a drawing of something from without

 

 

 

I want to love, make a loud shrill sound;

wish to sleep in that region of a seed plant

 

at which stem and root merge.

Something happens to a man alone  when he writes

 

poems late a night and then blanks out fetal

as the knurled cap on top of a watch stem.

 

God allowed me again to touch my own face,

undry my own lips with and ancient tongue,

suggest my own acanthus leaves.

 

I do have an old womans love. The same

one who witnessed paper pounding me to the lock.

Bill of the breast; season of the mother,

where she's missed and warm

and swarm in her nest.

 

Cruncher of confession, widower of dreams

facing the angry throng with her only son

at her bosom, like a tastless black crowberry.

 

Are you gay, only she and only she could ask?

A man your age who never married. Never

sought out  a spouse other than the one who

lives in my pear tree,

 

but this year, without rainfall, the green insects

infested the branches of no fruit and left

those black spots on each leaf with cleft lobes.

 

I am in love with her as she comes down

from her perch, each morning, in that backless

dress and stockings

 

with that curvet, prancing leap;

with that devil-may-care efforesce

just to say she loves me too,

and we race thru the wind as

some intumescent vision:

 

Fly us away, or Lord, from this

Detroit of yellow flower heads

and pinnately lobed bracts

 

like a giant, coreopsis

bird.

 

Reviews

[writing mojo]

Your language so so real kills the pendulum of normal line verse scheme and it's that crooked sway, you make us all dream, dream of the sound your head makes when you think in cerebral factored journalese....amazing stuff

[Corset]

My mouth is agape at the metaphors you incorporate into your writes, 4,5,6,7,8,9, ok well the whole damn thing, I want to pin to a Kipling cork board beside the poem "IF" where I can visit it everyday with a soft happy tear or with darts depending on how nice he's been lately. brilliance, what else can I say...sheer brilliance.

[Emily B]

ethereal and moving, i want to fly away, too

[Tree]

Yes this poem sprouted, slowly like a flower. Right out of the ground (first few stanzas) I felt kinship with this piece, and it continued to grow honestly, upward. The image of that vision coming down from the pear tree, was stunning. Exceptional piece.

[Ken Simm.]

A story gradually opening using very well selected words. Pins the heart. Something of the protagonist's wishes that seem so honest yet fragile as we all are. Very well written.