you are moonlight kissed, and—
yes, moonlight kissed
and I, in winds, solidly see

beads of my beloved grief strung
in stranger fingers
spidering around reckless on strings—
and waves waves tiding, in ecstasy woven
by violins I dare not learn, by flutes seeping, and sitars
calling home a bird astray

Vivaldi: a dry Storm sob that will not blossom,
not, not, will not— twig fingers curl to taut fists as— Winter
dribbles down on the ragged red throat and
night like silk
silk silk— silks on silks opaque! Ah—

the troughs and oily hills zigzagging
through the air

and violins turn to pinpricked limbs
and strums strums skipping
tugging cruel and tearing—
plucking tendons, plucking desperate and fast

-

you are moonlight kissed as
the silver blush is teased
by sea-creatures’ scaled splashes—
a thousand good griefs tossed to air;
but I am body only
two woody legs folded in a branching of arms
next to the trunk that timidly breathes, next
to the fist-sized squirrel—

my roots like cold fat moles curled up
symphonies rush by giggling
and I do not tremble

sweet wishes so small
in their impossible distances, they
tickled almost, I trembled almost:
beneath ant-like trails of frisky teasings, I
was settled almost
as if moon on sea’s silk-draped skin
suddenly glittered in a glitching turbulence
and mermaids rose up and out
of their thick black skies of silver tremors
shaking beads out of damp-darkened hair
and questioning questioning around
who dare startle their monotonous dreamings
who dare tremble and
stir all dull-eyed creatures around; and
as if sea dared on
shifting reckless into the answerless air,
frenzied, and grasping at an empty night
causing hundreds strange havocs
for a moon so little

I mingle sometimes
and sometimes subside also
lost too, and wave too
sometimes; but here and there
there and then
washed up on shore, I am
glancing confusedly around, and I am
pecked and poked and
picked and tossed and turned roundround

and then, then
blue comes
and within it, glittery dust
and as I am slowly buried alright
and as I am alright almost
a tiding comes
from winds’ thick gossips
of a tiding bog
that will claim me again
and then falls, and pulls and it claims me, yes

and so the nights drip down on dawn
and I mingle, mingle almost, sometimes

some times,
the simplest song
some, chimes
or brazen gong

swaying symphonies of sea’s swift strings
some times sweep on along

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                      Looking Back on the Day

Looking back on the day – did I give thanks?
I lazed over my coffee and the morning news
Noted the crows and the morning’s light frost
But that’s not good enough

I washed the dishes and a load of clothes
Looked into a novel and a poetry book
Sorted laundry and fed the squirrels and birds
And that’s not good enough

One give thanks for another day of life
By making that day what it should be

How many cake pans must you wash
Before they’ll let you bake one.

How many arias must you write
Before they’ll let you sing one

How many air planes must you build
Before they’ll let you fly one.

How many children must you raise
Before one of them loves you.
     ljm

winding winds weave patterns in my chest
a soft flower like a cloud up my throat
ehem ehem
a clicking swallow: a pinecone slides down
hitting a trembling trampoline stomach, and bouncing
like marble about

a cotton sparrow pecking somewhere everywhere
with its little blue beak of bead
ehem ehem
eye meets eye and eye eye
and winds bloom by, stirring the sky and
low bronze brooding grass, as
leaf leaf leaf laces down, down glittering slow
stumbling midair, stumbling in rays sneaking in through brown
stumbling like lost bee in a pathway of gold

then settling down light as a kiss, as a
curling of lashes on the parapet of eye

I had some tickling words—

velvet quilt round a tongue of damp wood
a tick of skin and tendon and beat
as all the gears in me lock in place
open the mechanical gates and out
the stuttering sparrow, small
with its wobbly chirp that, practiced, perfected,
spills still plaintive in the silence of stone

‘do you have an— an a scale?’


‘thanks—’

oh mY JASM—