i don't know what heliotrope is
besides it has a wonderful scent

so i'm determined to smell nice
in the hope that maybe i'll at least
be remembered for something good

Hush, thrush! Hush, missen-thrush, I listen...
I heard the flush of footsteps through the loose leaves,
And a low whistle by the water's brim.

Still! Daffodil! Nay, hail me not so gaily,-
Your gay gold lily daunts me and deceives,
Who follow gleams more golden and more slim.

Look, brook! O run and look, O run!
The vain reeds shook? - Yet search till gray sea heaves,
And I will stray among these fields for him.

Gaze, daisy! Stare through haze and glare,
And mark the hazardous stars all dawns and eves,
For my eye withers, and his star wanes dim.


2

Close, rose, and droop, heliotrope,
And shudder, hope! The shattering winter blows.
Drop, heliotrope, and close, rose...

Mourn, corn, and sigh, rye.
Men garner you, but youth's head lies forlorn.
Sigh, rye, and mourn, corn...

Brood, wood, and muse, yews,
The ways gods use we have not understood.
Muse, yews, and brood, wood...

My hair was once all aquarelle
and peony, I wondered who

painted me

For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.

I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.

I sat beneath a willow tree,
  Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
  Some true, and some were false.

Who set their heart upon a hope
  That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
  The sun's wan looking-glass.

Who set their will upon a whim
  Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
  Or hit or miss their will.

All things are vain that wax and wane,
  For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
  Love only outlives death.

A singing lark rose toward the sky,
  Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
  And then he sank again.

A second like a sunlit spark
  Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
  And songless fluttered back.

A hovering melody of birds
  Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
  And youth and joy and love.

O silvery weeping willow tree
  With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
  Beside this rippled spring?

On this first fleeting day of Spring,
  For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
  Floats in a sunny sky;

On this first Summer-like soft day,
  While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
  And birds sing everywhere.

Have you no purpose in the world
  But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
  O weeping willow tree?

With all your tremulous leaves outspread
  Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
  With half my work undone;

My work undone, that should be done
  At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
  Comes the unworking night.

This day is lapsing on its way,
  Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
  Comes the resourceless night.

The weeping-willow shook its head
  And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,
  The birds forbore a song.

Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
  The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
  And then I felt alone.

I rose to go, and felt the chill,
  And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
  What more that willow meant;

That silvery weeping-willow tree
  With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
  Beside a spring in Spring.

I watched the sun rise
and fell asleep.

I watched the sun set
and became enlightened.

There has not been for a long time a spring
as beautiful as this one; the grass, just before mowing,
is thick and wet with dew. At night bird cries
come up from the edge of the marsh, a crimson shoal
lies in the east till the morning hours.
In such a season, every voice becomes for us
a shout of triumph. Glory, pain and glory
to the grass, to the clouds, to the green oak wood.
The gates of the earth torn open, the key
to the earth revealed. A star is greeting the day.
Then why do your eyes  hold an impure gleam
like the eyes of those who have not tasted
evil and long only for crime? Why does this heat
and depth of hatred radiate
from your narrowed eyes? To you the rule,
for you clouds in golden rings
play a music, maples by the road exalt you.
The invisible rein on every living thing
leads to your hand--pull, and they all
turn a half-circle under the canopy
called cirrus. And your tasks? A wooden mountain
awaits you, the place for cities in the air,
a valley where wheat should grow, a table, a white page
on which, maybe, a long poem could be started,
joy and toil. And the road bolts like an animal,
it falls away so quickly, leaving a trail of dust,
that there is scarcely a sight to prepare a nod for,
the hand's grip already weakened, a sigh, and the storm is over.
And then they carry the malefactor through the fields,
rocking his grey head, and above the seashore
on a tree-lined avenue, they put him down
where the wind from the bay furls banner
and schoolchildren run on the gravel paths,
singing their songs.

