but then I'd have to leave you,
Springtime or not or cherry-staining skies.