September 5, 2011

inherited forests

my father's forest.  my mother's.
walking   staying      shadowing
sometimes shooting

again.  again. 

crisp air and the hish of quakies.
the careful noise of feet printing
the frosted dew and no.  again no.

a bluebird day.
in a bluebird lifetime.

using confidence but
         they get wary.  too.    

airwashing breeze
and no anchor.  iron sighting
but      see how shiny these boots
are?        and then
always always breaking
always busting
                     never hup. 
and damn.  

that broken down rainbow.
chasing it
whole years,
listening to everybody's mamas about those colors
and ignoring everybody's papas about the mists

now glassing and glassing and what are they
even talking about?  raptured captured and
gone.  

neither are there now,  anyway.

keep on keep on deeper in, higher up.
to the montane and look.  for
one thing do not give up.  say
yet.

flinching even
with a big runner and
casting casting casting wide.  and wider.
following some other bell.

he's all birdy.
never holding.  and wavering at wing.
the jiggity of the hotspot jolts the nerves and
unsteady to shot.

jumpshoot
jumpshoot jump.
and rebound.

false pointing.  yes.
but finer than that and harder to scent
are the clandestine           the blinds.
the chasing prisms    and running for re's:
refraction.  reflection.  and others. 

being defeated by the specter of
a rainbow.   never yet has it been anything else.

August 30, 2011

passage

beginning with words it
contaged.  to singularity and
canon spanking

the uncodified allure of small fables
culled from cherish and
rare.  collectible.      

this leather and clutch.  these
moments of                     pure
eldorado

unadulterated,
horizontal riches and gold,
sharp finned             a new
strange       and staggering

with her aztec red
intentions and then that white
convertible top lifting and

oh            luxurious  glossy   
those cadillac thighs.
finally:  arrival.  home.  she had
come so far she was back.

===

published in Poetry Quarterly, summer 2012