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Nat Lipstadt Jun 2018
(from “A Love Song” by William Carlos Williams)

<•>

familiar that apple google and amazon
have me under 24 hour surveillance
e-specially now
as I am in their
geosphere of influence

but sending me a love poem of WCWs that isolates my locale, my intended inebriation status,
and is addressed to me personally (“you”),
that’s just creepy

so charged am I, obligated to oblige,
to counter-compose a love song of mine own,
under the pinot “influence,”
(in a manner of speaking)
which a love taught me to love

what if,
a new love song ecrit,
to an old and loverly land,
a woman-land designed to be desired,
no difference -
kissing a new girl first time,
a wet and unforgettable
compote
when falling
on the neck of your one beloved anew renewed

now I tremble-tread
for the line of great predecessors,
“the land lover scribes”
skilled in natures homaging,
is like a line out the door,
around the corner as if
a new flavor ice cream
has just been isolated and mined and I...
<•>

I,
but a novitiate
in a far away, wild untamed world
where my nature taken by her nature
cannot deny paying my just due:

selvage
late middle English, from self + edge

how perfect!
“an edge,
woven on a fabric during manufacture,
intended to prevent unraveling”

the pacific coast air
the irregular shoreline - expanding/receding,
god’s own forestry reserve,
the cascades, a goal on the horizon,
country roads where ancient wheat stalks grow wild
all a tonic intermingled, an alcohol to
imbibe through mouth nostrils eyes and skin

all will be my own selvage!
preventing the eastern unraveling disease,
a nearly incurable permafrost low grade
kate spaded infection,
brought along with me for decades,
my loon June companion, now stalling out,
lost from my happy head

a vineyard on every corner,
marijuana growing next door,
rivers that change like children growing up and down,
cheek to jowled property line
live the berries and the hazelnut groves,
god’s hay bales wrapped in plastic
like marshmallows dotting the landscape


all daring you to say

I could
love
it  here
A Love Song
William Carlos Williams, 1883 - 1963

I lie here thinking of you:—

the stain of love
is upon the world!
Yellow, yellow, yellow
it eats into the leaves,
smears with saffron
the horned branches that lean
heavily
against a smooth purple sky!
There is no light
only a honey-thick stain
that drips from leaf to leaf
and limb to limb
spoiling the colors
of the whole world—

you far off there under
the wine-red selvage of the west
Jayanta Sep 2016
I was blossomed
With the blessing of mountain and rivers,
Grasses cover me
My friends sheltered in my fold!
But you didn’t like them!
My muscle and flesh
Capture water,
Release it for you  
Through the conduit of nature
With stored nutrient!
But you didn’t consider my contribution!
You didn’t selvage you’re thought with me!
You create your dream model
Without me!
Actually you act like
Savage to ruin me!
You enslave me!
Jamie L Cantore Jul 2016
Twilight, the early black some may call,
Is upon the horizon, on the hem to fall;
And I see a swarthy bat round the belfry,
As I shudder cold, wrapped in a peltry:
What madness this is, I think I know;
I've been here before, not so long ago.
Could I be on the fritz, at the edge
Of Sanity -once more at the selvage?
Come with you where? The Asylum?
Yes! Yes! I do want a slice of delirium!
But please do loosen these **** buckles.
I can't breathe-- -& neither can Chuckles.

— The End —