for R. H. After visits to his hospital bed where sickness slowly played a jazz garden in his head, I watered leaves and stems to a green brilliance, troweled back the influence of weeds, things I'd do for any friend knowing what is temporary. Just days before his release the leaves grew brassy, stems decidedly…
. . .they have passed into the world as abstractions, no one seeing what they are —Georgia O'Keeffe, 1887-1986 1 Late winter light Suppose it comes from the snow blowing all day across your winter road umber with violet shadows Or suppose it comes from some energy farther away that may never be understood to…
Excuse me, Sir, if sweet words turn to silver bullets in bad light where industrial signs stammer VACANCY all night over peep shows and fortified wines in the eye of the most liveable city. But you see this overcoat won't release me though winter's 5 months through and I'm sick to death of the mouthwash…
East Coker: sun afire in midwinter, rain-of-gold Teardrops at tip of holly and ivy leaf Instills nativity. (A warm day Travelers had of it down from Wells to St. Michael's Church, where T. S. E.'s ancestors Once bowed their heads then sailed for “Jerusalem.”) Scion, return and nest your ashes Here in the wall at…
For years a sign near Randy Miser's yard announced: MEDORA TOWN OF HARMONY A bar of music showed beneath those words the first notes of the scale ordered mi, do, re. I've wondered driving in—to Mel's for beer, past our shut-down factory— what tune that railroad man was whistling while he pounded ties. Who heard…
He makes a myth of everything he does: At dawn he puts his shirt on—that's a poem; At night he takes it off—same deal. Alone, He drinks to blot out the young man he was. Oh, he was fine—muscles rippling, the fire Of subject matter in his eyes: his home Was what he wrote about…
1. The sky is like the belly of a snake. 2. My mare shakes powdered sugar from her coat. 3. How much freeze and thaw can tulips take? 4. The river's out. We come and go by boat. 5. John Deeres upholster fields in corduroy. 6. Shoots flicker like heat lightning through the dust. 7….
The “texts” hang from her jaws like bags of feed— The one end chews; the other drops its pile. The nameplate on her door reads, or should read: “World's Largest Overstimulated Child.” Like Pegasus, she takes the “aerie” view— (Whose work holds interest if her own cannot?)— And trundles down the runway, lifts—(Mon Dieu! The…
Even the surface of the street stirs; birds squawk up and circle; wind rushes from nowhere till tree limbs thrash. From two directions in the café, some kind of jazz whines— saxophone in one speaker, anxious, wire brush in the other, svelte and anxious too, stroking the cymbal till it stirs. I imagine it glinting…
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