via Virus 2020 A.D.
Category: Uncategorized
Studio Window
via Studio Window
Said by Jack
via Said by Jack
Remote Street
The Owl and the Seraphim
Wonder
rare things are growing
the moon is moving , shalom
fly the burning flag of freedom
do you know what it’s like
to be almost swallowed home ?
he pours the tea
gold sugar , emotional weight
unfurls her hair
upon dew shoulders , a soul
scratching in the still and quiet
she is scared
and not scared
an amateur actress standing bare
first on center stage fore square.
” Mary did you know ”
you have a regal stance ?
all mutate in your presence
the camera clicks
she turns her head
and when she sees she does transfix
her human vanishes
the bleak cold winter
a bountiful banquet
shattering dry in the rain debris.
Mary don’t dye your hair
wanting to change your wild esprit
I too am thirsty seeing you there
the moon is moving the tall pine tree
over passing Traverse Bay
glory joins utopian pupils
the lake of her eyes my northern stay .
a spaceship jolts
Issa is here and
he is calling for you
Mary , do you know what it’s like
to be swallowed home ?
I am scared
and not scared for you alone .
White
I loved holding your hand
what piece of that is you ?
there , a white horse loose
and hit by a car on Paradise Road
its a curious land
God allows .
do you recognize me
the red spruce , the snow goose laying in lake sand
the turntable now
an alleluia instrument
sounding swallows to reproduce
and me to the dance band sway .
Who is that boy
who is he that proclaims
I need to feed my girl ,
not you .
the sky is pushed so far away
is there anything saved for me ?
great fog in our upper peninsula settles down
the snow land to arouse
the symphony of crying voices vows
a cracking chord
ice lies over the Crystal River
love insane a disarray in unison on my brows .
I loved holding your hand
until it held me down
and I emerged a white peacock
no more tomb in the middle of my bedroom .
The Narrator Returns
Day One :
There a bloom has fallen , laying off the path , red fading almost grey . She picked it up and buried it . She was a reader of fairytales . The birds left broken shells under their nests and all the fields outside the city were soft and green . Voices , insects digging , wheat grass , musk , rusted gates , warm winds , always the wind , all of it , all of it in that green . She walks here often , the odor of pink painting the tender joy of her life .
Day Two :
There the white sheets are flapping on the clothesline when he appears . She was sitting on the front steps of her house on the corner of Parmalee Street . She is thin , small breasted and fine in stripped bell bottoms , poet blouse , Moroccan sandals , the leather pale and worn wrapping around her ankles , such beautiful bones . His heart was going like mad . The out of style clothes and the arch of her foot , unusual . He knew he would panic if she moved . She held a baby . The neighborhood lights dimmed . The summer of the year 1983 was ordained . The humming of the lawn sprinklers sang it .
There , under the sky , she looked at him and looked at him longer and in that pause they both heard the birds screaming on the road above , so resplendent in escape . He would never forget the sound of her voice and she would never forget the sad drooping of his quite lovely left eye or the music he would later play for her . He stalked her with a plea that turned into a gift . His name is Paulo .
Day Three :
Well , he was young , just out of university . She was older with no education . He slept with ” Abba ” on the wall above his bed , she slept under the long neck of a Modigliani print under glass . Truth has an oblique face , an extraordinary stone the gods hide deep within . The hunt began the day they met , maybe paradise , maybe a nightmare , maybe both . Her name is Mary .
That same week :
And there , two hundred miles to the north , along the coast of the Great Lake Michigan where apples hang heavy on the trees , a young man overturns a silver rowboat , pushing it into the waves of an inland lake . His name yet unknown .
The 13th Month
In the pause
the year of our Lord
with moons soft skin surface
she did remember
ashamed to be on cemetery road
with a wearisome lover , a toxic presenter .
her light lit in strangers
his first underground tantrum
the animals digging demanding ransom .
she did not die
she just went somewhere
the shrill trumpet
one long note , a siren cry .
in the pause
the lunar month kingdom come November
she did remember
relief to watch the fish swimming shallow
scales of gold leaf a washed in splendour
like spaceships on cathedral wall frescoes ember
with Saints and kings
their cut off heads in glass case transgender
again the drum , again the drum
she did not die , she did not die .
in the pause
in the headlights of the dark
she did remember
the moon , her body massive
a swell , no bones the cosmic fish anointed
river salmon swim the wrong way
yearning to be back home
the second tantrum
the compass north to abandon .
platinum gifts arranged before her ,
potatoes cooked in caves and grottos
a blind pony , perfect braids , a shiny shell anklet
the Good Harbor passage running
herds with broken heart clefts
a whirlpool startling birds
causing snake movements straight into a tree
where again the drum
booms lyrics now of Vermeer mood to see .
she did not die
she just went somewhere
the shrilling trumpet hallows
its final note , Michigani’s brutal storm
her throne to sail on rising confessions possession
again the drum , again the drum
she did not die , she did not die .
Last photo by Rosemary Alpert Photography
They Meet October
there sways a hammock on Orcas Isle
yet shall she go towards Manitou
she moves upon a passage kissed
suspending ore the northwest sea
resting rains of pale pollution
to change the clouds of milky water
to hear the heron landing
to bend the limb from sky
a borderless world exists
a daybreak smell persists .
we are here now
truth turning feral in flight
where bird eggs roll
to smash on cliffs felt far below , a revolution
her wound a souls disaster
cracks at the feathered moment seen
his pupils naked thru the clothes of mist
a nest of sap flowing blood in substitution
ore the cobalt sea
a borderless world exists
a daybreak smell persists .
there stands a doe
the deer of Mount Constitution
the ravens caw giving words to sky in echoed elocution
and from under forests debris
infant squirrels twist
a heart huddles
how she reaches
his thighs , his belly
how she reaches , he stares
the sky now jealous of his eyes
will he shoot the sheltered deer
if a borderless world exists
if a daybreak smell persists .
there sways a hammock on Orcas Isle
but will she sail to Manitou , alone upon
her land of blue , beloved blue
her land of blue .
Poem for my soldier
decades three times gone by with tides descent
silvers sliver
mark liquid light upon her skin so white
the warriors sword cuts gold the blues deep sleep
a memory weeping
nocturnals curse a fragile stain
at choirs of gulls positioning
Shakespeare’s lover listening
I love you her breath glistening
there it is he said , there it is .
her body multiplied
mirrors of eternity that wouldn’t die
began that summer in the Falklands burning
the footlocker laying still , laying long
medals looking from the wall
the soldier and his conquest quickening
pictures of her there inside unfolding in their christening
anywhere with you , anywhere with you
I love you her breath glistening
there it is he said , there it is .
