20

Distrustful of the Gentian—
And just to turn away,
The fluttering of her fringes
Child my perfidy—
Weary for my—————
I will singing go—
I shall not feel the sleet—then—
I shall not fear the snow.

Flees so the phantom meadow
Before the breathless Bee—
So bubble brooks in deserts
On Ears that dying lie—
Burn so the Evening Spires
To Eyes that Closing go—
Hangs so distant Heaven—
To a hand below.

442

God made a little Gentian—
It tried—to be a Rose—
And failed—and all the Summer laughed—
But just before the Snows

There rose a Purple Creature—
That ravished all the Hill—
And Summer hid her Forehead—
And Mockery—was still—

The Frosts were her condition—
The Tyrian would not come
Until the North—invoke it—
Creator—Shall I—bloom?

18

The Gentian weaves her fringes—
The Maple’s loom is red—
My departing blossoms
     Obviate parade.

A brief, but patient illness—
An hour to prepare,
And one below this morning
Is where the angels are—
It was a short procession,
The Bobolink was there—
An aged Bee addressed us—
And then we knelt in prayer—
We trust that she was willing—
We ask that we may be.
Summer—Sister—Seraph!
Let us go with thee!

In the name of the Bee—
And of the Butterfly—
And of the Breeze—Amen!

1424

The Gentian has a parched Corolla—
Like azure dried
’Tis Nature’s buoyant juices
Beatified—
Without a vaunt or sheen
As casual as Rain
And as benign—

When most is part—it comes—
Nor isolate it seems
Its Bond its Friend—
To fill its Fringed career
And aid an aged Year
Abundant end—

Its lot—were it forgot—
This Truth endear—
Fidelity is gain
Creation is o’er—

Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.

Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.

Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.

Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

Admiration is the cousin of envy,
as I learned long ago in Austria.
I knew a girl from a village in the Tirol.
I don’t remember her face,
Except for the placid smile
on her berry red lips.
She was not beautiful, but pretty
in a Mägdlein sort of way,
"smelling of crushed daisies and sweat".
But her long, butter-yellow hair,
seemed to have fallen from the sun.
She wore a black, Dirndl vest
that hugged her torso, a white blouse,
and a long. striped, pink skirt.
Even her legs were beautiful,
With tiny, blonde hairs that glistened.
I wished I could be like her:
Simple-seeming, unaware, unquestioning.
I watched her stand on a rocky ledge,
On a little mound like a pedestal
That overlooked an green-blue alpine valley.
She was a poem or an imagined girl
From a fairy tale or an ad for Priumula.
She was  a goddess escaped
from the the netherworld
of dairy barns and milking cows.
I thought that she might never return
there from her lofty peak at the world..
But another girl stood beside her.
A spartan sort with round glasses
And a face like a Pug dog.
She seemed to stand guard,
In a sexless, violent way,
Threatening those who might approach.
I fantasized about pushing her off the cliff,
Just to rid us of her presence.
The altitude was spinning my thoughts,
Wondering what would happen
To this Hummel Fräulein someday.
Would she follow the other youth to Vienna,
Smoke and drink espresso in a café,
Or come back to her alpine home
And milk goats while her children played?
The next day, as if still drugged,
I strolled across the bridge to Germany
And the river path to Freilassing.
There I bought a new, blue blouse
With a heart shaped neck
And brown, corduroy slacks.
It was the best I could do then
And Dirndls were not cheap.
So I spent the summer
As an ersatz Austrian,
No longer an American with jeans.
My freedom was almost euphoric,
Including dodging classes
About Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill,
Die Dreigroschenoper,
Those overrated poseurs!
(Except for Mack the Knife.)
I even attended Mass at various cathedrals,
just to hear Mozart or Schubert dance
up in the arches with cherubs,
or in front of ancient, colored glass
in the gloom of medieval stone.
I accepted that The Tyrolean Girl
And her antique, sunlit style
Were as inaccessible as
Gentian and columbine, mist-shrouded
on high peaks wrapped in clouds.
I once ran to see some up close
And nearly passed out.
But knowing that, I felt their charm
Had descended from the heights
To entice us in the valleys,
With pink striped cloth, gold hair
And amethyst flowers.
They flee past us like time,
Swift as the rivers in Spring.

