2.01.2008

Addressed to Emily (from July) :

 And if nine muses in July slipped
downstream toward a swollen, stolen
summa... it were a felix loss
for Caesar's breastplate - broken jewel,


cool dove, stone sister - moosed-over
mossy garnet in a woodland of
autumnal jasper. Duels
of August - golden - over now -


are nevermore. Veteran stone,
an Inca sacrifice - a frozen child,
limed over, liminal (ditched
first-born son, whose knot


entwines the ceremonial sword
like twine around a strong man's
house - holds it for a host
of Jacobean thieves) turned


gypsy roost now, camel-humped,
bull-dragged and wobbly, a
knife-line violin, the last bow
of your father's father's ho-hum


poem... finished. Built. Where
the river flows both ways around
your coracle's felt node (or
upside-dome). So row


some more, toward summer -
toward hurtling chords of warmer
wind. For the grasslands of your
mini-Rome are no more rusted


than busted us (trust me on this).
Understand, we stand in good here
for the minor coppers who dug
her out of the lincoln logs - Scythians


with charlie horses carved into their
knobby, needy, bowlegged errors -
still, they hit the bell's aye - rose. And
this is a drawing-out of thundering wraiths.



11.13.99

(full excerpt here)

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