Saturday, October 22, 2011

poem: the fading rise

take a page from the black furnace
simmer down the folkways
autumnal blues
the midnight gavels descend
query post niggles the distant
prime: cudgel justice
a beating of monstrous
proportions, lather's
crown asks the fondest
questions: i ask for pardon
she bends the rules
the castaways linger
in the wings
outrageous a plunder
the whimsy of which
tastes as sweet as the darkest
roots, portions splayed
the black wells
vaulting the pommeled
sequence, the three
the fear of Havana
the aquablue mystique
cobbling the weary,
the lost,
the converging
galleons,
the last crimes
withering the heights
of your facile deceptions:
find the key
answer the prayer
cast the spell
& order loses her
sainted ways,
the skullportions
of the night's coastline:
call the wild blue
tangle the moon's feeble
intent. this whim of yours
fades in inverse
mockery,
the gingerbaby gingery
calculations moot, a fading
collision, as you stand & rise
a shell of stellar
evacuation,
dripdry steampunk-driven
foggery: only in the last
fading moment will i ask
your tenderest
of pardons.


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Monday, October 17, 2011

poem: beyond the miracle

for the black rose

I initially balked,

the cumulative watts
bearing down on

the fusky nuts,

the amber prime,

the neverending plenty

of dewy decimaled

oscillations: you calve
your
glaciers,
I'll calve mine,
halving
the distance
between
pleasure
&
double entry,

bookkeeping the side bets

till wuthering claims
its
spiritual climes:
venture into deepest
space
and the vigorous

anonymity
extends beyond

the miracle-gro
tendencies of downright
signal virtue:

sunflowered virtue
hangs
her head for
no good
reason:
this tarry
shall
merry in dew time,

a marrying conflagration,
tassel-beamed sentries,
organic play pens,
carousel capillaries,

a righteous finn:

sing into leopard night's
rusty truths,
partnered with simple
calibrations,

hands covering the gaze
as
she sees her rain
in the halcyon bayous
of empyrean blue.


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Saturday, October 08, 2011

poems revisited: blue cafe



(Listening to cuts from Patricia Barber's CD Cafe Blue last night put me in mind of Jackson's wondrous and much too short-lived Blue Cafe and these poems again.)

An acrostic suite from 2001...

BLUE CAFE

heron meditations

i.

good fellow: strange vision exhilarates the nest.
rarely have i known the direction of your mist. until now.
enviable, is it not, your race
across time to
this moment of mississippi, shore

bought from what
legacy of pasts only you can
utter. they come, floating, fishlike -
elegant waste of piney ocean depth

ii.

glass eye, i think from my distance, so like esche-
r’s orb, a world turned in, turned under:
eternal sleep, a pearl in wait. spillway
a mighty punctuation to our dreams:
therein lies the irony of your long comma.

bridewell, hale fellow, get my drift?
lunacy’s sunken treasure
unfurled, the gar that ate jackson mississippi -
evolution’s finest hour.

iii.

gargoyle at seaside: can death be more still?
read this palm i lay before you.
eat of it. taste if fate is
altered in the fractions we have left.
taste if time cuts as a rule,

bereft of moorings
line for line
uranographer as mighty walls crumble
epigraphist of the gathering mists.

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Friday, October 07, 2011

poem: these wanting few



if I were blue

as I frequently am,

dawn of a remnant wind,

pregnant ocean rump

in my lungs, son

of estuary,

orphaned, lost,

found, this stew

a miserable

sequestration,

an amber

gift to the vagrant night.

she asked after you,

found wanting

desire most blessed, these

wanting few,

wanting less

wanting the last note

down the line:

a single digit,

plea to gather

the blue you

carry, the blue

you mine,

the blue that begs

the question

in each & every

wine.

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Saturday, October 01, 2011

poem: rest your names

simple rays
Mary's tears cry

whispers

these foolish fools

calibans

tribal waifs in the blue

margins, calling:

answer the rest,

your names

are drowning

the violent dreams

parting ways,

cast of busybees

heralding

the nothings

sequestered in

your natural wells

blue holes

singing the silent

gospels,

the wildflowers

of your rendered

face, castaway

we forget the rinsing

parlor, the first

time, the very time,

the tingle in the alleyways,

seven times seven times

& the nights are falling,

the flying fish

of a thousand memories

fragrant

dropping through

rhyming space

I knew it then

I crave it now

I pray the wonders

never cease.


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