The age is not
cohesive, its storytellers
are distracted and its histories
have been stitched together.
All these things I’ve
written, have dampened in their travels.
In the first chapter, the frogs were strings,
tuned tight and plucked once. The room is loud
with contrasting ideas
about the Bhagavagita.
Unable to sleep.
Diphenhydramine visions.
I’m blind in a labyrinth of mirrors.
It’s easier without sight. The arms
of Anansi leave the mark of dermal
ridges on glass as I find my way
to the next sequence.
5am on the 5th streets of everywhere.
Blades and belles, two feet from
the curb, in place of iron fenced
maple and parking meters. Caddis and furmint,
the caves of Sintzas. Satis embrocates pedestrians
with the Nile's flood.
They copulate in every position
on this route. It reminds me of Chicago.
The air raid siren of sex. She is golden brown
with darkened speckles, will later soar with
sapphires. Infinite bird song
that I cannot identify, besides this duck call and maybe
black birds, because I watch one sifting
debris. M25 inhales and exhales with occasional
traffic. A steady climactic breath and the silence of
a biteless river. The Quanicassee is running too high
and too muddy. I meditate on Snyder, on
staying in this moment. A skeleton, cross legged on
the remnants of this boat launch.
Reconstructing and reconnecting
side streets. Faces displaced. I just don’t know
what to say to the antiquated photographs of friends.
In these mists, clouded walls
keep the Eastern past mysterious and
alluring. I wonder, is it her foot steps in
the Adirondacks.
Did she speak out in
a dream, or were they words of women
from books?
I mix tobacco and cheap, black coffee to create
nostalgia for last year’s diners.
I count on abacus, remembering carved
ivory and mahjong.
Whiskey, dangerously, among
branches and leaves.
I have trouble remembering the Golden Gate.
I revisit the way there. The sidewalk from
X lot. The bus through
Nebraska. The drive through
Florida. The down
time and eventless paths.
In the second chapter the frogs were
mechanical, the steady hum of
machinery as it rusts in swamp water.
The season was
unreal. Virgin
leaves gave the glow of
showy yellow with the slightest
smirk of green.
The curtains pressed loosely towards
the wind, looked the same when the sun
was first seen. It was a color that before yesterday
did not exist and it contrasted
everything; the real green of the grass, the apocalypse
of the month, the snow that
we anticipated
still was to come.
Michigan, a lament and
praise. The dinosaur without rail,
gasps. The abandoned,
painted bright orange,
noticed and then
razed.
The lakes eat ships. Superior’s tide at Whitefish quarrels
with itself.
The descendents of Atlantis are still sinking.
The reluctance of receding glaciers.
She started a goodbye with “We need
to talk.” “No we don’t,” I replied. “Get out
of my car.” I leaned over, pulled her door closed.
I realized that I was Johnny Fry, with
feet uncut, grizzly spirit walks.
The road adorned with the dead of three
centuries. Emily Dickenson lived on Ridge.
The restlessness of reading glasses.
One hour across solid waters and stained
glass cement. From two vantage points, the print shop
erodes.
I learned the bus routes from another poet. She
learned them in books that she had stolen.
In the Midwest looking for the sunrise
giant whose shadow falls across
the torso of corn.
As a boy I sensed the coming war, knew I’d survive
among swamp waters. Florida almost devoured me,
lost among knee high palms.
Aurora Borealis as far south as the Keys.
The wind like fighting cats.
Every morning Renick’s son swims
between the towers and Renick writes
positively forward.
Scarlet eyes leave a stain
as they roll across finger prints.
The page was always maudlin. Aria
on New Years, marrying a surgeon,
Echoing, throaty calls from within
the Davison slip. Under the rudder, wood
split and sun bleached. The invisible electric shake
of cicada. I try to identify the tree in which the insect surges.
Jagged hearts with pointing finger
accusingly. Were there wind, against the current,
small white caps would sound like wings.
I ponder the significance of the Ibis
and NGC 4594 in Virgo. The duality of a lake sunset
and a galaxy. Everything is God,
making images of himself.
The wide look of storms as they settle over Portugal.
There are two worlds; the sun setting, split by clouds
and the sand as it becomes
the night that I sink lazily into. Cast shadows
across hours until falling beneath stilted and palm thatched
roofs of sporadic shoreline huts.
The water shifts and settles, singing
like nocturnal birds among distant frogs. Kerouac’s novels
drip, drip, dripped this joy
from slanted roof,
but on other pages
he mourned the rain
when there was none, the sun
when wet like this.
This silhouette of tree and shooting
stars. Tabby ghost in the orange
street light. Vanilla smoke from
ancestral pipe.
These
Fleeting
pleasures.