&

June 2012

MH & NK

Possum Poem

This be the entrance

It deepened in my sleep

Of all the nervous structures
of wheat and Cincinnati,
or amusements
both colossal and tossed
on the lawn,

I’ve been given this one

The cat comes to pass
its last days in the dark
with a half-broken cardinal that it carried to the attic—-

some positive, then negative, then positive charge

All flights on hold…..Now

crashing the pavement
ruining the white carpet
breaking all the jars lined up
along the window

The whole of this and more I don’t know—-
occurrence/reoccurrence, the owls
what they do know

The orange’s orange
Heart’s race to the finish

I sparkle the air like everybody else

The possum runs away when she sees it

 

MH & NK

Town

Time & solace,
The essence best remembered.

Unto a hill,
A lone squirrel sits.

The town and the dance
Of the town

Creep softly—-
There is no other refuge,

And the yearning
For it,

Is difficult.
The old lady looks smaller

With her long gray hair,
And those who have

Turned away
Become quick water

In the freezing sun.

 

MH & NK

Fixt Star

The streets don’t feel
important    The brooms
don’t feel     important
The marigolds lift
their faces up, same as the girl
on the swingset’s     phlox
Look and you will find
the several signals
in frost     The frost
is not important
The streets don’t feel
The brooms don’t feel
The tattooed man
with the pink umbrella
fixes clouds    He is a cloud
fixer    The clouds
are not important
The tattoos don’t feel
significant     But they are
felt in the twitters
and fractions of lions
Lions are important
they are vast and flickering
constellations of water,
some freshly bearded
and ready for the fight
They feel us and they feel us
Their faces conduct us
through dust and tall grasses,
Suns forming suns
forming suns

MH & NK

Aurora

If life begins with an
If,

If this bedding, and
This marred soul,

Are one,
Maybe nothing is

The most beautiful,
Or the most correct.

Feeble and tangled
In the flowers,

The music which
Stops

Inside the serious
Brain goes

From gold to silver,
As we listen to

The weight of
What is.

The heart hammered
By the nails

In the spirit,
This walking into a gentle

Mystery,
Something has happened,

Do I need to rehash it?
No.

Pride has gone to torment
Something else,

As the life runs through me
Like chyme,

While menial tongues
Lick the salt from my skin.

MH & NK

Mungo Park

A tang of fresh lemons,
may I never wake up
My life across the street
like a vast unmapped continent—-

one I’ve roamed for many years
without ever glimpsing
its creamy-sweet interior     Absently,

I stumble on my backyard’s
tree     In all the world
I used to be, in all the world
I used to     But some days

even juice is a heartbreaking
commitment     I am only
one man doing forceful

clean work. I walk behind
the lawnmower and wonder
to wander     It’s dawn
when I never wake up

MH & NK

The Hippopotamus

That hippopotamus in
The daylight

Is my only friend.
Trestles glare

Back at me from
Inside the tunnel.

What is left, only
A hazy moon

Can say, faceless
In the hazard night.

The aftershock of a
Funnel

Is loud and aberrant.
Trust it once,

And then go forth,
Friend,

And I will wait for you,
Forty years,

A thousand if I have to.
I will wait

Until the howling yellow
Spiders

Still clinging to some
Branch

Fly apart like leaves.

MH & NK

By Jowls

Home after work, my spirits
ascending, I lay in the grass
with a big glass of ice—-

a big glass of beer—-but the sun
will erase it     Tomorrow

is summer     By design
I will waste it      I dream
the petunias, and then

their independence, swine
curled beside me like cottony

fences     I like being
friends more than anything
else     Samuel Taylor Coleridge

and the air is blue because of him
I float in a raindrop of blood

in his image

MH & NK

Conduit

No hummingbirds in the feeder,
Drip

Drip
Without sunglasses,

I am just an oaf,
An overgrown woman—-

Child
Making her way,

With no thought
Of my wares

Being of any value.
If I say, I have failed,

It is only because
I’m unwilling

To accept the tiny
Swag of laurel

Granted me,
In this day, this hour,

That falls
Like the memories of blood.

MH & NK

White Hart Inn

By jowls
            by jowls
and a swag wreath
of laurel,

I am listening
to the cream-
colored air

I am spying
through my water
glass: Vacancy/No
Vacancy

and the golden coats
of starlets, the buff
construction
workers, woofers
and tweeters,
dogs and birds,
retrograde hustlers
of infinite Nature,

the songs all so anthemic
I am screaming along

with a rare white hart,
the two of us beaming
through a floodlight
of panic

…………We break
as the trucks zipper
slowly to the ocean,
their powdery wigs
there to heap
on the beach

I ask at the desk,
Are the rocks
complimentary
…………The child
nods her head,
falls asleep

MH & NK

Ohio

Can’t believe I was intimidated by—-
Well, you know.

The little fires go out
Around our feet,

The heart of the gestures
Are cut,

Are cut.
In the ruins of November,

Always November,
I stand there

With her,
Whispering curses,

Weaving spells,
And rising,

Rising,
I think,

Toward heaven.