What I didn't tell you

 

did I say how the snow crunched beneath those rusty runners,

the baler twine frayed in wet mittens,

how the gravel stuck to sand, but not rainwater?

did you get the musty smell of the haymow,

the mud nests of the swallows,

how my tears were pillowed in the black grey ruff of my dog,

facing north,

blurred as the shifting streaked curtains of the aurora

A linky-thing

Blue Butcher Orchid
A lovely scribble in honor of my birthday by dear Amanda Joy.

Nymphaeum

Crepe de chine flowers

Shine, then lose luster.

In wishes and dreams

We ask always for the other

And come to the pool

Misted over,

A mirror.

Feed Your Pain

You are holding it so tightly,

Trying to bleed it knuckle-dry with your fists,

Bury it in blankets and sighs,

Ashamed of your dear little pain.

But perhaps your pain has fur and teeth

And wants feeding:

Fresh walnuts and white goat brie.

Perhaps your pain bites sharp

In red rounds of radishes

Or stings keenly like vodka

In breathtaking gulps,

And only sniffs the salad

You offer it.

Perhaps your pain rises in chunking clumps,

A funicular up the slopes,

Flushed full of Bull’s Blood

And bittersweet chocolate covered marzipan.

Perhaps your pain is suffused

With tarragon

And melts so slowly over warm petit pans.

Perhaps your pain cries

High in summer trees

For fraises des bois in cream

And asks:

Darling, are you happy, or very happy?

Perhaps,           Finally,

Your pain stretches out next to you,

Trimmed green on a hillock

Of blazing white daisies

And goldenrod fringe,

And asks only      only

 for one more kiss.

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