"crosswise" poems
Glassed with cold sleep and dazzled by the moon,
out of the confused hammering dark of the train
I looked and saw under the moon's cold sheet
your delicate dry ******* country that built my heart;
and the small trees on their uncoloured slope
like poetry moved, articulate and sharp
and purposeful under the great dry flight of air,
under the crosswise currents of wind and star.
Clench down your strength, box-tree and ironbark.
Break with your violent root the ****** rock.
Draw from the flying dark its breath of dew
till the unliving come to life in you.
Be over the blind rock a skin of sense,
under the barren height a slender dance...
I woke and saw the dark small trees that burn
suddenly into flowers more lovely that the white moon.
19.4k
1.
Late-spring's dilemma
Is unabridged and sweet;
Beardtongues and fuchsias peer through grass blades:
Blotches on the bristly canvas.
Camellias? Still in April.
2.
Slices of rye shift on my plate;
Miramar’s war machines whip overhead;
My mouth opens into the Gulf of Kuwait;
The toast becomes
Moldering lips of Pendleton.
3.
There’s a single-story house on a hill
That to helicopters
Looks like an easel.
Great canyons open
To the south and west; the street clings to time—
A pianist’s metronome
Waltzes crosswise on an eardrum.
4.
The eucalyptus bends the deafening breeze.
Are you still dredging Coronado's cradle?
(The tide
Disintegrates the illimitable skyline.)
5.
An unlit Anza-Borrego beats about my ears,
Stars piggybacking the horizon.
The cacti shrivel:
Glitter in a hurricane.
6.
End-of-spring guesses
Prey upon a betrayer’s conscience.
Stilted, they flash ephemerally.
Jul 27, 2014
Jul 27, 2014 at 10:04 PM UTC
It’s boxing day (the Brit name for the day after Christmas) and Pamela, Lisa’s grandmother is visiting our little pandemic ark. Pamela’s a Cowboys fan so we’re watching them slaughter Washington - between commercials - but now a Tesla commercial is running. “Those electric cars,” Pamala says dubiously, “seem problematic.”
“You’ve heard of global warming, haven’t you, Pamala?” Leeza says. Leeza addresses everyone (even her grandmother) as if they were her age (12). It’s both seductive and lazy. “This whole system,” she raises her arms to include the apartment, the city and America, “will collapse - we’re DOOOOMED,” she concludes, as if speechifying to an eager crowd.
“Everyone’s heard of climate change,” Pamela says, sipping her eggnog. Pamela is as well informed as any of us and seems rather envious of the future, even the coming awfulness.
“Leeza’s her own theatre,” Her mom says, grimacing indulgently.
Leeza’s full attention was now on the pastry tray - having spotted two small eclairs under the bear claws - she'd lost interest in the conversation and saving the planet.
“The system won’t collapse,” Will says. Will received his early acceptance letter from Harvard the other day and now he knows everything. “We’ll lose Florida, South Carolina and New York,” he pronounces calmly, “so there’ll be some.. migrations.”
“Thank you, professor,” Lisa says, rolling her eyes as if to say ”Harvard people.”
“I think the Covid might get us all - before climate change,” I say, in the spirit of the holiday.
“Well,” Will says, grinning, “that’s what ALL the people at inferior colleges think.”
Leeza, passing by my easychair, curls into my lap like a cat, gently petting my hair. “Don’t be mean to MY friend,” she says, purringly - I was suddenly her possession. Lisa comes out of her chair, a sly smile on her face, to lay crosswise atop Leeza (and me).
“Ugg,” I managed to say, squirming to get comfortable, then “Akkkk.”
Lisa says, “Leave my poor roomie alone!” and starts baby-kissing my head.”
Will starts in our direction like HE’S going to pile on. “Egggg! I shrek, “HELP!”
Pamela whoops with glee as Dallas scores another touchdown.
“Like beating a dead dog with a stick,” she says.
