THE GATHERING OF DEAD WOOD
GREEN ANGELLIGHTS
Green angel lights
stream from the willow tree,
in direct symmetrical bearing
three birds are drawn to it.
In gold, soft patches
of light overreach
the earth,
shadows trace ridges
to surround each teak blown colour.
With fakir lowliness,
the throb of water
takes petals from
the sun,
shimmers its passing breath
to a euphony sobbing
in movement.
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EYES INSIDE
There's cadence
a real movement
to the worlds
the gaze inside
a flicker of
your eyes.
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THE HYDASPES
And I, cooing in my saddle, with lost time.
His weapons and horses the finest.
Beloved of God, engendered fiercely
for the occasion - with
pin stripes and a drinking vessel
of the most expert silver.
Pharaonic splendor,
ingots of the heaviest gold
borrowed sun bright yet so untarnished
they hold up the morning sky.
Two hands encase that handsome
volume - finest of imported leather and
saddle soap transparent to the eye
so that all might ring forth
its belated vision;
not be dreary earthed with brine
but terse,
furtive inside the gathering glade.
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SLEIGH BELLS
In fury, come the Heavens,
the days, our horsebells
upon a crystal sleigh.
Up slowly until,
the horse carriage wet
and coming up the evening
walk pauses; then snow
before a vanished world.
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ORIFICE
To perforate in adumbration,
as obviator, the sphincter muscle
of intensity; then paint
the world in aperture,
a picture of one's mind.
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PECULIAR MORNING
As if every living thing lived, breathed
its existence
explained why water took the shape
of a container,
studied sharpened awareness of cold,
broke night spots onto a peculiar morning.
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WHERE
A dark, shadow grey moth
rests along the grim hue of brick,
its spattered orange cream underwings scream a Halloween defiance
to the bleariness of stone and city.
And before each fold of its wings,
there rests beyond all the pale fire
and din of a thousand slow eyed
empires, feeling the seethe
of their existence spent
in a fidgeting cauldron
where mediocrity camps
with her dangerous throne.
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THE TREASURE SHIPS
Rich ornamental procession
enough wealth to dazzle a Prester John,
Sheba's queen, even the fawning
burghers of Rothschild's domain.
Reams of it,
Park Avenues in
torrents down a mountain side;
Eldorados,
the gardens of Babylon become shimmering in the sun;
this vulgar display,
this sheer ostentation.
Such are the waters of the rich I now approach.
Peach gold fabulous wealth.
More men of substance here
than all the proverbial luxury since antiquity,
- talents, ingots, ducats - bars
so heavily encrusted with gems
the very floor boards groan
with the largesse.
Never a Buddha's tooth
Pierpont scheme,
crown
or outstretched finger
did circumnavigate
more treasure
than this eye
swelling around
that one treasure chest procured.
Like a ship glutting the Spanish Main
- my treasure ship -
she vies with me
my memories
Midas' gold
or Krupp's iron wealth secured
all of which is a ransom
parleying against the crowned heads of this world.
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HANNIBAL
When Hannibal mowed down Romans
with elephants,
his skill, his artistry,
had the effect of a painter's brush.
He, scraping paint off an easel,
would thrust
empires down,
trample Graeco - Romish influence
into paint spattered dust.
He neither was aware nor knew,
the Alps and Sabine allies,
Capua and other Latin tribes
would ruin his oath,
cause Baal, the false god,
to desert Punic prayers.
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THE GATHERING OF DEAD WOOD
The gathering of dead wood - driven,
pinched in faces between
the strain of Van Gogh's setting -
had all the more realism
hastening down that leaden street.
Churning sockets, burdened with the duress of suffering,
the street in vigorous winter
raced like a bootblack
up from the river. Hedged by
black stems called trees, rows
of withered houses and dim bread shops
propositioned rough headlights
along a promenade of ice stalks
and careening streetlamps.
Fast in the cold,
faces were juggernauts
skating treacherously
over the pond of that closed city.
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