Your kind words whispered clear,
With your soft smile you wiped my tears,
Told me to cherish them,
To not shed it for unworthy cause,
But when I looked at you through the corner of my eyes,
As if yours were sparkling,
Teary,
From crying for me.

And from that moment onward,
I knew you lied when you said my heart was fragile,
Because yours were as delicate as Lisianthus,
And mine were a mere Daisy.

Yet your existence proves that,
Being brittle as can be is never weak.

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
    One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds run,
    Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
    And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
    Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
    Shall murmur by the hedge that skirts the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
    And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

The green grass is growing,
The morning wind is in it,
'Tis a tune worth the knowing,
Though it change every minute.

'Tis a tune of the spring,
Every year plays it over,
To the robin on the wing,
To the pausing lover.

O'er ten thousand thousand acres
Goes light the nimble zephyr,
The flowers, tiny feet of shakers,
Worship him ever.

Hark to the winning sound!
They summon thee, dearest,
Saying; "We have drest for thee the ground,
Nor yet thou appearest.

"O hasten, 'tis our time,
Ere yet the red summer
Scorch our delicate prime,
Loved of bee, the tawny hummer.

"O pride of thy race!
Sad in sooth it were to ours,
If our brief tribe miss thy face,—
We pour New England flowers.

"Fairest! choose the fairest members
Of our lithe society;
June's glories and September's
Show our love and piety.

"Thou shalt command us all,
April's cowslip, summer's clover
To the gentian in the fall,
Blue-eyed pet of blue-eyed lover.

"O come, then, quickly come,
We are budding, we are blowing,
And the wind which we perfume
Sings a tune that's worth thy knowing."

Yet one smile more, departing, distant sun!
One mellow smile through the soft vapoury air,
Ere, o'er the frozen earth, the loud winds ran,
Or snows are sifted o'er the meadows bare.
One smile on the brown hills and naked trees,
And the dark rocks whose summer wreaths are cast,
And the blue Gentian flower, that, in the breeze,
Nods lonely, of her beauteous race the last.
Yet a few sunny days, in which the bee
Shall murmur by the hedge that skim the way,
The cricket chirp upon the russet lea,
And man delight to linger in thy ray.
Yet one rich smile, and we will try to bear
The piercing winter frost, and winds, and darkened air.

When the torque of speech is such
that stapled teeth would seem a wiser lot.
When thought is but a hemlocked lash
of passionate disdain..


..then to the water I return...

A sack of cats for Naiads, hatched
about the reedy bridge, I’ll give
my all to them.
To cross their palms with lighter steps
I call to them from oily depths of
worn illumination.


Here, patience sees them come..

In winter cools of briny shift
to press their vagues upon the lips
of tinkers, by the flotsam slum..

..As Canton sirens pilot tension
through the gentian-violet haze,
so distant trains commemorate

  a quiet absolution.

Sunset covered faces,
hearts dissolved into the color orange,
outside the window,
an eyeful of violet haze,
the gentian blue leaves crawling,
up the rhombic wind,
The evening sky was a book,
the clouds were the contents,
the wind a flowing annotation,
and the flying birds,
were mobile illustrations.

Solace is the
worn-out blue shoes and
quiet poignance of last night's dream;
an old conversation putting on loop —
a forgotten cascade tape;
morning light flitting through faded curtains,
hand holding a cup of sour coffee,
freshly brewed from loneliness chanting
stay, stay with me


Despair, old friend
visits after a dinner of pasta
blue shoes hitting pavement
passing the lanes of green and grey,
strolling around the meadow where
Gentian flowers glisten in full bloom
clouds wailing, pelting tears on
chilled cheeks, purple fingers shaking —
go home, go home


Forlorn,
distant beckoning lights,
swaying lanterns overhead saying
come, come to us
white sand on a winter shore where
you wrote my name,
next to a set of baby prints
before the waves came
and lapped them away murmuring
no more, no more


Sojourn,
running barefoot
down empty streets, crescent moon chasing
my back, scattering thoughts on the way
pine trees bending, cobblestone grumbling
at the scarlet sky, dancing with
your ghost one last time, whispering
farewell, farewell

Watching Homer struggle
to explain how a god wounded by a mortal
cannot die but may thereafter live with minor pain

and the humor when that god
complains to Jove that His supervision of His daughter
is inadequate and His Love too unconditional

while Diomed (or Tydides)
wreaks havoc on the Trojans and Hector
gives it back (in kind)

anatomically correct descriptions
of spears piercing jawbones and groins
sons without fathers hunting and fishing thereafter

alone. Written
amazingly presciently!
as a metaphor for Vietnam (our war)

forgotten consensually
as this generation slips lazily away
to Hades (on Huck Finn's raft)

where the lights are always blue, gentian actually,
supper's served at 4 and former adversaries
pass the heavy hanging time playing pinochle (and pool).

