The Milk Sick

As I pull the white snakeroot from around the cow tank

the choirboys come sand shoe scuffing:

What they want, they won’t say.

As I bend I show the lazing wester sun my beads of sweat,

my mudhen’s pride.  I need not rise.

The woods once green and full of poke weed--

not yet poison-blood fruited--and turkeys and such.

But now brown herringboned feathers and acorns

and dusty boughs litter the ground:  the boys are gone.

A flutter in the mallow and the lavender mother comes,

dressed in rags like a Cloutie well,

sighing through her roots, her eyes~~

thrumming the air with jewelweed notes sung

soft as London lace chemises tucked deep in black walnut wardrobes.

The hawthorn swells red with berries and the finches~~

Beaks & sweet queried notes & wine dipt feathers

change places against the bark:

A promise of both surfeit and bleak night.

I hear your whistle in some upswept locust limbs.

Am I your touch piece, perhaps,

Your coppery silted delta,

Plugged in your pocket as you wend

Far river wide.

The sky goes bluing, a hazy ice moon rising,

Circled the way I do you

In my dreams,

As I would loose your collar

And close my eyes to bring my lips,

Trembling,

Where first I kissed your neck,

There, below that soft sable of hair

Warm skin for the asking,

For the want of asking,

This sickness

For the silence of small stars

Shining.

More from the Museum--Van Gogh and Hans Hofmann

Bedroom in Arles

Vincent van Gogh

1888

Van Gogh Museum, Amesterdam

August Light

Hans Hofmann

1957

Chazen Museum, Madison WI

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My Sunday afternoon trip to the Chazen Museum (which I still want to call the Elvehjem), brought me not only face to face with Mr. Rothko, but also, an old favorite, in Hans Hofmann.  Upon first glance this day, I couldn't help but see Van Gogh's "Bedroom in Arles" slightly re-imagined.  The depth of the Hofmann is amazing and, thankfully, there is a bench across from it which allows longer contemplation.  I felt I was looking into an ever-expanding world which would magically reveal whatever I dreamt up.  I saw a muddy green vase with yellow dendrobium orchids arching out of it.  I saw blue composition books piled next to the bed.  I saw a brown cat crouching on the covers, etc., etc.

Rothko, Untitled, 1968

Teal black pulses

Above

Below

Ready to consume

The line

Flooding

And soon

 you will only

Know

 this

Inky darkness:

The red will be a memory.

Into your dark

I wanted to see.

I had no ticket

No entrée

To you,

Tangled of words,

Chimes in the gale,

Thoughts as

Spinner webs

Shimmering

Cottonwoods.

Come back,

I want to fix you

In my own sky,

That outstretch~~

I only breathe

& you shift,

unconstellate

starlike,

slip

Sometime in Winter

Seafoam banquette,

The plush, the lulling nap,

The velvet cove we were tucked in,

Bolstered with bronzed silk brocade,

Buttoned in pearly nacre.

Chiming sweet liquid crystal glasses.

Lush with thick white Riesling

Or floral lilts of Moscato

And melting flesh of pears.

And you, in plum~~

Lovely.

How it brought out that

Pale blue,

The melancholy winter field

Of your eyes.

And your jacket,

The light grey cashmere,

That brushed,

That playfully

Kittened up,

Begging to be touched.

As ivory notes

Shushed off

Slick sloped

Charming

Cambers.

Felted hammers fell.

A caressing tumble

thrummed

in a White Spruce

Hollow.

We dined on Artic Char,

Blackened and grilled crisp,

Yielding all sweet beneath,

Plump falling white flakes.

And the snow came down,

Cathredaled through windows.

Soft bright lights.

One 

&

then

Another.

Endlessly falling,

Silently into this night.

All edges softened,

Drifted and drifting,

Mysterious and jubilant.

A new world

Blanketed down

For us alone.

2:15 AM

In the night of cold boughs

quietly snapping,

the freight rolls through,

trumbling.

Wheels on seams

trouble the lonely,

rusty veined rows:

Chelank, chelank.

Threaded over dead roads,

stilled by old snow,

the empty cars still chatter:

Begin again, Begin again, Begin again.

Wordlessly the horn wails,

high and long

as it crosses under the wan curve

of the new moon,

spooning a vast

collapsing

into my unseeing sigh.

As I Gather Love Around

Macaroons & Chocolates in the dark corners

slowly blooming.  Our Blessed Lady

fingered full up and laced,

a pastel littering of petals:

What fun at last!   Hidden from sight,

your breasts are perfect on the other side.

I could barely breathe

To come put pins in your hand.

And I still have them,

those precious days of gum weed,

mad with mosquitoes and bees.

I cling to your voice, a tearing scream

so strangely illumined, far away, smiling,

curls falling forward as you work the Rosary

and the world explodes giving out kisses,

gently washing down where you left me

on your satin knee of shiny cream.

I pushed it and a big hole opened up:

A paper bird~~A skyless lark,

    Listening.

I have cried never more brilliant,

barely melting on your tongue.

I talked myself out of it.

The worry in the back of my mind

was like candy to me.

How thrilling and exhausting it all was:

a few cattails and Canada geese,

piles of cassette tapes,

tomatoes and cilantro and lots

of fresh cracked pepper.

That’s about it.

Threatening rain

Sustain    Sustain

Go out and come back

With a song again.

Tell me, what is it?

The gift floods rivers unstaunched,

blushing and random.   How so like a woman~~

plush violent veils, a blessing and comfort to me

so far from home and respect.

Who ruled me?

Metonymy, or the etymology

of oleander, hibiscus and jasmine

with Moroccan tea on the veranda,

putting broken glass in my shoe and Chopin.

Upstairs to linen as another nocturne tender

was red and wrecked

Quietly        Quietly

Carelessly torn around the corner,

slowly exhaling sweet juice,

looping chains,

pin-ups, rose-hips . . . .

Just beginning      Endlessly enchanting

A dirty raw mess

of a girl.

The water goes shallow, drenching slow.

Wings and legs         The morning so full.

You hold for me a savarin pillow,

sweet citrus and azure pools

melting into each other.

This vein of lead stretching out,

this low growing sea foam banquette,

shushes off there at the lake’s edge.

We will cross over to the island--places have been set.

Loveland is so lovely

between your fingers and between your thighs.

I hold close and kiss, hushing over until night.

Just as I expected, Hansel & Gretel

soon swallowed my sugar, my sweet.

And I loved you for hours through windows,

fragile and dear.

Yet, anything I could ask for

could not hurt the glaziery.

I could feel your smile:  wave washed warmth.

Tell me again that you love me,

palmed and drowned,

intoxicated,

an ant over a peony.

I won’t cry,

blessed by finches

tangled through my hair,

cloistered in blush burgundy silk,

as I gather love around.