Critical Updates

 This appeared in Angle.  Such good taste they had.

I’ve changed the voice commands. The poem starts

When anyone says Artemis or swears

By Zeus's thigh.  It finishes when rain

Intervenes, the puddles ex machina

Providing an escape.  Between the prompts

Poetry sleeps.  Hollering Blood-dimmed tide

As your Camaro races by won't work,

Nor liquid-sifting nightingales atop

A satellite dish.  I have allowed for that.

Nor saying Venus when you really mean

The foam-born goddess who made Helen fall

For that blond curly-headed twit, then watched

A local Hector dragged around in dust.

You can't say whale-road, can't pretend that Danes

Are good for more than video games.  You must 

Burn your own child to smithereens to save

Earth from the sun when what it needs is rain.

Another Cup of Tea

 

The Nazis drove through Paris,

Elvis got fat and died.

Babe Ruth was supplanted by Maris.

The President lied.

    I have survived a number of shocks.

You were young, you were beautiful, you said

My heart is a halo of flame.

I haven't heard if you are still dead,

But no one knows your name.

    Backwards reel the clocks.

Our trees are green again this year.

The drainpipes drain to the sea.

Somebody pops a Mexican beer,

But love was your cup of tea:

Till the stars collapsed and the sun burned out

And everyone learned beyond a doubt

    Love is a plate of cold rocks.

You & Me & Rain on the Roof

 

When you were young, I was already x.

My son is y, but you are only z.

You glow in tones designed to charm and vex

Our pants off. As mine are. Here. Now. My bed.

What does that make me? One decrepit drooler,

A humbert in his head? You are a bird

Of paradise. Our years, marked like a ruler,

Measure me for subtraction. Word by wordplay

I find me wanting. Wanting you, but wanting

Not to be young again. To have to be

Feathered like you. A tit. I should be planting

Saplings, so someone else can have a tree.

It is raining. It is raining. I'm relieved

In what we are not doing. In the night

Paradise is a roost. I am deceived

Because you are not here. Take heed. Take flight.

Rising Expectations

 

Given some rope, they've torn the statues down
To piss on legendary heads, the groins
Bedecked in amaryllis and ablaze.
(Who would have guessed that amaryllis burns,
And colorfully?) The shoppers fill their carts
With freebies. (Who'd have guessed they wanted phones
Far more than sandwiches?) The songs they sing
Are short on lyric wordplay, long on scat.
We made no plans to emigrate, but have
Our havens in the hinterlands, where treats
Are plastic shoes on Sundays, where delight
Is puddings made of pigs and doughty men
Pray to the forest just because it's there.
(Who knew that gods had green cards or that wolves
Wanted our wives for bon-bons in the smoke?)

Terraculture

 The mulch is ready. Earth contains

All earth requires, the blood and brains

Of trees and flowers, to make with weeds

The soil that terraculture needs

For moly. On the primal tree

Hung harbinger and history,

Both fast asleep in yeoman mud.

The mulch is making bark of blood.

ABC

 

In Sumer love kept lovers warm;

And from a distance cuneiform
Sufficed to substitute for flesh.
It was the same in Marrakech,
Where swirls and loops conveyed the sense
Of sworn and forsworn innocence.
It was the same where love idyllic
Begged to change in Old Cyrillic
Blush for a satiated sigh.
Even in rebus, with this eye
I name what I hope soon to see,
Writ in a language new to me,
The legend of the Holy Grail,
Spelled out for touch, composed in braille.

A Dream of Fair Women

 

Come winter, we shall learn the ways

Of women, young and wanton, run

Amok in books, which we shall praise

For literary merit. We

Shall substitute them for the sun

And make believe they’re history.

Juliet is not much like school,

Nor Guinevere like Mrs Beale,

Who is not golden, nor a fool

For chivalry. The cold and snow,

Unlike Isolde, is not real.

And where did all the Helens go?

Not to our school. Not then. Not yet.

I looked and then returned to read

Where princesses glittered jade and jet.

The janitor died of smoke and flame

Down in the boiler room. I need,

But cannot quite recall, his name.

A Christmas Colloquy

 

Shepherd Lad: I bring to you my oaten flute,

A pile of dried and winter fruit,

A lock of my beloved’s hair,

And videos of Fred Astaire.

Me: Thank you, but I already gave.

