A sonnet’s like a shell, a lover’s bonnet’s head
Displayed in collections, sometimes in sequence of findings
Where found linings and spaces between are said.
Critters dwell in sonnets, they crawl into ears, reminding
Us all that more than oceans have voices in shells.
Acute accretions of shiny smooth dust form
In sonnets. To some, they are worth diving in the swells
Of the Pacific, worth drowning for in night light alarm.
Resonating, Corrugated, octetted and obeliscal
Sonneteers are vain, I think, flaunting their own physical
Form. Petrarch, no doubt, thought his own penis mystical
We all know he was equally temporal, perhaps like an icicle
Melting in light of his Laura until he a wrenched sea became
But his wide clams swallowed whales whole just the same.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Steam
I can’t warm my face over love like before.
I would drip, for the world, cold world, tipped
like a devious bucket, just enough—oh, didn’t oceans pour
through our ethereal flame! This has truly been a bad rain.
This kindling does not even matter, it’s wet
And won’t burn. I say, man, just wait for the day, but I hate looking
Back at that dim soggy pile, that ashy knoll, when yet
The sight scalds, and I can’t hold my face away from the steam.
Now I breathe heavy in the dark, but when I knew the winds…
They were like pilgrims. They picked us up to walk along
When we were a flame—remember how the pine sap hissed
As we kissed each needle, spread some word of peace.
Now the hiss rages, against smothering, like a cornered beast. Best to leave
It alone, says my conscience. But when the leaves dry, when
I can sprinkle sand and blow it away like ash,
When a choir of sunny rock says “assemble us into a ring,”
When the shrubbery buoys and springs back from the spill,
flexed as if giving birth, when the water weight lifts
passes, slips, abandons like distractions eventually will, don’t tell—
the world will turn scarlet if it comes too close.
I would drip, for the world, cold world, tipped
like a devious bucket, just enough—oh, didn’t oceans pour
through our ethereal flame! This has truly been a bad rain.
This kindling does not even matter, it’s wet
And won’t burn. I say, man, just wait for the day, but I hate looking
Back at that dim soggy pile, that ashy knoll, when yet
The sight scalds, and I can’t hold my face away from the steam.
Now I breathe heavy in the dark, but when I knew the winds…
They were like pilgrims. They picked us up to walk along
When we were a flame—remember how the pine sap hissed
As we kissed each needle, spread some word of peace.
Now the hiss rages, against smothering, like a cornered beast. Best to leave
It alone, says my conscience. But when the leaves dry, when
I can sprinkle sand and blow it away like ash,
When a choir of sunny rock says “assemble us into a ring,”
When the shrubbery buoys and springs back from the spill,
flexed as if giving birth, when the water weight lifts
passes, slips, abandons like distractions eventually will, don’t tell—
the world will turn scarlet if it comes too close.
Like Water
Something that tastes
like tap nostril-wash-out,
not sipped:
gagged, harder than
love, a truth tap,
not swallowed window-shop
waste, another
kind of ‘git ‘em’ dunk, chaste
like a lily pad’s plunge
into it, gasping on
a bob at it, when
the puny belly-
flop frogs domino into a pond
at an oncoming step, a sense
of survival ahead,
of color not necessarily blue-
greenish, a Greenwich vibe
of underbrush, triad ivy.
it wants you bad.
something like spray
wants you and you
want to gargle lava.
Could be a parking garage
collage, a warning,
something that tastes like water, a push
or a dump and splosh when an oh-face
ladles an infinite swish and swim-up
to spew through a vis-à-vis oh-yeah! face
like tap nostril-wash-out,
not sipped:
gagged, harder than
love, a truth tap,
not swallowed window-shop
waste, another
kind of ‘git ‘em’ dunk, chaste
like a lily pad’s plunge
into it, gasping on
a bob at it, when
the puny belly-
flop frogs domino into a pond
at an oncoming step, a sense
of survival ahead,
of color not necessarily blue-
greenish, a Greenwich vibe
of underbrush, triad ivy.
it wants you bad.
something like spray
wants you and you
want to gargle lava.
Could be a parking garage
collage, a warning,
something that tastes like water, a push
or a dump and splosh when an oh-face
ladles an infinite swish and swim-up
to spew through a vis-à-vis oh-yeah! face
A Name Has Heard
A name has heard how many callings?
Called for trying’s sake through wires of private air.
Multitudes and all needles of desire.
A noun being a moon…the infinite gazings
And with tip-of-the tongue regret. Limitlessly
though, the just name would burn close to itself,
a Sun and, bursting into a fierce face, become.
But to speak of the Sun.
What a dishonor, unless the universe were just
And I were myself, a moon.
And I were by myself
A Sun.
How these volumes revolve
And revolve, hollering in passing
As the antecedent forever faces inward!
No matter, tugging little satellite.
When you feel your breath
Shoot away from your stretching face
You’ll know it’s time
To fall and curl, fall
And curl, blindly swirl down, misunderstood
As the misguided spoon, dipping,
collapses cool surface-tensed film
Into your cradle—the tongue, yours,
Never to be burned by the sacred
unnamable true.
Called for trying’s sake through wires of private air.
Multitudes and all needles of desire.
A noun being a moon…the infinite gazings
And with tip-of-the tongue regret. Limitlessly
though, the just name would burn close to itself,
a Sun and, bursting into a fierce face, become.
But to speak of the Sun.
What a dishonor, unless the universe were just
And I were myself, a moon.
And I were by myself
A Sun.
How these volumes revolve
And revolve, hollering in passing
As the antecedent forever faces inward!
No matter, tugging little satellite.
When you feel your breath
Shoot away from your stretching face
You’ll know it’s time
To fall and curl, fall
And curl, blindly swirl down, misunderstood
As the misguided spoon, dipping,
collapses cool surface-tensed film
Into your cradle—the tongue, yours,
Never to be burned by the sacred
unnamable true.
Snowfall Fakes
When snowfall fakes and fakes, maybe even forgets
To descend, or lacks hardening will, and rains—
When wool, down, cotton don’t tempt my backside from brown
Grass and frost, mud thawing, from thoughts of a falling blanket—
When, like an unnotified death, flakes melt like clocks
Hanging on corners of heights, hung up by time’s table
Yet drooping warm hope onto eyelids long closed, eternity
Becomes a stalactite, each second a sharp push against the eye.
Waiting’s gnarly jaws move slowly over, beneath the cloudy
Coming. Dig me up when you return! Cover me over when you fall.
To descend, or lacks hardening will, and rains—
When wool, down, cotton don’t tempt my backside from brown
Grass and frost, mud thawing, from thoughts of a falling blanket—
When, like an unnotified death, flakes melt like clocks
Hanging on corners of heights, hung up by time’s table
Yet drooping warm hope onto eyelids long closed, eternity
Becomes a stalactite, each second a sharp push against the eye.
Waiting’s gnarly jaws move slowly over, beneath the cloudy
Coming. Dig me up when you return! Cover me over when you fall.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
from the recent Poplar Street Reading Aug. 28
So we had a great showing and a great time at the most recent Poplar reading, hosted by the timeless Nathan Brand. For those who were (or weren't) there, the following 5 posts are poems which were read by John Stovall. Hopefully, Anna and Chip will submit their work soon...
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