for Barton Smock

     I
to see the flooding lake I crawl
through the thicket

I imagined
being the devil’s
garden
as a child

a lake
I first called
       *blue prison
but now
             love

after swimming
lessons grandmother
funded

     II
squatting arsonists occupy
the town’s church

during weeknights
I am one of four who knows

When it burns
I'll steal the stoup

     III
I dream rarely and only in naps

waking,

I try restraining
fantasies of
faceless women

     IV
rainstorms brake
the lake’s edges,
muddy the bankside flowers,
leave the canal sullied
forever

looking on, I
recall
*generosity

Reclining in their rocking chairs, the brothers Beau and Cletus gazed despondently out
Past the final farm toward the convergence of the worn highway
And the fritz horizon. Cows paused their chewing; an ashy sun
Obscured in incongruous fluffs of cloud; it grew
Greyishly chilly. "Shame the kids're movin'," Beau squeezed out before a deep belch. Cletus only
Mumbled, his voice lost in the light drizzle rapping on the milky sheet-plastic roof. The
          porch

Was unfurnished, save the chairs, one ashtray, and a novelty sign reading: "Get off my porch."
Cletus took a long, pensive drag off a cigarette before stubbing it out.
He coughed a raspy croak wetted with sixty-six years. Besides Cletus' sporadic coughs, the only
Distinguishable sound to be heard in Moody Creek wafted in from the highway:
Rattles of the day's final Spokane- or Boise-bound semi-trucks grew
Inaudible as Beau transiently  murmured, "Purtier than a string of fried trout, that there
          sun-

set." "Whaaa?" Cletus wheezed. "It's settin'," answered Beau, loosely gesturing at the sun.
Fractaled-orange-shafts webbing manifold shades of yellow – amber, belge, stil-de-grain – grew
Plumply stout upon the farmland, edged between properties and crumpled on the porch.
"I'll tell you what Beau – I'm glad they got out,"
Cletus uttered with assurance, his eyes scanning the reaches of light upon the highway.
Beau fixed his cap, musing over Cletus' words. He cleared his throat before beginning, "If
          only..."

Then stopped and itched his belly-button. Cletus turned to his brother. "I know one thang only
Beau: they'll do good in California. They'll be livin' high on the hog. Yer son n' my son
'll 'ave secure futures." Jack nodded somberly. He hated the highway.
He hated its ability to isolate everything. It had been his original revamp, the now-rickety porch,
His first project on his fixer-upper after marrying Dorothy West. They'd wed out
In his father's corn field; bought a house a mile or so down the road. Kids were born. Love
          grew,

And in its growing all things tangible and gorgeous – like tangrams piece together – grew:
The farm, the house, savings account and family. They ate hearty; drank canned beer only –
Living was smooth – but it changed when Dorothy took Little Dale and got out.
She wanted what the farm couldn't give or grow, leaving tiny Moody Creek with their son
As the last moon of May, 1955 went up. "*****!" Beau had yelled from the porch.
He'd woken to his Buick's rev and watched its taillights wane upon the
          highway.

And though he remarried, this was, in truth, mostly why Beau never squarely looked upon highway.
The light drizzle grew
Heavy, intensifying. "Gosh **** rain might near knock the coverin' off the porch!"
Hollered Beau. Cletus looked up and blew a cloud of thick grey smoke. "It's only
Rain Beau. No need gettin' ornery." That morning they'd seen off their youngest sons as the sun
Was just rising. One left to work for a dairy ******* in The Valley, the other went to figure
          out

Himself and his career. The porch shuddered. Beau absent-mindedly repeated "If only..."
Daylight died; black inked upon the highway. Cletus lit a new cigarette. Moody Creek grew
Dense, compacted by the darkness. The sun inched away. Cletus hacked and put his cigarette
          out.

The day drops black and the stars,
and the smog-dimmed, sputtering cars:
an urban landscape. I stare
up now and then at sidewalks where
stumbling, hollow, The Vacants leave the bars.

"Not drunk?" --- Either rambling or mute,
ignorantly half-drowned at the root
like rows of over-watered flowers,
numb like thumbs in ice for hours
they live. --- "Drink and follow suit!"

for M.S.

The blinds drawn, she vacated her life;
Through grieving lips she exists within the future,
Half-alive in an unconscious tongue
That allows paragon hopes to thrive:

She was whole.
No--

Blotched out and blurred,
She became a lacuna,
A Platonic *anamnesis;
Believed to have believed:
The conviction of faithful mourners,
Her expulsion from Honesty.

               .     .     .

The haunt of our occasions--
Ghost of my reflection! --
Brown eyes never shone so bright.

Mutilated chains of flowers
delineate where schoolboys cowered;
sixteen brick houses on St. James Street
reduced to red dust under homeless feet;
photographers pause, catching their breath,
spellbound by the neutrality of death;
clearing haze where the white chapel stood
reveals ever-dismantling wood;
the market's one register on a charred-black stand,
nearby derges lilt from a funeral band:

*...oh and as, and as
they're lain in silk and white ashes...
the town broken apart, flattened...

...in marble graves and mahogany
under skeletal laurel branches...
...on down to sleep, to sleep...

...we may walk with weathered ease...
...oh we may consider, may remember,
a granted time, an affirming love...

So...there's this girl who's rather smart
that, when her lips begin to part,
drives me up the wall in a good way.
I sort of want to see her everyday.
She's usually busy though,
so I occupy
time with one constant sigh
until she calls and then I go.

I don't really know too much about her ---
she's Aphrodite's caricature! ---
no,no, that's a bit rash and inflated,
but in my stomach butterflies've congregated
each time her face comes to mind.
Severely interesting,
her hands are often clean
and she's never proved less than kind.

I think it might be good to write her a song
(I should've been writing this all along)
so that she'll feel sublimely delighted
and is happy, though consistently derided
by the upkeep of her garden's flora.
She could use a lot
of things uncommonly wrought,
like poems stuffed with anaphora.

      In time all the snowflakes will evaporate.
      In time the sun will sleep under an iron leaf.
      In time acetylene darkens human hate.
      In time all time will seem quite brief.

So, in honor of her I have created
this mediocre song so dominated
by use of the Yeats-stanza's rhythmic-rhyme,
offering it to her as ends to the crime
of my deplorable mannerisms.
I hope it's well-received,
being arduously conceived,
but I'll openly accept criticisms.

Coral, though you must (and do) work a lot,
work harder at those things which can't be bought
(i.e. relationships, love, and empathy)
for even the natural workaholic bee
requires mutual love.
Even while working
find a small moment to sing
this song. I hope it's enough.

On the Embarcadero, winds carry clubbers' words
to me: sound of a satyr's desperation:

maybe she'll look at me.
Maybe even with pleasure and not repulsion:

the silent plea of devil-may-cry men ---
all blood and lusts, more beasts than heart.

Some swing blunt cutlasses that never cleave,
sip hypnotic wine from offering hands, unknown beneath a coverlet.
Others dance into the lacuna of their lives:

decade(s) of searching, yearning,
yoked like juments, under the mortal whip:

sad boys in need of love;
                                    infatuation;
          ­                                        amity;
                  ­                                      acquaintance;
             ­                                                              lust;
                                                           ­                   pleasure;
                                    ­                                                      a look:
                                                                                                      anything.