--"So that neighing in the gardens, drinking on the green
so that, not knowing whether they are happy or just weary,
they take bread from the hands of their pregnant wives.
They bow their heads to nothing in their lives.
My brothers, avid for pleasure, smiling, beery,
have the world for a granary, a house of joy?"

--"Ah, dark rabble at their vernal feasts
and creamatoria rising like white cliffs
and smoke seeping from the dead wasps' nests.
In a stammer of mandolins, a dust-cloud of scythes,
on heaps of food and mosses stomped ash-grey,
the new sun rises on another day."

For a long time there has not been a spring
as beautiful as this one to the voyager.
The expanse of water seems to him dense
as the blood of a hemlock. And a fleet of sails
speeding in the dark, like the last
vibration of a pure note. He saw
human figures scattered on the sands
under the light of the planets, falling from the vault
of heaven, and when a wave grew silent, it was silent,
the foam smelled of ioding? heliotrope?
They sang on the dunes, Maria, Maria,
resting a spattered hand on the saddle
and he didn't know if this was the new sign
that promises salvation, but kills first.
Three times must the wheel of blindness
turn, before I took without fear at the power
sleeping in my own hand, and recognize spring,
the sky, the seas, and the dark, massed land.
Three times will the liars have conquered
before the great truth appears alive
and in the splendor of one moment
stand spring and the sky, the seas, the lands.

*Wilmo, 1936

By the end of this poem, those once vibrant
shall slough off in horizons of necrosis.
As I tap out completion,
their summer cedes to countless performances;
actors bow before the closing curtain of Autumn.

The maelstrom of summer-lovers lulls to a murmur
And the great Mevlana’s couplets and Khayyam’s quatrains
Float away on the formations of down-bound geese.
You’ll hear the Doppler shift of devotion’s goodbye
On the whines of the locomotive’s whistle.

By the end of this poem, the thistle fades
from heliotrope to gun metal gray.
The clandestine scent of “once-whens”
Wafts into a future of “now-agains.”
Yet, this new Fall is bittersweet.
Before another ******* of trees,
a red rose blushes in reminiscence.

By this poems end, I’ll be in love
with the chill of an approaching season
wearing the brightest flower in my garden of poetry
One last choke on the rising smoke
as the last painful stanza goes
Into the solemn procession
toward the sacred pyre of leaves.

As the waves of perfume, heliotrope, rose,
Float in the garden when no wind blows,
Come to us, go from us, whence no one knows;

So the old tunes float in my mind,
And go from me leaving no trace behind,
Like fragrance borne on the hush of the wind.

But in the instant the airs remain
I know the laughter and the pain
Of times that will not come again.

I try to catch at many a tune
Like petals of light fallen from the moon,
Broken and bright on a dark lagoon,

But they float away—for who can hold
Youth, or perfume or the moon’s gold?

your friends pity me
i see it in their eyes
but pretend it's
not there

you bring me along regardless
holding hands under the table
laughing alongside them
and we toast to your
oncoming sobriety

and i think they pitied you too
knowing that you and change
were fated mortal enemies
starting from conception.

god buried you in the dirt when he crafted your soul;
and the angels cursed you, turning the earth
to marbled heliotrope:

we met in that dark prison.
you whispered that everyone
had given you up. so i swore
to never leave. to try.
to fight for us. to
love.

you hold my hand for 46 seconds underneath
the sputtering pools of blonde light
after your narcotics anonymous
meeting.

and the angels pitied me as well,
turning their heads at stoplights
and crosswalks like i wasn't even
there.

as if i could forget or pretend
that i've never seen the
eyes underneath
our bed at
night.

