some more old hurricane music from Grassblade Light:

 1


 
 Limping, climbing like a Lazarus
 from the well of amor, you wave goodby.
 Stigmatized and astigmatic, she.
 Passing beyond alarums, carnivals

  
 in the distance, Mardi Gras
 in the bent mirror, marvelous,
 far-off now, larmes
 des choses...

  
 your worn shoes.
 Hand waves.
 Left-over
 leaves.

  
 A valentine arrives from prison:
 a feather; a blue iris
 enveloped in glass;
 a tiny lead pellet.  Anon.

  
 The thickness of the lens slows light:
 ask Lena how it's done, Einstein.
 Absolute zero, swimming, sun.
 Blackstone here – was all for nought.

  
 Like an arrow like a grain of sand
 through your heart, you carry it
 and live (livid, limpid, lit,
 littoral, ghost).  Like a wave

  
 in your hand, the eye turns inward,
 a wave diving into itself; and a gnomon
 recedes toward noon, toward
 everyone.  You keep your word.


    
                 *


  
 Astigmatism of a reading Mary
 reddening, in green – a Magdalen's
 uncontrollable waving, here anointing
 knighthood's sword herself-to-be.

  
 A black twig shaken by the early wind.
 You hear the sound rustling
 in the tumbling sky-tumulus
 to come a two-man canoe wounded

  
 in the womb tum-tum she comes
 – so you heft her like a harlot's
 chaplet of quintuplets' fifty-
 two year-old foals – flagrant sums,

  
 fulgent, horsing across Mongolia
 – down tomorrow's lanes.
 Only thin lines –
 until angels in a J cry gloria.

  
 Toward noon in Miami –
 when eye, reflection, shadow
 merge in heisted iceberg.  Slow
 light - seeping, sleeping.  We.

  
 Solid, airy teatime, Alice!
 Parallelogrammar's cookies two-
 in-wonder!  I – whew!
 Mad – limey – delicious!

  
 Think you?  Yes!
 Thanks be!  And here's More
 come from an alcove to borrow
 your precipice – this time on ice –


    
                 *


  
 Her eye can wave good boy in fingerpoint
 so straighten up, Sun of No One, soon –
 her father's very weathery (monsoon
 ready or not).  Ash-wedded Lent

  
 was Poe – spent like a moth
 rolling murky balls in Baltimore.
 His silver adversary swore
 to ratify his vein, his troth, forsooth –

  
 of the elect, and ineluctable.  Inedible,
 for money.  Mammy's eyes he was.
 Iced blue.  J-crosted, crust-fried
 satin western chicken butt, indelible.

  
 A pencil on an island
 in the shade.
 Well-mud –
 crucified, battered, solid

  
 sand.  Spidered through a skull
 of mouldered glass – your
 basement story – sour, sure –
 ours, bare.  Pulled off the hull.

  
 A blarnicle.  By friction.
 Heavy work of art, held high
 by doom – by mordant glue.
 Mortal dew.  Suction

  
 cup of tiny tears, for hours and hours
 dropping slow – less balm than woe.
 That's gravity for you!  That gravity for you.
 That grave.  That you.  Yours.  Her.


    
                 *


  
 There's a Mardi Gras in the distance, Maggie –
 let's go.  Wave goodby now, honeychile.
 Goodby now, land.  Goodby, lamb.  Girl,
 I'm empty-handed now.  Goodby.

  
 A grain of sand in your throat
 or dregs in the tea, some crumbs –
 and you come up for air all thumbs
 and stuttering - a heavy Joseph coat

  
 over your shoulders – sopping wet.
 Doubled-over, the bend's heartburn
 stings your eyes – mustard bean
 pole-vaulted chicken crutch-in-a-net or

  
 weightlifting waiter-for-life –
 how can I explain
 a level plain?
 Noon light – a cautious knife's

  
 blackout.  Ore, blue, rampant, lion
 down – moniker black, milk
 Levite sky, with Moloch,
 kneaded, whining – warped, in chain –

  
 or Bluejay (fletched at cardinal point).
 He shakes his head – yells –
 seven heavens, seventeen hells
 debouch – with camel, embonpoint.

  
 Benighted with stars and stripped
 for tussles with an angel, he –
 he pencils in – see?
 See!  Another dantesque Danish whip.


       
                                      2.18.99