Saturday, September 26, 2009

Arms and the man

I will sing it like this:
the man reaching, backlit,
to his son's hand, arm stretching in the autumn sun,
last rays like leaves adorn the day
and the dark body of the image
the memory itself stretches long, long
etched there against the pavement
like a print in wet concrete
and I know I will come back to this, how it will
stain my eyes as I watch this boy
pass his own milestones.

Arms and the man I sing
and how we know our own
duty by these things.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

To a tomato plant

The squirrel, I believe it was,
chewed through half your fruit

nature not want to waste,
it left half for you, still hanging

on the vine, slowly turning a sickly
motly of brown and foaming white

(the day before, seeing the perfect flesh
round, red, and firm, I soliloquized on

how this miracle was produced by you, proud plant,
distilling dust to the muted blush of this solitary
remaining child clinging to your hands.)

Is it this or the autumnal chill that pulls
you, wilting, to give yourself back to the soil?

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Ars Poetica #263

How I feel this
late in the night
like unconscious words
setting the body to humming

I feel this like when you speak
from your hundred years dead mouth
and the words are warm still, warm,
the library all afire with song

I feel this, scratching through these veins
like a quill tip stretching ink 'cross parch-
ment sheaves, how I feel in the night
these dead hands shaking me awake,
clasping mine as I write.

Thursday, September 17, 2009

Hootenanny!

Harmonica practice.

Monday, September 14, 2009

Dog Summer

The poetry of unconscious words
floats up with the rise of the pavement's heat
swirls round the changing leaves that measure
the sun's leaving, brushes them all aside
wisping like the beards of a thousand wags.

How I will measure in teaspoons this morning's sunshine

but there is no language that will express this
the simple peace of your breath and the warmth
you leave when you rise, early, to bathe, step lightly down
the stairs, towel turbaned round your head
greeting the morning while I lie abed.

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Yet how sweet you looked in the Summer's last blush

How can you say to love the night not the moon,
we without our hands twined
the skim of love culled
off each moments depart.
What use is this heart
to pump my cracked hull
all a-creak with the cleats of my spine
as I stoop to seek the season's last bloom?