we marvel at the penny-dials spinning
                                  (counter-counter-counter-clock--)

                 til the least flower splay, rendered, softly unto Air,

                                           filling the Field til Yield  
                                

    in some somewhere corner I sit setting the seat
                                           where the ***** will thread--

how long then to Bedlam?                            
                       why it’s but a Browning and a stave,                                              
                                                       but for you dear.                      

               how long then to Bedlam?                                    
                        a whisper’s blink and a cartridge of lily,            
                                                        but for you dear.
                      
                how long then to Bedlam?    
                         a bit of this ampoule          
                                                        and it’s here. it’s here.

too eager, the mortician, to exercise his art,

         not slowing to check breath or heart

before pronouncing his slumbering child’s term:

where gelatin and jade could not preserve Innocence’s stare,

Chemical would insure the fix and hold of Age’s cynical glare.

….or By principle, to complicate an orchid’s ear--  



This is Our predicament. Our aloneness. We share it with  

the mobbing Empty who press wanting cheeks  

to an angry air, where shunned they learn a pariah’s love:

                                           its kiss being the very texture of exile.

foam floral caps, work of wet hydrangea,        

                          or pulse of caucasian lilacs in a sky-relieved frieze.        

                                   cambric pennons swag reconsidering      

                                          margins of wimpling burn,      

                                        wherein the stars…twiring stars,    

                                    the declining stars, moon and planets        

                                                            tur­ned--



                                      purchase light with morning-hands:        

                                         ­         green-bedizened;      

                                              amber trammeling bud.      

                                          absolve qualm suffusing tyre,      

                                             violet’s violent leniency--        

                                            a­nd feel, o’bask! in velvet      

                                                   ­ flume of veins,        

                                          as beams of conspiracy raise      

                                                  to­ post and lintel,      

                                         crutching a young god’s legs--



                                      and feel, o’supplicate!  bathe in      

                                                day’s anatomies,      

                                   til greave deposit in lacunary sleeves,    

                                   and a genuflecting sun bow eternally--

…the blue hour’s senate hitched as phosphorous, palmed at the pitch                                                                            
                                                                          of a street lamp’s arm, harassing with a phenomena of quizzings: an abuse set by abnegative                    
                                                                                                             hues,
“there is no resume,” I think, “save the melancholic parallax of stars…  

                                the harrying proximity of inevitable Harms”.


                     And at once a smile becomes equinox.

Nature adorns her vacuums:

               Eden, in lieu of Gardener or Keep, overdrives the breach;

    garland wreaths, julep leaves, Clover carpets

          the well-dint of the fleeing heel,    

             just as Vitality, from Lushness, deserts to humbling Humus.      

                                     I bargain that We will        

                 be survived by teeming hosts of white Chrysanthemum.        

  Our grim miracle resembling, so, fish and loaves;    

                of Manna eked of Woe.



Staid amatory shall cater the craving of a brood;    

        from our tears rich elixir brewed,      

          our tender flanks yielding stew.    

         Scarcity is Her own aphrodisiac,    

      abused in company of more than two.      



    But sure as Man, worms lapse at their hour      

      and they, their own kind, must consume  

            giving back Space, where is room.      

        So, must we, our own Passion’s devour,

   that made manifest they replenish their expanse,      

            as when a hand replenishes a glove--      

     it first breathes upon the absence of Absence.    

           Let us, then, dine. Let us then, Love…