I'm trapped in a clock
In the cogs and the gears
And it's ticking its tock
To my cuckooest fears
I am chained to a time
And a place I'm forgetting
Lost in the rhyme
And the tone I am setting
Regretting the days
I knew not how to smile
And masking these plays
In a phantom exile
Where sands turned to trees
And then jungles erupted
In love with the breeze
And the girl who abducted
My heart in the void
Of poetic romance
In a cold front of Freud
And the hypnotic trance
My enchantress exudes
In a potion of sorrow
And pendulum moods
As I swung from tomorrow's
Last Heliotrope
And I shared in the peace
Of her crescent moon hope
Then I offered my hand  
To this mystical muse
And I let her command
Every word that I choose

If I were pink
What would you think?
If I were blue
Would you be too?
If I were green
Would you be mean?
If I were yellow
Would we still be mellow?
If I were black
Would you attack?
If I were brown
Would you turn me down?
If I were beige
Would we still engage?
If I were heliotrope
Could we go elope?
If I were vermillion
Could we go to a cotillion?
If I were maroon
Would you buy me macaroons?
If I were aubergine
Could we go to Dairy Queen?
And if I were cerise
Would your affection cease?

Brent Kincaid
4/7/2015

stepping at the sun
with written ankles
our lips divided

as the sun profiled two faces
the passing of a warm stone

As the snowy days grow colder,
I'm in the trenches, like a soldier:
a war against my own heart.
.
Shrapnel, bullets, drying blood
surround me in the mud
since we've been apart.
.
My enemy knows no reason,
cares not for negotiation;
moving on for it is treason;
accepts no explanation.
.
And I keep fighting through the pain,
survival instincts wax and wane,
But in my chest I keep a hope.
.
Weak and battered, yet alight,
a single candle in the night -
the only thing that helps me cope.
.
I let the embers of it seethe,
grip it tight and grit my teeth,
like a drowning man to a rope.
.
It whispers softly: "he'll return",
that flame doesn't cease to burn,
its heat is my heliotrope.
.

The eventide chimericalness of
The gad word of life's confutation
Cutting the gordian knot
Knowing one's onions depending
The lassitude of pusillanimous
Eminence grises harvesting
Monkhood disenchantingly
From jumbie dragon teeth
Disbodying corrival federacies
Of the lout Annunaki's japery
To raise cain dolorously at the
Gate of Heaven quibbling with
The un-named angel
Impelling the memory of nature
Kist of whistles.













ELEETE J MUIR

the word admits truth
and the feeling confirms its ruin

of the world i know. trees spar
wind, birds cross tapestry;
the old moon's wane hesitates,
  the bilious lark does not

heed what i know of the world
   and our entrails speaking
a hint of such sorry recall—
something a memory gives back,
lighting a beacon, passing a mortal flame

  into my hands, the heliotrope,
  haplessly flapping its wings now
    unpinned crooning a voice
of the world – twilight in one song.

There is so much     space demands
and it isn't just     minding it.

Feel        space
like how you feel a hand glide
over your breast and      ****
   your intricacies with surgery-precision.

There isn't much     space when
there are two people in the room.

Heed      space
and soak your body into various calls
like       coming
             into world with fullness,
you     arrive and take
     space,        therefore, you are.
lewd   fat air circumventing past
  open windows announcing more

       s p a c e

on the fryer or inside the common
heliotrope of dawn lies     space
and its absurd eyelids submerge the
  soul into inconsolable mouths
    with the droll of a wilting word,

  there is much ado said over
certain vacuities    and its sole kinship
  is always its emphasis.
  it takes being alone    to sing beautifully
       yet a marginal dance of    swan
meandering    in    space takes    two
     (as mortise
                       and tenon)
  each without,      senselessly moving.

through the lips of
the horizon
a purple parasol
of attenuated *****
  spread, flagrant is the crepuscule.

these are the exiled
  in the heliotrope world:

trees saluting the length
  of sprinting air to calm
  these undulations -
  painted are the leaves
  with blame.

lips sinking to find answers
hidden underneath the
derelict of sweat, noisome moan
after quieted breathing,
heavy with the undeniable boulder
  of craving's weight -
  tongue naked, freeing itself
  from the oubliette of flesh,
  finding what is still to be
   tasted in a covetous harvest,

it is indeed strange to be here,
  in this absolute hour
  of absent resoluteness.
to deny want and embrace fullness,
my eyes ***** these visions
   and then dive through steepness.
  no words have to be said,
  only their significations
   held secretively as roots
  are unseen flourishing in their
    obligations to this flower,
    your flower

  underneath the twilight
   of bodies crossing each other
  out, love's derivatives
    ensue.

