Published in "La Piccioletta Barca" - Issue 19 - May 2020: https://picciolettabarca.com/issues/issue-19/come-april-silk/
Come April
The Yellow Bucket
The ape of reason wakesinside the primate house -throws shit at the glass,at the gawking apparitionswhose eyes align with hisbut for a few seconds,his brow-heavy facegrafted to theirs. And he waits, waitsfor he that drags the yellowbucket, stuffed with limp greens,sprung grain and stink meat -the feast before a king,the grace of drab charity,there in... Continue Reading →
But For The Pheasant
But for the pheasant’s coppered wing the fieldsin sculpted snows ne’er bring the promised yieldsnor pleasures found ‘til light does crest the riseat dawn and ambers claw upon the eyes. To wake and wonder here among such thingsas iridescence glides there down and bringsunto these smothered lands and frostbit handsa hope that winter’s scoff no... Continue Reading →
Three Rib Bones with Trains and Rain
Three rib bones flush from the culvert pipeafter hunks of pelvis beside the tracks -the tracks with no arms but rumblerumble strips and red bell ticks. Clang go the boneswhere no grass grows Bang go the trainsand the pink prairie rose Rattles with the rushin the same stiff pose as ribs and hunks of pelvis... Continue Reading →
Sanctity
Come, O Love for down the vale,Where moonlight frocks the lovers’ tale,Where moonlight mulls the staves of treesAnd shreds the fuschia from the leaves. Come, O Love for down the vale,Where cleave and stumble long prevail,And woolen grass reveals the pressOf all that slept there shorn of dress. Come down the vale for it is... Continue Reading →
The Felling
When the lastsoftpoplarfell,and the bluejays - the bluejays -rolled out; When the mangled nestspilled outthese mouths,these bentfeatheredtufts; When the chainsaw stilledits shriek and whir; When thick air closedabout us; When the larger jaysswept off the elmand veined away -blue lines on a blue sky,blue abandon in a blueeye; It was then,in the clearing of dead... Continue Reading →
The White Forbiddance
Come winter the woods will forget my boots, Expunge my passage, deny me familiar, As if I never traveled there, climbed there The oaks, as low birches lurch among The poisons - ivy and sumac. And how is it that the sun finds blockage There, but not the muting snow, unbroken Over the bones of... Continue Reading →
Yesterday Morning at the Mailbox
Out, among gray and cloud-spliced verities, beige and stubbled hollow stalks, a doe held her place on the rise. And I, slippered and robed, gathered the costs of my comforts - the papers and pages of heat from a white and resin box. She tasted the air of me, upwind of her, and the twin... Continue Reading →
A Crow on the Road
I ain't seen no crow do no killin', never in a day. Shit, they ain't even a squabble. I seen a lot a' crows on a lot a' roads, courteous as squaredance, bobbin' over coon, skunk, whatever red, always cool to clear the way and wait fer a passin'. I ain't seen no dead crow... Continue Reading →
