Eden’s Weeds (Andrew Crawford)


“seed buried somewhere six feet deep beneath dry bones
and brittle debris, lost in all of eden's weeds” Andrew Crawford

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you tripped exploring mine own eden's weeds,
more precisely, tripped me up, your poring over,
my one hundred year old poems, flawed, by
many spilled tears, aged old, for and over them,
and now, once again, je vous réponds s'il vous plait

this poem planned, title chosen, well before you
exercised my memories, disinterring by your fingers,
(surprise!} but the content you also now provided,
@ ten to midnight, your privacy invasion, a very fine
sleep deprivation excuse to compose one more time

who knows, perhaps this next one could be ”flawless”^
not likely though, flawless never found amidst the weeds
though in Eden chances are, chances are, not impossible,
for that’s the place where slow, simple songs get replayed,
celebrating lovers of life, its pleasant harmonies, go figure

over, over again, like a rolling stone, until friction finally wins,
yes ”my own chosen speed”^ is a-slowing, direction home, finally,
the mosses occluding new words and combinations, concealed,
like a moss, got no roots, birthed by shedding spores airborne,
my new old poems, plucked from air, words passing by in phrases

your phrase,
eden’s weeds,
hit my irises,
insisting it deserved,
instant cognition,
two words,
demanding special education,
accolade recognition,
perhaps if I
stick around,
for a few more poems,
I’ll learn to write
as beautiful as you.

once again the fog draws me in,
speaking fog soft,
“of me, of me, you must,”
so write-birthing,
I am mustered out,
permissioned,
commissioned,
so ordered.

This fog is personal, in your face, changing by
masking/unmasking street and bay, slow burning,
this one, revealing a tableau, like a theater curtain
rising to audience applause for the set before them,
so unexpected, eye-delighting, pleasuring perspective.

why should you care? what matters this to you?

your fog likely little different, in the Cascades,
Everest, the California coastline morning burning off,
not costing anyone’s life, the Blue Ridges smoking meats,
the Quatse River saying, follow me to the Alaska glaciers,
(in the Midwest, some states, use rivers as boundaries,
so they like the fog to keep the ‘neighbors’ on the other side),
the twin Ghats, or mourning steam rising from the Ganges,
or the Zambales Mountains, guarding Manila Bay entrance,

all mine, here too, so slow retreating, gifting a quiet, wider
bay vista tween two islands, one Long, one sheltered.

so wrong, it matters so, none beyond compare!

these mountain or river comparison, white or gray,
listen friend, look closer, see my face, my words
fogging your soul’s view, full of carryover affection,
so deep, they borrow West Virginia coal miner~heroes
to dig it out, a different kind of mining,
but,
nonetheless,
mine.

so it is here, I see your multi-colored faces like
light flickers shedding clarity to these troubled times,
troubled waters, saying here we are, we are!

we here, outside your window, on waters calming,
see us dancing, but it’s so hard for me spot you in
the mists, for mine eyes are clouded, misted over too,
glasses fogged now, **** these **** tears.

majestic adjectives
of contrary harmonies,
adverbs in adversity
that modify our satisfactions,
gut punch our eyes,
scramble the taste buds,
now inoperable,
incapacitated to distinguish
what is disturbed -
what is sweet -
what is impossible.
my days ending is
nearer to my god than thee,
the crumblings of
what I’ve got left

stale panko crumbs,
here come they in
1000 radium-tipped
projectiles of
serious humorous
self-destruction,
gifted to you!
my few
itinerant followers
peddlers brave enough
to offer shelter,
to follow me
into the deeps of
radioactive incomprehension,
of no particular disorders
a thousand times

bless you
richly, eachly,
name announced, pronounced,
we are all proper nouns.

lest the best go to waste

~for the Grande Dame of Port Hardy~


this breathing fire, a coronating sense of mortality, internally
stronger than ever before, though unaffected, no visible signage,
his invisible labored breathing, the torn fabric of easy gone mentality,
yet so corrupted, his interiors polluted, his crying-out-loud goes

unheard, the sheltering alone in his head, which now is stretched,
way past the point of no return ever, this new strand of side-virus,
of dreary sameness, familiar but reimagined as an atmospheric cancer,
the urgency by which his olive oil words, from pitcher poured, astounds

no subterfuge, he’s made his Great-Escape, to the sheltering island,
his refuge, part redoubt, jagged coastlines a hardening shell, no access
until you declare fealty to the Ferry Captains, who let you board for a princely $2 bucks, if you meet their unstandards, upstanding, healthy?

to the old cottage where we have summered forty year more, The requested Crew assemblage by early dawn (no ****),  for animals unencumbered by time-stealing watches, animal mutual truce declared, mottled multiplying rabbits, squirrels who know not any fear, orange breasted robins, **** deer, mollusks, rainbow trout, osprey, cat-sized cawing crows, and the watchers, the sea-it-all gulls

even the Canadian geese send a scout, in the poet’s nook we are formed, nervous not for their safety, but worried for mine, a Memorial Day meeting very traditional, atmospheric condition cool-cloudy-overcast, party sunny a bold-faced forecasters lie-trick, for an island *******-bonding gloom, a glomming gray weight tamps the air down

Friends! My Audience for New Poets! (their honorific, now over-a-decade old): The Gods have tweeted, this year may not have a next, no Jerusalem for your human acquaintances, the luxurious slowdown of island life, infected by a new urgency, explaining the known and the unknowns facing the human interlopers

Where’s Shelter?**

a refrain, a greeting,  we have sung together, so many times, self-satisfied, fore we knew well, knew anew, we had the answer, here, here, though to life’s cycle we are not immunized, but now your human admirers face agents of death, by invisibility masked, giving us no pause, so we, all, write now, must forward on to:

live/write our best, lest, our partnership be for naught, always between us truce of mutual consent, a natural love of all living things