Saturday, March 19, 2011

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.


Wednesday, March 16, 2011

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.

Monday, March 14, 2011

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

Sunday, March 13, 2011

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.


Sunday, March 6, 2011

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.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

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.