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.

The House the Hoarder Had

It’s 90 in the shade. The hawthorn shares

Its leaves, its thorns, botanical debris,

And squirrels and does it all ungrudgingly,

All without affect. If it thinks, it thinks

Of roots and where they’re headed, of the nice

Vitreous clay pipe a little to the south,

Not of the hoarder and the house she had

Across the street. Tornadoes would have loved it.

The ambience was right, the floor a blitz

Of concrete, mud, and glass. It showed no shame

And more shade, even, than the hawthorn tree;

And shades await, if all the tales are true,

Across the tracks from piles of beauty books,

Tampon boxes, milk of magnesia sweet

As locust shells, and bags of dried-up pens.

The hawthorn leaves are planning for October. 

Do Not Touch: Display Only

The lintel of my door declares

Timor mortis conturbat me,

But only for display. Inside,

The folks are busy brewing tea

And snacking on what Christmas left

Behind—dry turkey sandwiches

And lebkuchen. Eggnog is not

A morning-after sort of thing.

Today's the day we roll our eyes

And smirk, superior, then betray,

And throw the calendar away.

Remembering Eden

         this appeared in Staple

It isn't that the oranges tasted better

or that the dust that fell across the shafts

of morning sun were something more than dirt.

We're made of motes here too, and here the sky

changes for eve, changes for morning. Though

the grass was growing when the sword was sheathed,

we are not missing all of Paradise.

I've told the story now so many times

I don't think I remember how it happened,

when I woke up with that stitch in my side

and she alongside. It still makes a good story.

What I do remember is how we made

the lamb eat avocados. Who would think

a sheep could pull a face? So here I am,

Father of Man, and dignified by years,

a tale in my possession no one else

could match but she, who is herself the tale,

and all I have to tell are anecdotes.

What stays when the emotion drains away

is this moment and that, the lamb, a bath,

Abel's first laugh, when he saw his first chicken.

The New Roadmap

 

I lived here once.  I know

which streets went where. I ran

where this lane starts to go

to the left, where it began

to carry another name.

So I am not impressed

by maps. It's not the same,

your sketch. I think you messed

up my reality.

Where's Archer? Appleton?

The dogleg at du Pres?

I know now what you've done,

you've gone to see what's there.

You stood on my home ground

as is. That wasn't fair;

taking a look around

alters the memory.

It warps the past. It preys

on what we say we see,

It relocates what stays

to houses, then to maps,

till we avert our eyes,

as though all routes collapse

below misfigured skies.

U Before I

 

To you a letter. How about q,

Always followed by u, as I

Follow the mark for hay and Hensa?

Too oblique, I know. I know it

Follows, not p to o, but where

We all align, in tidied rows,

Where there are diphthongs we can share,

On monuments a line or less.

O, I say, O. But no one gapes.

They keep, instead, their final shapes.

12 lines. Or several hundred more.

And never again what came before.

Graved For Me

Around the corner, where I cannot see,
I see you waiting, haute couture in verse,
Lines I cannot remember on your face,
Deep, but not embellished, and a bright
Hyperbole of allusion in your eyes.
Around the corner.   Where I cannot see.