I don’t believe the gods will save

Me, if I let you pave my roof

Or flush my pipes with 90-proof

Corn-founded hogwash. Be you gone

Before you’re fired by the dawn.

SL: You have mistaken me. I’m not

Some Adventist whom time forgot.

I’m not the ghost of yokel past.

Here at the end men love me last.

Me: Because nostalgie pour la flock

Replaces your initial stock?

I think not. With the wolf you go

To see the hayrick hung with snow

And blood a part of being fed

On chines of the unrisen dead.

SL: And me on Ginger’s treasure chest.

Me: A stock show.

SL: And a Winter Fest.

Me: It is not so. I cannot be

A man before color TV,

The laurel garland on his brow,

But every tense the here and now.

SL: Your loss. No gain. I pray you, sing

Of ewes beside some purling thing

(As well as Ginger). Be you eld,

And time will slow and measures meld.

Me: Only in dreams, and I awake.

Now here’s a twenty. Please, Sir, take

Yourself away to Grecian shores

Where acorns taste like melted ‘smores,

And all the cattle dance in line.

You are a dream, Sir, but not mine.

Arabica Nights

 

Scheherazade called last night, with a tale

Of buffalo and bitcoin. I hung up.

Her name is Scam; her voice is far away

From Rocky Mountain vowels, her face as pure

As real-life happenstance, as blank as pie.

Next time she calls I’ll ask her, Have you more?

More rocs, more executions, warranties,

Or current offers? I am Old King Cole

And full of expectations unfulfilled;

But I can see the chambers where you toil,

A studio walled in silk, and those are pearls,

And these are bread and swine, Scheherazade.

A Book of Job: Help Wanted

 

What a job. An eyeful of the lawful

Spectacle, bespectacled, is Plenty

On Wheels. I'd roll from whales, the mighty awful

Issue of the One God. Give me twenty,

A hundred gods. I'd take these glasses off

And turn my head when He asked me to cough.

This patchwork quilt of comforters is more

Than any single man should have to bear

(A married man perforce begins to wear

Away); but God's piternal band will pour

Changes on these brass symbols, men who bore

His burden slackjawed. I know. I was there.

O God Thou God too strong for me, You made

Earth yours. It is too good. I am afraid.

Memorial Park

Many have risen.  Not all oaks

are nymphs converted. Other folks,
their bite exhausted, left with bark,
arose again, to point a park:
not as a plant, but through a bole,
not as they were, yet as a whole.

They bear their branches. Who believes 
that green is all there is to leaves,
both food and feeder? In their arms
they cloud first, then support the swarms
who fancy live apartments. Birds
pay their respects, in other words.

They die, and some are seen again.
Some fall in cords, and some in pain.
These find no end, no fine full stop.
Dead at the root, dead from the top,
bent double as in desolation,
somehow some last. Some consolation.

An Anecdote of Middle Age

The stereo gathers no moss. It rocks
The lamp now bouncing closer to the edge;
My turntable will dump it on the floor
Unless I intervene. Why, you can think
A hundred divagating thoughts within
The couple seconds left to make the save,
Or not. There is a window to look out,
And spring is imminent. The Cyprian,
Who now wears lycra and a navel ring,
Instructs her votaries, commands the prone
Attention of the young and wish-they-were,
And favors sleeplessness by low-watt bulb.
Sequins are hers, and cottonwood like snow,
But pliable and weightless, borne by breeze,
Outside the window clearly, outside time.
I never liked that lamp much anyway,
Not much to rock by, at its shaded best,
Lava lamps having died so long ago,
Their tie-dyed coffins are as decomposed
As Toscanini by the grateful dead.
I save the lamp. You had to know I would.

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.

Word Problems

 

Let's say you had 2 monkeys and a fox,

7 bananas, and an ATV,
Or maybe a rowboat, and a ski chalet.
How many trips before you fall asleep,
Dreaming of Mr Dinkum’s science test
And the atomic weight of Super String?
Give up? One monkey’s grey, the other locked
In Booneville, where he learned the iron rule.
The fox clears out the tikihut and leaves
Scat on the rec room floor in thorns and thetas.
Then you remembered Mr D was dead,
Shot by his wife in 1983
For messing around in Chem Club Lab. The fox
Is wily, and you never stood a chance.

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.