Now

 Now,

I kiss ice

I kiss the wind

I kiss the wounded whose souls have rattled loose.

I have found

that brew is made of boneless angels

gathered from mountainsides where monkeys roam.

There was a time

when minutes spoke, gods lazed,

and I loved you, in pure honesty, like a novitiate.

Now,

I listen for leaves caught in river ice,

and run my fingers across the skin of a sacrifice.

My skin flushes firebrick red

from this cup which holds my fever.

I kiss ice.

I kiss the wind.

I kiss the wounded whose souls call from distant hills.

A 7 Line Poem

There was a wall made entirely of glass, and a bird with a tether on its leg. 

There was you, in your olive raincoat, and a sky of grandfathers, complaining.

There were lilacs, dogwood blossoms, a wrought iron screen hung from a fence peg.

It was April in the finest chill of dusk, a Wednesday with an hour's light remaining.

There were angles to the gables, to the downspout, and the feeling beyond naming

That I carried in a Gladstone bag kept hidden with the gewgaws

Preserved and cared for like that bird, to rise toward home when he does.

________

linked to dverse oln.

There Is Snow

 

There is snow

on the steps of a church where nuns' lives turn to dust.

a mute sun sleeps dazed in the low sky

and starlings let their wings fall, giving up all memory of flight.

The street is empty,

the silent intersection a cross

held in the still hands of an old priest

turned to stone forever.

Women in their black shawls move quickly

but the low sky has stopped and falls

bit by bit

on the steps of a church where an old priest has died.

The nuns are silent.

The women wear their black shawls,

and always,

there is snow. 

_________

I guess this is sort of a sketch. It interrupted what I was doing this morning and demanded to be written. There are a lot of abandoned churches in Detroit, and while editing this, I had them in mind. The congregations, often ethnic,  grew smaller and older until the parishes were no longer viable. 

Sevenling (On an afternoon dark as Egyptians)

 On an afternoon dark as Egyptians,

I buy a used copy of Rimbaud

and cannot hold my bones in place.

Sit on the sand, the ocean will reach and draw back

like tempted nuns

at the proscribed birthday of boho ghosts.

Acrobats pull stitches from the binding for nets.

for Word Garden Word List #5 (Gregory Corso)

Persephone

Sexy Persephone, not that anyone would know.

Hades keeps the lights off, the room too warm.

Her children howl from nightmares Morpheus leaves low

like suns going down at the base of the spine.

Restless Persephone, gone bitchy in the ashy shadows,

escapes to fenced April, daughter of deities.

She's a woman, she bears worlds purple with jacaranda,

wisteria, yellow-eyed pansies and Queen-of-the-Nights.

Circumscribed Persephone, prisoner of fence and filigree,

no Ubers in the Underworld, though taxis crowd the tarmac

from city to jungle to ice cap, gathering thick ten feet away,

carrying businessmen dry as last month's paper left on a sill.

Persephone, I ride on your skin, behind your lids, 

trapped as you are, wishing myself fecund as you are,

as frayed, as foxy, as fenestrated, a thing unto ourselves,

rising like spring stems garlanding a world denied.

Persephone, we lie in tandem in a dark grave, like butterflies.

___________

for Sunday Muse #160. 

I Linger In Dreams

I linger in dreams,

large as unspoken devotion,

warming a small world from its center with my body.

Brenda Lee, "Little Miss Dynamite"

whispers sweet nuthin's in the bowl of one ear,

her body a soft jukebox, my tongue coated with quarters.

Billie Holiday, "Lady Day"

sings desires, a pigfoot and a bottle of beer

to the spoon of my other ear like a sweet poppy mother. 

Above, jostling spheres, circular activity, temples, threnodies.

I linger in dreams, a small world warmed from its center 

with hallucinations, 

hagiographies,

harmonies.

_________

for Sunday Muse

civil defense

concussions rain dust

on flowers in a fruit jar

steady in my palm

____

a fauxku for Out Of Standard "Gimme (Fallout) Shelter"

the image is from the movie "10 Cloverfield Lane"

The Weatherman

A weatherman
in crisis
is not something the public is interested in seeing.

They want
forecasts, temperatures.
They get tears, confabulations, outbursts and exposure.

This could happen to anybody.
One minute, you're talking about high pressure.
The next, Woody with Sports enrages you with his talk of baseball and
basketball; his death seems mandated
and necessary.

Listen to me and learn, Grasshopper.
Just backpedal through the studio doors two minutes ahead of the cops.
Take over the crosswalk from the street preachers
and roll with it.

The arrest of a weatherman is not a common thing.
Tazed, his delivery becomes staccato and shrill, disturbing, mad.
If it begins to rain, oh then the cops will need him,
the station will be contrite,
viewers forgiving.

But if the sun stays out,
all day, all night,
the whole Universe will have lost its mind and the Weatherman,
installed at last as Supreme Commander,
will have his revenge upon
the public,
the European Model,
and every trend and anomaly that unhinged and changed him.

Try voice command then.
Try the mute button then,
you worms, writhing expectantly under the shadow of his unstoppable boot.
_____

a compound of idiocy and nonsense for real toads.