I’ve been Remiss

Forgive me for not offering
     to you in the way that I should.
All that is mine is yours
All that I make you make
All that I do is your doing
All you do does not require me.
Yet I beg you, continue to make me a servant
 . . . of your truth.

Return, to my typewriter

Through this old interface
my fingers stand above a realm
divide present and future.
Guttenberg work was private,
but began everything duplicate.
When I sit at his keys,
how easily thoughts become words.

Take this . . .

Did you die?
Shimmer about rain,
about the grand river.
Dress every idea with sugar,
draw delusions with color.
They have shame.

Love me in the original,
lets create something
She only makes you kiss,
Oh that freedom we gave.
A rainbow for you, upon glass.

Learn me soft sister, talk memories
Air feels empty, cuts him on the rock.
How will my Muse make thought like days . . .
Oh how the Milky Mother works,
She chants from water . . .
finds dance, can suffer.

Peace at dusk Brother,
 . . . Take this perfume home!


February 3, 2007, with Leslie Garrison, 80, 81, . . 1      Part I, Part II

The Muse Poems:

   1  2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

Tenochlitan

A few broken brass notes,
     drift down the street,
At every corner there are young girls
     lined up for the telephone.

Venus runs before the moon by two hands.
The Moon waxes, falls later into cupped palms,
Then she wanes, falls onto the back of my fingers,
. . . splits in two.

Her words ricochet . . .

. . . Grandfather I am sorry, each time we talk, I feel my weight crushing your bones.
. . . Grandmother beneath our voices, you are falling.
. . . Father you hear every thought of mine and die
. . . Mother who carries me in her womb - my heartbeats stop you each day.
. . . My son whose voice brings stones to life, I feel your weight on top of me.
. . . Daughter, I breathe with your laughter, soon all my breaths will be yours.

The Town

 

I was telling you a story . . .
I walked through many cities, thirty thousand days
. . . and I dreamed of a town . . .

It had a plan, a name . . .
a vestige a settlement
I caught a scent
of a perfume that I knew.

A village ended and circled, abutted rivers
without bridges
cataracts impossible to cross in a boat
mountains scratched the sky
through an avalanche of rock and snow

I had bitter tea served in a china cup
in the capital.

I took the government plane.

flimsy jerrycans of kerosene leaked
fog and mist
cloaked sharp as daggers
we passed a long valley

the pilots shouted, coffee sheared groaning spinning
high branches, snapping bones
coconuts littered broke lose
near a garden, scattered.

in a remote wing, a tin-lined box
held a family of spiders

a desk of dark teak
an old lamp
in coagulated light
and a bar of uneaten chocolate partly wrapped in foil
chalk white it became powder,
a letter opener encrusted with colored gems
left it where it was.

each man's footprint is a signet ring

what story is told
or calmed by falling?
cool waters ageless sputtering volcanoes
soaring eagles and two foot clamshells at the bottom of the sea
a kingdom to come
some pestilent impatient living thing hurts to think
of a thick rolled ball
some dark force galactic solar fate set
like a rooster waiting
for dawn

storytellers are not to be trusted.
maybe I already said this . . . no matter . . .

A sky of leaves,
a network of twigs.
Each twig became a star.

The brightest star becomes a child.

Sense

Mid-morning,
I stood in moonlight.
Time withered, shrank, froze.

Moths in amber,
inverted bottles.

The deep green odor of cut grass,
a chlorophyl smell, slippery sap,
blade cuttings gather’d at the tops,
of my shoes.

Vinegar, and sea.

. . . erudition tumbles

tradition perils

execution marvels,

. . . a future heralds.

River Seine

I live in the womb of a city
On the twisted confluence of a river,
Filled with bottles, cans, choked with mud.

It flows anyway.
I float on it.

Everything made this city famous
Everything and nothing.
I must walk far to find the life I love
The country is far, forests are far.

I am surrounded by works of man
But live on a river
Not the work of man

Through the city the water floats,
I drift on it.

Kansas City

What bones of a winged bat
contort, as it folds, unfolds,
     hanging from a tree.

I am that tree, and that bat,
    is my son.

Sky blue, day break
    wind in pine needles, sway
cool ocean wave swept air,
 . . . scrubbed breaker caps.

Off to Kansas City,
leave a happy curious son and mother,
hanging,
 . . . as I head for another town.

Where did June Go?

Where did our dear June go?
She packed her bags and left no note.
She must have eloped with May . . .
Who arrested April, that pill, and Marched away.
After March got tested, sprung and weary,
He shacked up with that slut February.
A restless mate, off with January ran,
After December, bright New Year in hand
They shoveled heaps of Christmas snow,
Then with November, all fell so low.
Since an October fall was due,
September got picked and put in stew.
When autumn brought on gusts of wind,
July taught August to lust and sin.
Where on earth did July get his moon?
You heard the man. He got it from June.