Tolstoy purported,
"the purpose of life
is to serve humanity."
but an empty cup
cannot fill another
and i've long since
been drained
to the last drop
dry as drought.

cottonmouth, hoarse,
blue-in-the-face
from screaming
my lungs out.
a mime beating
bulletproof glass
until my knuckles bleed
and streak.

three words
bloom like heliotrope
petals on my tongue:
"i love you,"
a refrain on endless repeat—
a broken record
covered in motes of dust,
skipping on the turntable
stuck in the same rut.

I wrote this in November and was not happy with it;
"
I heard passion on the streets of New York City
the sea foam of the sky hanging on the Persian shield watching over us
the gloaming brings retrospect
the healthy green pendant of the six train matches the bushes in the square
in Little Ukraine
it is dark
we bounce as we step
I know when I move I will
be on my own
she tells me she hears yelling. is it happy exclamation or anger
I don't know. I say. I don't know"

12/25/2016

On the sidestreets of Little Ukraine
men smoked cigarettes and said *pryvit
and KNL said it's because you look slavic

but i'm pennsylvania dutch! i laugh
shoofly pie, not sochniki
off the 33rd street stop

and it was getting to be dark out
the sky heliotrope and true blue
I heard a noise

did you hear that too? I say to her
It was angry or happy? she asks, more like states
I don't know, all i said.

*But it's passion.
It's passion.
On the streets of new york city. That would make a good poem, right?

In lee of the Ash
'twould be me
hiding in trees.
bare arms held high.
raw from rubbing the bark.

breath a ragged whisper,
the language of dead leaves

lingnen umbrellas once shadow makers now of the dark

encased in abandoned shade,
stability is a fabled illusion

colours of autumn fade.
forms become skeleton.
dirt is fed.

earthen daydreams corrode,
fertile nightmares,
demons grow in place of daisies

their eyes are hungry in a barren place until the ash buds swell

dried petals melt to gravity,
possess my naked frame

under the low sun after dewy drapes lift.
green blessings distract

undulating bodies,
supplication of sweet release

'tis what demon desires and to have must part with pomegranate

the seeds of damnation,
lament dearest Persephone,
your cry shall reign all dominion

a Bentham call for the utility that the wood be of seasons

colors of autumn fade,
forms become skeleton,
hello death's wintry mistress

colours of spring wait.
Morbid redress

leaving hulled seed a heliotrope with skying ambition.
Brethren in tumultuous glory.

Bask eternal in tumultuous glory.

angels of the solstice
gather on exalted cloudways
and descend as heliotrope whirlwinds
bejewelling leafless trees
with melting ice and dew
adorning in silence

they beckon verdant spring
when shimmering moonlight
will cease to glister on diamond snow
and winter's periwinkle gowns
shall withdraw into violet pillows
and then into silver streams of resignation

the tissue-paper sky is a luminous dome
veined with gold and pearl anticipation
the meadows are covered with gossamer blankets
that drink the sound of the ruby-red cardinal
like a sacrificial drop of blood on the velvet-white altar
offered for the birth of the first tender blooms

half-moon's amber blush
sky's heliotrope sunset
summer's burnt offer'

-cec

Across the street
The heliotrope and roses meet.
Entwined they gather sweetly
Lovingly clinging in embrace.
Sigh.  I watch them.  I slow my pace.
If flowers can love as in this case,
Why cannot men of every race?