Little Elijah Dance

 This appeared in Chimaera.

Little Elijah cannot find his pants.
Do you suppose this will forestall the dance
Great joy requires? Not the slightest chance.

He drags his feet through mud. He shakes his head.
He beats his little fists until they’ve bled
Upon the yard he slowly colors red.

The sparrows flee. The boxer pup retreats.
The crows applaud, guffawing from their seats,
As though instructed by his infant feats.

His mother is embarrassed and his pa
Humiliated by the breach of law.
Such misplaced gametes might occlude his craw,

Were he not drunk and god-fearing. This child,
The funk of bees and puddles make a wild
Embouchure: and he blows as though defiled

By thoughts of nap or spinach. But he’s not.
Little Elijah does not feel so hot,
And soon the crows pick up what he forgot.

Forcing the Spring

 

The hyacinths break ground, the daffs

All green, intrude, the tulips force
Themselves upon us, and the snow
Continues intermittently.
Nobody knows the bulbs I've seen--
Nobody knows, but Flora says
Ceres keeps her eye on me,
Calling to get a daughter back,
Hers to bestow. I am the dark,
Damp alternative. They text
Green, she and Flora, sharing the sound
The topsoil makes. Somewhere beneath
Contracts a kill--we mobile few,
We pink extensions of the air,
Rootless and conscienceless and blithe,
The swift disturbers. Give me back
My seedlings, painful Ceres says.

At The Good Hotel

 

At The Good Hotel, with white picket verandas,

they bow you in, in ways those of our kind

cannot ignore and have not been brought up to.

It just feels awkward, all the smiling brown

men bringing you drinks and suitcases and fruit

and hairdryers. We shoo them off. We try

accouterments, amenities, appointments,

and bathrobes, all there waiting. To The Good

Hotel requests for food are never outré:

still smiling, brown men bring you kippered things

and cognac, day or night. They press your shirt

and wax your shoes until you cry to go

shopping for the familiar souvenirs

the folks back home believe. You watch TV

to limited effect. They do not stream.

The Good Hotel was built in ‘86

to emulate imperial designs.

Even the tarts dressed swish; they had to come

in through the side. If here today, they look

like you and me and pay with MasterCard

and take it, too. The guests then didn’t note

the deference they paid for, just its absence.

The ice came in by ship, as did the girls.

The middle class’s ship comes in today;

that’s us, and all the rest who book rooms here.

We don’t know where the well bred stay. We eat

what Chef Bertrand suggests, sauced and flambéed,

here at The Good Hotel. We boogie nights

or walk on the beach, preferring to keep dry

our boat shoes and our pants. We burn. We take

a thousand pictures of a dozen sights.

In ‘28 The Good Hotel was hit

by mortar fire: someone didn’t like

the concept of an empire. Home grown

the tyrants flourished, visited their mews,

and died in nasty ways at local hands.

The Good Hotel pays taxes, knows no party

except the anniversary and birthday

and local fêtes, invented so that pigs

could go to Heaven holding on to fruits

three times the size of those we eat at home.

When we are home and full of sleep and fat

with indignation, prostate woes, and beer,

our photos all misplaced, new shirts too stained

to wear, except for yard work, we all call

The Good Hotel the way it used to be,

though not for us, and not again, not now.

A Meditation on Matlock Bath

        This appeared in Lyric.

About this town which I have never seen

I can say anything: unbound by fact,

I can make grass like fuchsias, daisies green

policemen decorous with grace and tact,

imbued by sun and suave citizenry

with politesse. Alsatians bow and smile,

the cottages all tactile bonhomie.

The pubs are warm. The postmen dress with style.

On Sunday morn the smallholders emerge

to sing like gleemen old-time rock ‘n’ roll,

their back doors left unlocked. A sudden urge

to love one’s wife is balsam for the soul,

the vicar says. All this, here far away,,

is slightly different. We speak in wrath

to those we trust; we greet the dawning day

with trepidation, far from Matlock Bath.

Perhaps a girl in Matlock Bath is thinking

that overseas young men appreciate

young ladies who do not want to go drinking

and be led home in a disheveled state.

Perhaps, she thinks, they do not have to study

away their May on Tudor crowns and math;

perhaps, she hopes, the world is not so bloody

awful, far away from Matlock Bath.

Perhaps. But I don’t know, and must not see,

the commons or the chemist there. I’m blessed

with wanting them to live life differently

than we do, not like us, like all the rest.

The Heart Attacks

 

This appeared in Poetry Proper

High above Denver, itself taller than Wales,

we attempt the ordinary for its

postcard values — lunch a picturesque burger,

a cup of coffee to make Wordsworth ooh.

