“Some Are Crowned”

Some are crowned as apples, some as eggs,
Others wear the uniform of acorns scattered as the zeal
Of seasons turns by circumstance, some to reach the fields
And some to disappear. Whether treasures or the dregs,
The spike of thorns for classic torture, the prick of thistles for the symbol,
Implications dwindle in the winds and mountain snows will thaw
With no greater understanding than that nothing grows beyond the flaw
Bestowed. That fallow space displaces moistures by the bucket or the thimble
Best beloved, but nothing near the destiny of receptacles of grace wherein
The blessing and benefit is tested. Serenity, repose, and peace
Received, themselves the purpose while the price of life is death. Such ease,
So great a recognition of the burden’s broad design is thus resigned. In
That lethal insight of the germ we see how perfect are the needs,
That some fruits will be eaten and others reign again as seeds.

“They Make Such Declarations”

They make such declarations, don’t they? They bet their lives
On all they see and we’re inclined to give
Them credit for’t, and…perhaps they’re right, but then of course we live
As they do, fully eased, appeased; put on and off expressions
as if they were utensils, knives, or possibly our wives.
Production far exceeds the numbers, bounties burn by definition into
wastes along the warm Caribbean shores.
Invoking freedoms–as we who have are wont to do–
The sanctified continue to enjoy eternal noons
In this world’s latest bloated day. With upraised palms,
the intensity of incense fails to mask the telltale odour;
A mile beneath, the ooze is upward, vapours restive here and there,
And as the Titans yawn, Egypt bellows, shaking gown and hair
In all directions, scattering the saints of more than latter days, who dared
Her only yesterday to state her case, and lay her precious assets bare.
Migrants in the fault-lines smile, regarding who must rise and fall,
but when the prayers have ceased and denizens of Cairo weep
Surely, even Isis bleeds. Her boils drained, her coffers fleeced,
She voids another thousand years before she sleeps.

“Little Significance”

Little significance on whose lips reaction calls
The truth or what the colour of the robes of those who pause
To listen to the calculated mumblings of the laws,
The cause that measured adhans’ five-fold mantra from the minarets that draw
Upon the Great Announcement, Who it was Who met the woman at the well
And told her every last thing she’d done. It comes to me
That in the raising of a cabbie’s meter or the parson’s purse to ease
The laboured journey of prisoners in conspicuous living hell
That crop the weeds of Georgia’s highways for some small
Offence that no one in the highness of Tibetan caves
Would notice is splendid intercourse at tea
for spinsters in Vermont who salivate
In guarded whispers, salacious odes to grease the priests whose caterwaul,
Recalls the muezzin raised above it all in shibboleths of mitigated light
Through synagogues, mosques, and churches clothed in antiquated rites.

“The Ignorant Mentality”

The ignorant mentality finds
Exception to what’s proposed;
And closed and indisposed  to close
Inspection of the wound; then, proud philistine,
Contemplate well a rude rebuttal, adamant,
Implacable will obstinate against a so great a gift that’s offered.
Choose, righteously hold the line before the clearly proffered
Simple sacrifice. Come quickly, then, in heat; attend the chant
Of legions gathered in and for themselves. Relief is found
In ready fevered fractures formed by litigants in lethal
Indignation born not at all from wisdom. Withdrawal–
Now impossible–follows. Fissures and a fury in the sound,
Will attack and sack the messenger, who, barring flight
Becomes the consequence of his own eleisons in the night.
But summon courage in the circle,
Friends. Steps in blocks of four thrice struck
Upon an annual medallion, redux,
Minted first within the ancient cycles
Of the whole of mankind and reignited
In the physic; seasons separate are reunited
As the central orb permits but unrequited
In the mind’s most jaundiced eyes, the abstract cited
By the palm’s cartographers who say this Spring’s
Returned, but we know better.
Yes, of course, he’s seen these letters
From the Concourse on High, but in the ring’s
Obverse, so, too, are signs. The messages were ever slightly
Smudged in careless transit while the ring was never worn so tightly.

