Is there anything prettier than that--
to stare into your manifold spaces
toward the hook & vine
of cathedral leaps,
the vaults & crypts
as go-betweens of an earthy worship,
the supine female form?
By quiet pools,
thrush in the thicket
with red berry behind its eye,
miniature sun
proceeding by the branch
to undress the bark
with leaves as
passionate culprits
kissing dark.
Clasped hands
upward lies the sky
my masterpiece angel,
I bite lush meadows,
tread spongy brooks,
endear daring small of back,
crevice taste nape and neck,
a beatific pilgrim nearing
a fleshy way-station,
first charting his compass,
fathoming a probe
to collect armfuls of starlight &
shade, hair, eye, lip like fragrant sea-grape
--pine & cedar bough in love-lorn resin smile.
[55]
LOST PATROL
Blue walls were grottoes,
subterranean panels
for covert messages, the
occasional mot juste
squirrelled up thru paint & memory.
Something like guitar strings dangling
only you employed
tear sheets from Rolling Stone
(counter-culture fly paper
to catch the runny masses).
The blue walls existed as
firing ranges, gunpowder
plots for ideas scribbled
on pencil waves
like the movement
of snakes (or commandoes
on their bellies) thru
desert sand.
Blue walls. Blue grottoes.
Blue moods to temper finger oases
(tap-tap of skeletal tree on your window pane)
crawling thick with pregnant fruition
with the bayonet lull of words.
Snippets of that legacy (hobnailed like a
lost patrol)
forlorn as yellowing pages
or dusky petals unfolding.
[56]
BLACKAMOOR
Breaking up--
as in the cloissoné jar you dropped. . .
little regard,
a few brittle pieces scattered about the floor.
Let's call it "shedding feelings". Expensive?
There's always another humidor tucked away in
the cranny of another antique shop; after all,
a woman is only a woman
although a fine, Cuban import
is a worthy smoke.
"What this country needs is a good 5¢ cigar".
Panatellas?
He might have added tight-fitting, long lasting.
Nooks & crannies.
Little things, your ways. Fruit fly (perhaps damsel wing)
as symbol of perishability. My emblematic coat of arms.
No season of regrets, rather
snatch of minutes, the oasis span of a single candle.
Who knows?
The sun nudging petals
at the close of another day.
Your eyelids casting shrouds (and shadows),
the long funeral walk of your hair across the pillow.
Then awakening. You gathering tresses much as a bird trilling
feathers.
Clandestine, these
rendez-vous' Clementines.
Air of mystery and melancholy street,
the moon up & poking
holes in my argument.
Tedious fingers,
no account
matter of factness
lasting eternities.
Imagine, you & this moon,
dowagers together crotchety,
decades hence, making tea.
Curls of black leaves, grumbling.
Blackamoor and sadness,
cult king of empty
transforming the bright & ruddy
complexion into barely honourable dishwater.
You can ask what this means.
A cough. Twirl of spoon
in a cup, deafening answers.
I prefer the lonely
wine bottle,
egret in flight & motion,
retaining dignity across
a crumpled, brown bag.
Listless, linoleum floor.
[57]