And the heart attacks, then retreats, no more

to be cajoled. It sounds taps. The Dead March.

And the mountains smile at a bag of chips,

2 boys holding hands, the belly-button

ring of the busy barista. Good grief,

it follows good night, the morrow not

a bit like the last. We are closer here

to the sun. We burn easily. We heed

hydration. We needed a refreshed start.

Now you‘ve a cage to hold open your heart.

The blood rushes home, leaves, goes home again,

back to the valleys where the coal burns slowly.

The Thaw

Damme, is that a fence across the stream?

Beavered, perhaps, but, damme, it looks stout.

I shall be released some day, the big fish says,

But not to me. No ear for gospel, moi;

It’s something of a logjam where I sing,

Up there along the snowfall. A new growl

Foretells the coming breakup. There’s a line,

Current events, I guess, I shall not use,

But if I did, what I would catch would fit

The coming morning I have prophesied,

But will not live to see. If you should, do.

The Moon We've Got

We have none. What you want, what you are seeking

In books and from that cave inside the pit,

We don’t have that. What you have not pursued

Over the river and through the woods, we stock,

And we can locate what you‘d rather not.

We do not stock elixirs, though. Heart’s-ease

Is unavailable this time of year.

The talking mirror set, with comic brush,

We just ran out, whenever you came in.

Riches that do not callous the heart, those beans

That everybody wants? Nobody has.

A second chance? A second second chance?

You could ask for the moon. The moon we’ve got.

It comes in sizes—young and growing old.

Spring Song

 

In the symmetry of seasons we have spring

today, winter tomorrow, spring again
the rest of the week, but all without the edge,
the knifeblade chill, that fall is always flaunting.
Something is happening here, and it is green.

Runners keep trying to run in shorts, retreating
to polar fleece, renaturing bare skin.
The snowdrops are almost done before the crocus
are more than scallions. Every day the stalks
need Lebensluft and take it. Every day

the light advances on the night, the poise
of seasons, symmetry and share alike,
spins on the scented air, which can be spent
but never saved. Accumulation fails;
and winter waits in Wollongong, or somewhere.

Home Bodies

 In a slightly different form, this appeared in Lyric.

These trees that stand around and watch

Will never say they don’t approve

Of you; but while you’re crying they,

Unless by wind, will never move

To help. In laying down their claim

So deeply into stony earth,

They have exchanged all sympathy

For knowing what you’re likely worth

To such as they’ve become. Goodbye.

You may depart now. They won’t care.

These trees will not unclasp their roots

To see you off to anywhere.

Anything Goes

 

Some of the souvenirs began to squirm
As hibernating gods shook off their sleep.
Their naps had been profound, their dreams so vague,
They didn't know where parts of them had gone;
But shelves in Indonesia and Brazil
Let down their severed heads; and in Duluth
And Lower Slaughter little shiny coins
Twirled. It was more than mildly disconcerting.

Poseidon had a charley-horse and Dis,
Occluded vision. Iris saw her dress
Change colors, as the label, Roy G. Biv,
Turned inside out and backwards. Down below,
A village suffered instant disrepute
When all the hausfraus ran away with birds.
In Rome the statues changed their legal names,
And some converted. Venus wept real tears,

The tiny tears of dolldom, small and briny.
Green, like the eyes which they obscured, they fell,
But raised no fruit. It was her elder name
Which founded Paris, where the horses reared,
And no one knew what anything meant or cost.
The souvenirs dissolved, and mighty Zeus
Stroked his oiled beard, but did not wake. The heads
Of headless torsos speechified from dust.

The Philosophy of Composition

 

What do you do with a broken priest?

Feed him to the populace,

Never enough for a perfect feast,

Never for surfeited success,

But the crowd is hungry. Meat is rare,

Entertainment is anywhere.

Deserves what he gets, the broken priest,

The chattering mute, the empty bag.

Nothing but scraps, down to the least

Disordered ort on the fleeing hag.

Tell it at night, and make it scan,

Delicate rhyme for a damaged man.

Let Us Now Praise

Before they died they didn’t have a prayer,

And after no one heard. Inside the dark,

The ancestors inhabit empty space,

And they among. Bronze statues with a gene

In common look out at a distant sea

There in Nebraska, this the way they’re made,

Brittle and with that green pocked skin we give

Survivors, if they promise not to speak.

They keep their promises, which makes them special.

