Poem
I watched a truck churning under a wire convergence
and the sky above doped entrails coming from Europe
Where had the turtle gone, the one puffed in the curve of the fox?
Now clambering onto the icy porch
I open the door into
smells of brass polish, wood polish
pots full of bones.
Winter’s wind rattling time holds me in
I must make marmalade with Seville oranges
with their thick rutted craters, sadly moon-like
a little sweetness of the blossom
worn on bridal veils will come back
as the flesh boils soggy with pips
and Demerara’s sweetness pummels
and I’ll be beaming ear to ear, beaming, full
of a sugar high, then fall. I don’t think I’ll be flying
to Jamaica, but at least I have a box of jars
My house will be dressed
of stiff forsythia branches, blooming
while I pull on stupoods of wool
socks, and wax my boards
I watched whirling snow collapse, loshing
on my face, signs of a dream, unsettling
separating mills and boon from reality.
If I had cast a spell stirring boiling sugar
And whispered ancient simple words
And as spring soars from
the dirt he would say agapa me
and my house full of worms, fat as fingers would dissolve
which is why I must plant, for butterflies to flutter
O my mighty easel, you are not like nature
though you are like a highway
of roots, clamped with straps
Supported or shaded, you reveal
all that I am.
The light begins to drop out of ticking stars
onto the snow bank behind the studio
the place where crimson and ochre mate.
I am really a painter
and my brushes are words
which glaze accidentally across
vellum, spurning censure.