Dec 29, 2021
Dec 29, 2021 at 10:10 AM UTC
Words in the night, distant daytime conversations after the downpour
Smoke exhaled from heavy lungs like the last rain drops
Clouds reanimated in the cloying nicotine
Memories of a smile over kiwis cut crosswise
A bottle holds it all now, those memories
Memories closed and final
Wash the dirt from my hands
With loving pen strokes
Help me make the world fall
Away
Water in the mug, a smile like insects under heel
7 a.m., all alone, empty road, I’ll walk until
I lose my sole
The sun burns luminous
The day breaks lovingly
Fresh brewed love
Drank down like a poison
Spat a poem for you
Broke it all again
And here we sit among the blooming hyacinth
The moths on our skin like the gin we sweated out
In the night over Roman candle illumination
Oh tell me, oh spell me, cover me with your algebra
Little notes on hand or thumb
A loving limb separated with skilled hands
The subtly of your heart
Sewed so skillfully to my dullness
Strong hands have retired to
Holding a basket of bitter apples
I have found a quiet place to write it all down
A silent place to find the distinctions between sounds
In our absence such life has grown
In our tolerance such symbols have been sketched
I found the gap between the stones
Delved in the depths of a bottle or two
Stacked stones on the shores of empty
Bodies of water
Love sketched out in five
Letters
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 11:06 AM UTC
Despite being atheist,
with serpent teen eyes,
I would nonetheless bet
Eve fen number guys
named Adam, or gals noel lies
(christened) dollars to donuts
(Dunkin and/or otherwise)
Jesus would be mighty pleased
to know, his sir name
linkedin with commercial ties,
no matter, he might not garner rise
zen percentage of profits, no matter spies
infiltrate competition especially if he
unwittingly gets trampled and cries
amidst chaos (think euthanize)
untimely death by madding wise
flash mob crowd source realize
last seconds rushing to snap up
latest jamb door prize
as venders resort to all
manner of (subliminally
manipulative) marketing techniques
to lure patrons, (especially
photo opportunities with
one of the many
"FAKE" donned Santa
Claus), the latter,
who would lionize
their son(s) and/or apprise
daughter(s), subsequently
guaranteeing, nailing crosswise,
and clinching safeguards exercise
immunization against the Grinch
sure fire way to manure er... fertilize
guarantee future generations rise
zing will become avid consumers,
who reverently, obsequiously,
and devoutly idolize
supporting the apostles who revolutionize
creative commercialization to capitalize
nearly every Cyber Monday
occasion to finalize
(all sales) pennies on the dollar,
where merchants feign
going for broke, and capitalize
eulogize, and idealize
the mighty buck staging "FAKE"
news worthy shoppers to burst into tears
crying on command,
and all manner of pathos
pulling ploys nsync king
"shameful guilt" that squares
with being ostracized,
hash-tagged, and demonized Scrooge.
Dec 14, 2019
Dec 14, 2019 at 1:14 AM UTC
All this must disappear -
crosswise minor roadways and
State Road with its bleating traffic,
plazas where pennies melt into
palms of Middle Eastern merchants,
Chinese, Nepalese, Indian or
what have you,
road signs for New York, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Toledo, Youngstown, Columbus, Sandusky or
what have you.
All this must disappear -
the ****** gardens
on Ohio River banks, railways rusted retired and ready to
sink silently into the soil and stone,
back yard above-ground swimming pool algae beds and front porch
family-festival fetanyl parades,
All this must disappear -
gas station dollar altars and
decaying or decayed Irondale tennant building windows, *****
community college self-defined
street scientists gathered in old
high school parking lots discussing
politics and the Pleiades and the fastest way out of the galaxy or the
slowest way into an easy death.
All this must disappear,
from Walnut Beach to Wheeling,
and the rust lift and assemble
into something lovely tomorrow's youth can work with, can love and
can sit atop the hills and smile and
be content in knowing while I
sit on the sidewalk and be
glad the future finally showed up.
Jun 25, 2017
Jun 25, 2017 at 6:40 PM UTC
He's got a mouthful of rain.
A dead goose in one hand, a sharp axe in the other,
lying crosswise on the flooded lawn.
His breakfast was feathers and catscratch.
He's bloody-minded about the whole thing -
his rotting toes poke through pastel orange New Balances
and are perched on the edge of forgettable.
He says he's daring God
to **** him or give him a dollar
but really
he shouts catastrophe at traffic and fluid dynamics
and if somebody gave him a rose
he wouldn't know what to do with it
except chew it
petal and thorn.
I'm close to him because I, too, am going to die
eventually, and between now and then any home I have
is a coldwater solitaire flat
- beans and egg and cheap cheese and salsa -
and when I look up I drown like dumb poultry
looking for a pair of fingers:
snap
snap
May 4, 2018
May 4, 2018 at 12:18 PM UTC
Hellos feel a dearth of meant to room to manoeuvre
The aforementioned vibrissa came to be coupled with corporeality esse
Hir effulgent nowhere near multistorey augment some rangi
Mlles draws breath granting the fact that which all and sundry wave to or but curtsy
Up til ply immensely crosswise ciaos this macrocosm
Out of sorts sustentation examinate in addition to operational savoir-faire enclosed by a forestland
Into bodies that one yours truly to which canonised a stone's throw away from lasts yourself surrounded by steadfastness en route toward captivation Undaunted summat auxiliary earlier than a mortal arising out of the eradicators live-in lover When ring compared with bidie-in originating at leman acts as larboard eating the dust
Jun 14, 2019
Jun 14, 2019 at 8:16 PM UTC
The rough uncertainty ran crosswise in a seemingly random design.
The continuity of it was in decline. Time forming before me as the gravity did act.
Slowly tugging downward as strength is what it lacked.
Aug 11, 2017
Aug 11, 2017 at 6:23 PM UTC