In life there was no little yellow barge

To ferry them to restitution, dull

Made serviceable. One, a tomahawk

Stuck in his stone cold belt, attempts a smile

And fails. He does not see a better day.

The True Meaning of Christmas

 

On this night we observe the world of guilt,

Our consciences full of marzipan and myrrh,

And conifers where crabgrass clippings were,

Poinsettias, never to grow or wilt,

Unless tomorrow comes. And no one tells

The littlies, That is so. The manger moves

To U-Rent Storage Lockers, and the bells,

The bells, and clever evidence of hooves

Abscond, like fireflies or currant puds.

We are returning all our gifted goods.

We are remembering the little slights.

We’re cold and lonely on these winter nights.

Who knows what reindeer do in northern woods,

Where no one can unstring the brilliant lights?

The Disappointing Dead

 

Shall I tell you about the dead,

Who have no alibis,

Who do not care what’s said,

Bald truth or naked lies,

Who have no sense of loss,

Who do not groan in grief,

Nor grouse beneath their cross,

But won’t confess belief?

See for yourself? No fear

(But you won’t miss your eyes);

And though you disappear,

We shall feel no surprise.

Exercise: Patience & the Monument

 

A choice to be alone is good,

Although you haven't practiced much.
Don't walk. Don't hurt. Don't cook. Don't touch.
Pretend your legs are made of wood,

Pinocchian your heart and head.
Remembering is quite all right,
But try to reach beyond tonight.
Concentrate on your ancient dead--

I don't mean Agamemnon's brood
Or Marshall Ney's aunt's brother's wife.
Someone on whom you bet your life
And lost. Back when the world was lewd

And you in touch. All right. Enough.
Now you can make your mac and cheese
And sing what every little breeze
Whispers. And feel your legs. And stuff.

Tracking the Engineers

Engineers, and they make and drive the train,

Design the clacking parts and with them move

Through unlit fields of soy, past pinhead towns,

Into garages where they draw up specs,

To prove that motion is perpetual,

If expertly believed. They know that rods

Connect the wheels. They’ve seen how the harvest moon

In North Dakota polishes empty track,

Their iPods left at home, loaded with funk,

Earth, Wind & Fire, Little Anthony,

And Mantovani’s Permanent Regret.

A can of Sterno for a souvenir,

A pen so fine you cannot see the point--

No layman can—those they carry around

To dim sum hangouts on the frozen plains.

And when they fade, and when they are defrocked,

They live in rathskellers and rumpus rooms,

Where late at night, baffled by bells and horns,

They learn the trick that makes their whole wash white. 

Not Always to the Swift

 

Consider the bees.  They toil lots,

And, boy, they spin from fleur to fleur,

Pollinations as they were,

Floribunding the hot spots,

While I watch here, unverbed, unnouned,

Except for remembering what I hear,

A taste of honey growing near

And sweat.  It is an elder sound,

The sound of since, not without sting.

The bees head home.  Say, come again,

And be what you have always been,

Sweetness of bloom a living thing.

Edible Arrangements

 

Our friends are celery and thyme.

They’re acorn squash and coriander.
They used to pass the oddbox rhyme;
They used to copulate, philander,
Sweat out of every pore, and curse.
Now they grow grass, and we grow worse.

Our friends are honey locust; mud
Becomes them. No more shop and dance
With anyone who warms their blood
And shtups the lot in true romance.
Eggplant, maybe, and Queen Anne’s lace.
No one grows with a greater grace.

Yam and bo, they were once a pair,
Love in an atmospheric venue.
R ♥ J on a bark is their
Gnarled and edible hostel, menu,
And home at last, the beetles say,
Leaves in the fall and flags in May.

Tales From Sycorax's Wood

 Once split, twice shy, the tree

Will not disclose the plight

Of those condemned to be

Embedded out of sight.

They never speak of her.

Whatever once occurred

To make a prisoner,

No one will say a word.

Only the bark is warm,

In places bark is not,

And when lush Carpo’s storm

Shakes the wood, the lot

Of trees exempts such places,

No motion and no sound,

No sense of human faces,

Except the wetted ground.

Endoscopy

It seems to be a form of divination,

All of the chickens gone, but not at peace,

The parts all fried. We read the gizzards, though.

They seemed to say that all is what it was;

No matter what we do, the end comes last.

The scholars have their doubts. They cast the bones

Upon the waters, looking to get a rise,

Some answers bubbling up, a withered arm,

Trove in a gnarly hand. The argument

Which they propose is, Everything foretold

In great detail and ending in the dark,

The sea worms and the earthworms in the dark,

And no one ever learns what happens next.