We're selling the house to pay the taxes.
Pallas Athena wars among the men
from the axle of her chariot

and Venus is injured by Diomed,
standing in the field of battle where she never should have been,
in her adorable hand.

What has this to do with Solomon in jail.
Not the Jewish king, a black American male,
same thing.

Your children can be failed at school and marched to war.
You can be taxed and sent to gaol for the honor of it.
anyone lived in a pretty how town.

We have no obligation
to perform the Iliad or read poems and even Homer
considers Achilles effete (compared to Hector)

and Odysseus is wrong even when he's right.
Therefore, modern man explores
the mathematics of circles in coordinate planes and their tangents

(when) (once) (soon)
the secret of warp speed is discovered
expansion of the species will be limitless and permanent.

there is a door....
eight weathered, slats of wood.
each slat, about four inches wide.

the door has,
in it's upper-right quadrant,  
a small, face sized window,
with,a pale,dove-blue curtain.

this door, has been painted
purple,
the colour, difficult to describe,
tho, reminiscent of shades of
carbon paper, or gentian violet....
deep, vibrant, solid, regal,
intriguing....

the path, which leads to the
door,
is gently curved, across the lawn.

blocked sandstone,
in a mix of large and small stone,
the colours of,
clotted cream and aged parchment paper.
and on either side,
a mix of, blue lobelia and  
happy faced purple pansies.

the door handle is bronze.
large and ornate
and on closer inspection,
is in the form of a mermaid.

the letter slot, etched with
seashells and starfish

at my feet, inscribed into
the top step...
"those who don't believe,
in magic,
will....
.....never find it."* R.Dahl.

and next to this door,
set into the wall.
an exact replica, of what i have just described,
only, nine inches tall

do not know,
who lives,
behind this door....
but i am, so going to find out.

Nothing more intimate than sleep
wake before dawn, go downtown
prepare for tomorrow, come home from work late.

Most cities prosper undisturbed
sleeping peacefully
while the tide goes out.

Are we asleep or are we dancing,
surrounded by buildings,
a primitive fertility dance in the forest?

Sleeping in my clothes,
sleeping in my underwear,
two dead leaves, then a breeze!

Fall asleep by the river,
in front of tv,
soon I will know who I am.

In the last days you may be found sleeping in the laundry mornings,
or sitting in the holy spot
gazing at a crescent moon.

Get up early but gotta nap,
winter afternoons or summer heat
Thanatopsis, Big Comfy Couch.

Sleep in the bed next to your wife
that way when life ends
someone misses you.

That sounds harsh but we’re matter of fact
about the fact of death.
Death is most of all like sleep.

Doctor, engineer, lawyer, soldier,
writer, poet, that’s the pecking order,
get some sleep, get over it.

Not the kind of gal who’ll have *** twice
on the first date. When that happens
marriage, babies, graduations, tragedies, sleep.

Headache, surgery, through it all
there’s sleep, a haven, heaven, hovel, cave, raven,
a place to be with eyes wide open.

Don’t have a hissy fit
or case of colon cancer, get 8 hours
shuteye in contiguous array.

If not, listen to a TED talk, they like explaining things
Selected Shorts solves insomnia,
The Moth Hour, the peaceful father, mother.

Sweet pleasing Sleep!
in Hades
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually.

Every third thought doesn’t have to be about death.
Sleep together, get laid.
Sleep. How memories are made.
Sleep. In the palm at the end of the mind or on another plane.

The same Madonnas,
the same pitying faces,
the same arched necks
of the same saints...

Clear it all
for a new palette.
Stone over pine blaze,
fringed gentian blot.
Broken-columned sun,
splayed in glade sand.
Drift water stroke.

Rescind
the School of Athens,
the Madonnas,
the arched necks.

What can they say
about lilies plunged
in the moon's syrup?