“A Weekend Well Affords a Sleep-in”

A weekend well affords a sleep-in, and a look
At what’s not been put to rest, and in the soft
And casual stroll through halls and closets, lofts
And corners of the home, the memories ordered, books
Rearranged, and music for the soul–the sound
Of dishes, cleaning, sweeping rugs, and then,
Of course, the nagging thought that if and when
The hours allow, perhaps a treasure found,
That deliberate search for lost and oft forgotten articles
That must be somewhere in this place.
He conjures histories in dusty, mundane thoughts—erase
The past, perhaps—and in the end to shift the particles
And portions of the present if only to reinvigorate and nurture
What’s behind the doors, beneath the floors, and repossess the furniture.

“The Girl Had Been No Problem”

The girl had been no problem at the start;
She was never late, she did her work, she raised
Her hand from time to time to disapprove or praise
Whatever happened in the class, a spark,
An edge in almost every session, eager to propose
That what was studied could not please
Her more, and as she rose, the breeze to ease
The burdens of her classmates–I supposed
Them all to be her friends. Then in time a rage
Came over her: she was absent from her seat,
Arrived at times so much more than late, she asked me to repeat
What had been covered in her absence. Clouds evolve, change;
I forced a meeting with the lady, “What is it you’ve discovered?”
Said she, “I may not pass this course, but neither will the others!”

“Ask Hucksers”

“Ask Hucksters”

Ask hucksters what they want and wander
Through oblivion to the source of specious theories,
Forecasts, and teapot tempests; reliquaries
That confuse Gertrude and her latest husband are set to thunder
In the index of both their worlds. The times are now aligned
To spend, to risk the whole at will. In the end, what binds
All capital are not the markets but the printing press–refined,
Its produce consigned as wallpaper in the study, and echoes of 1939
Followed closely on the air, subterfuge and incidentals
In the immanent reign of night–note the accent from the fireflies
That given space and stage enough are harmless as butterflies
And the common moth, winged creatures, given credentials
In an incremental vacuum. “Where’s the luminary of the age,”
They say, to feast his pen on renewable rites of slavery and sages?

“Someone Asked”

Someone asked if I am sad these days;
Every planet in his season takes on hues of gloom,
And even so while I have moons to tend, all too soon
The Sunday’s over. Monday holds sway but walks away
Without a “By your leave!” for yet another week
And I suspect there’re dawns enough and dusks in what I write
For Tuesday’s struggles in the flight of sample allegories in the night
And day to last through Wednesday’s pride and Thursday’s sleek
And curious ride across the skies to Friday’s constant aim
To put another world between the fire here below and light above
And consecrate remaining fading vision’s fields to yielding fruits of love
Beneath His gaze. And so, yes, I make rude remarks while I remain
Here between these earthly clouds that are my ceilings and sods my floors,
And daily run the gauntlet of the startled sleeping spider  in bananas
and apples rotten to the core.

“Simple Intelligence”

Simple intelligence of the thing, the gait
Of common sense and goodwill, hearts
And minds that hold not solely to the arts
Or sciences nor to the overweening good, the late
Great planetary frieze born of shibboleths allied;
The vicinity of sanity claims a corner
On anonymity and a former
Aphorism outspoken often but never really tried.
“Come, stay awhile!” they say, fingers on the trigger
Offering nothing less than what is guessed
About the world and, yes, he sees it at its best
Because it’s nothing less than what looks bigger
To anyone who’s never been there and has no history.
To the wise, simplicity; to the foolish, one more mystery.

“Roses”

Roses for longevity, yes! tokens of a former reign
And deep within their sacrifice reds and florist’s greens,
Are fragrances of time and place from passing scenes
Of nuance, puddles deposited from accidents and incidental rains,
And that was yesterday; tomorrow, a torrent drowning visions—
Foundlings of future stories—deliverance in blessings saved
For half a century and more, prescient tokens, brave,
Benign and lacking only guile to cut the ribbons
Of what’s left of reticence. There are dangers in the cellophane.
Please! If this then that; if inertia, stimulation
Then, of course, the sum and price of abnegation;
What the Greeks call horses, the Trojans, lethal gains.
Intentions swept aside, abandoned, rapture’s secrecy
Is hidden virtue confused with common sense and mediocrity.