We are elaborate animals made of wood
earth, flowing like water into the veins
of the sky.

The sun being a fist of lava, and the night
being an enticing molar—we are
a succession of tides, being swallowed
by successions of day; and how beautifully
we wilt in the presence of joy.

The moon may be nothing
but a luminous
stone

and to eat the poetry of it
is how one chokes
on love

but the romance of morning
is that if by midnight
you are alive, that is joy.

My regiment?  The New York 156th, B Company.
I’d left the farm in the hands of my wife and her uncle
(Polly and I never had children,
Something I’m grateful for now.)
We’d boarded the train in Kingston,
Figuring we’d have a picnic, see the countryside
Fire a few shots at the Rebels and the odd squirrel
And be home before snowfall.
The picnic was spoiled **** quickly, and not by ants;
We took fire within a half-day of meeting up
With the main body of the corps,
And couldn’t get our heads back up until **** near Appomattox.

Truth told, I don’t remember exactly how many men I killed
(And in some cases, “men” stretches  the truth,
As some of them looked like altar boys from the church,
Same age as the sons I’d never had.)
You find after a while it’s best to lose count,
Do what you can to forget faces
(Now that the beds are soft and the fields are quiet,
The faces come back to disturb my nights then and again.)
Fact is, I’m convinced I survived only because I rode down
What was human about me, or at least the good part;
Best to be like cows or some poor **** stupid ox:
Eat what you can where you can,
Sleep when you might have the option,
And, like the other poor dumb bovine *******
Simply waiting for the cudgel,
Don’t let your thoughts stray elsewhere
Until you’re more kin with the animals than anything else
(I remember Tommy Dunbar from over Esopus way
Brought his dog with him;
It marched with us all the way to Pleasant Hill,
And the only time I cried between enlisting and mustering out
Was when that mongrel snuffed it.)
Anyways, that is all over, and good riddance to it;
I’ve no desire to mount up
With the Grand Army of the Republic types
And go wave the ****** shirt in some convention hall in Albany,
Nor am I inclined to meet up with fellow graybeards
From the other side of the line to sleep in tents
And mock-shoot wooden rifles and imaginary minie *****.
It’s over, and I prefer to keep it that way.
Funny thing, the colonels and chaplains always insisted
That God was on our side, and I suspect their boys did the same.
I suspect (though I’d never tell preacher, of course)
That He left the field quite early in the proceedings.

it can take some self denial
often consequential self denial
to realign your priorities .

Imagine we are home
and not lonely, imagine
our love which once cut
through strange waters
like longboats through hearts
not slow and heavy
from the moss of fear
we are here and not here
nights in our land are sad
the risings of the moon
are like sores we have given
our women, and we cannot sleep
for what we dream
the enemy will do, like filling
our children's throats with rocks
and place them in shallow swamps
where they will rise up
to tell us of fish with odd shapes
and men with torches
coming in from the sea
up to the beach on a black night
throwing open the gates
to our dying city.

There are no Apaches
With flaming arrows and piebald ponies
There are no writhing jungles round here
There are no lost temples
Hiding untold treasures

There are no damsels to be rescued
By a knight on a white charger
There are no pirates on the high seas
No skull and crossbones flying
Above a deck bristling and glistening
With cutlasses and flintlocks ready
And hook hands and black eye-patches
In the sunlight of the Spanish Maine

There are no interplanetary wars
With hand-held laser guns
And weird creatures from strange worlds
They just do not exist
I learned this when
I was very very young
And I really wanted to be a pirate

                                    By Phil Roberts

Hops and topsy-turvy jumps ― blurred movement
muddles across  the dewy meadow floor,
as though dawn brushes away the sandman’s magic
from the corner of sleepy eyes,
                                  to cast an enchanting spell
    A sudden hazy yet abrupt stop…
    hastily,  halting ,   frozen motionless

Stillness, as if some final destination has been reached…
  
Neck stretched and craning,
tilted with an eye to mother earth ;
a canted focus beyond interruption
   In the blink of an eye,
   with a vigor too rapid to capture,
   as the nowness of urgency flashes ― 
 
   She stretches the earthworm
   with the grasp of subsistence
knowing after fall   becomes the long winterlude.

The morning sun illuminates the glow of the native Maple’s
glorious fiery orange and yellow color palette  
A steady stream of animation rushes in and out
   of the giant tree’s golden splendor

Abundance perishes with the seasonal gardens decay.
Mornings of blueberry and strawberry feasts
have left the red breasted robbers foraging
for the last rotting apples the deer have left behind.

   Harbingers of spring…
  
   Blueberry sneakers…
  
   Gleaners of fall and winter..

“Teeek”  “tuk” “tuk” “Tseep”....
        fills the overhead air
   with a beautifully chaotic verve

The flock returns repeatedly     to and fro     the towering Maple
to the ripened cornucopia of scarlet berry clusters of the Mountain Ash

The Robin’s flock ravage and gorge on the plentiful delights
Soon the crimson berries fuel of flight will disappear
   as if it were only an unspoken allusion
          of the passing seasons

The pearl gray sky is an ominous backdrop
          for the fickle fleeting migrants
Daylight fades as the flock disappears
          into a break                in the clouds
fleeting unto the ominous pending winter sky…

In the blink of an eye ... life’s  senescent seasons
transform the stormy whirling winds of change
bearing the golden Autumn leave’s splendor
   across the rolling vista
like a higgledy-piggledy murmuration
   of a migrating beautiful mess

The naked rooted scaffold’s branches stretch
across the sprawling tapestry of the wooded sanctuary.
Winter flocks of Thrush and Robins,
    arrive on a frosty new dawn
Red breast feathers puff with the morning sun’s rays,
warming the tree tops leaning toward the southern sky;
   Their journey here and now,
from distant mountainous horizons,
   is part of a soul’s sacred circle of life…


November rivers ...the final autumn entry of 2017