12.14.2015

Deserto Rosso


RAVEN-VERSTS

In the film like a dream, or film-like dream,
amid inalienable pine-
swamps of yourself, a line
scratched by crow divides team

from ox, sheep from flock.  Ineluctable
quiddity of ramshackle
vernacular.  You will tackle
each day’s unaccountable trouble,

snaking sly-inching replicas
of raven-versts across
your brow (Voronezh
barb-shears).  & those hills, alas!

in Tuscany... & here the tang
of spoiled fish, seaweed,
salt-marsh...  Hobo-reedy
outcast, you’ll note the rusty clang

from vertical train-tracks – glamorous
icons of onion-dome
supremacy, driven home
by battery ram.  Yet chasteness

still shines from Black Sea mirror
(gray pebble in a seagull’s
beak).  Galilean silence
rustles on lakeshore.  After the furor

of a jealous djinn tears past, the sun
will peek forth without wrath –
retrace your raven-path
in filaments of violet, moss-green.

12.14.15

(Chester, live cat, in the rocker; metal replica of Pushkin on the floor)

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