Thursday, May 22, 2014

Pointillist






Pointillist  



valleyscape

vermillion
willowed
waters

blue
bird
echos

weathered
Sherpas shouldering
wire

fern green
touseled hayhead
child

brown fleeced
lambs moved
by duty

minute‘s
hand sus-
pended


this
still,this
tired


LFM

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Raising a Happy Notebook



Raising a Happy Notebook
(for the Coursera Café)


Awakening,
the notebook stretches

Limbering his binding
Fluffing his pages like a pillow

You may notice his blank eye seeks the sunlight
Imagining itself a flower

He plays with toes ignoring your pretended slumber
Gives sailboats on the sheet a kick

and sends a single digit spelunking from orifice to orifice
on morning recon

then from hunger
Deeper than his deepest blue striations

the omnivorous
howl rises

-       Reaching this point before
coffee’s made is not advised.


LFM

Monday, May 19, 2014

Theology

Theology (theo logos – god talk)


After the war
After the immolations
After the pedophilic priests
After the delay of the parousia
After the torching of old women labeled witches
After the fleecing of the flocks
After ecclesastical refusal to refuse the refuse of the machine
After the assassination of the prophets
After the crucifixion of the earth

One might ask, is any stomach left for
God talk?
And leave it believe me
we would

If the morning were not a new creation
If my child were not a miracle
If the doctor did not sometimes restore sight for free
If at the funeral there was not a forest of supporting arms
If in the streets there was not an oasis of occupation
If letter carriers did not collect cans of food
If at the stockholders meeting there was not a dissenting voice
If among political prisoners poets were not writing
If at her prayers a mother was not mopping up the blood of her child with her heart

Then God could
stop talking
But not
now.

Friday, May 9, 2014

Visit to the Grand Canyon



Visit to the Grand Canyon


Sitting together on the bumper at the edge of the Grand Canyon I see sonnet vultures circling the North Rim and I’m suddenly hungry for a sonnet, but the cover is more than I want to pay.

It’s an odd feeling, like being in a bar and realizing what you want, more than anything,
is Eucharist

Knowing you are no stranger to hunger, I say, “Does it seem odd to you that one who lectures others for a living would use the term “drill down” as a metaphor for clarification?”    

“Drilling is what two  sweaty men with a boom truck do in the middle of a field – creating a navel through which waters return to the sky. “

“Drilling is two mosquitoes inserting a steel proboscis 308 feet into the earth’s epidermis to a self-betraying vein that draws down a witches willow wand.”

“Drilling is what two reprobates do, sitting silent on the bumper of a truck as the sun sets, inserting memory needles into pains that go unnamed, immeasurable and unredeemed.”

“No,” you say,” those who steal words to describe a stolen life are always dressing themselves up like that in artifacts stolen from the lives of others.  It is the main reason they don’t write sonnets.”



LFM
May, 9, 2014 (formatting altered by Blogger.  Should be couplets.)