Bettina’s Sestina

Ease of the saint in bartering wisdom,
the truant forager sleeps till midnight.
I wire the Pope about Sunday in the trees
where time leaps furtively into the ocean
scraping scars of winter, as the blind turn to day
and frail snow earns each divinity’s displeasure.

We stacked the weak until around midnight
not wishing to clock our candidate’s displeasure.
Without further concentration we spit into the ocean
and the ocean spits back, sliding us into the trees
where we consider cocoanuts of wisdom
flooding lithesome frameworks once a day.

Bettina my love, give it a shove, share your displeasure
let it creak softly by night or by day.
You can’t get by with the wizard’s chronic wisdom
unless the curl is restored in the starved mote of midnight
and the ladder withdraws from its suit of the ocean.
You’ll be eating for weeks in the thumbs of trees.

There is no dancing here to illuminate the day.
The edges of protection fade into the ocean
masked by scattered canticles of displeasure.
Sorrow fails the clever wounded, suspicious of wisdom.
They laugh like darkness lost in trees.
They have not heard Bettina’s sob unfurl at midnight.

Salt flails, trying to attract the eager evidence of trees.
The fish wouldn’t miss the crease in its wisdom
though it’s fashionable now to spray doubts by day.
While we serve at the king’s last known displeasure
Bettina arrives in her carriage near midnight
tearing down the forbidden easement to the ocean.

Gravity’s onion is peeled back by the ocean
where Bettina leases the imaginary trees.
Caves of inconsequence fade into midnight
but the placating minions live to nod another day.
Bettina, marine dwellers urge their displeasure
upon the rocks of your woeful whim of wisdom.

We stand upon the waters of wobbling wisdom
only to screech the measure for measure of day.
Bettina clutches yearnings in the curl of the trees.

Selena Sestina

Her version leapt upon the region singing
while the students in the planetarium wept.
There is no legion crawling here at the last
to rescue my misgivings from my fate.
Her elbows grazed the fortunate heart
and solved the noose around my fantasy.

No one's window reaches first to last
or conjures long rows of sanctioned fantasy.
If all the average ruins in the city wept
they would twist the noose around my heart.
Regard this tangent whirling toward your fate
which I unleash with quiet singing.

Her wrist caught the light that her skin wept
upon the fleece of graduated fate.
Did the flaring diadem dim panicked fantasy
or does the stream of pleading last
beyond the grip of minor fishes singing
along the edge of her porous heart?

The loss of affable reason took to heart
the grievance of the random singing,
but she could not help but cough at fate
for blaring out the most envious fantasy
as morning planted streams that wept
to catch the sunlight free at last.

There is no cure for the grip of fantasy
that grabs and tears at my vagrant heart
with grinning fatal noose of singing
of her eyes closing upon the tone that wept
as I pound red-headed leather on the last
and throw myself back on the future of our fate.

What song has tied the noose around my fate
and kept this famished memory for last?
Not even mine, but stretched across the heart
of generations, foreign stanzas singing
beyond the reach of fables or learned fantasy.
Did you hear the antic pilot deny he wept?

Her version's shaking changing phases fate
as it phases me, lost in the breath after breath of singing,
not yet choked by the noose that time has wept.

This dream will not be televised

Monumental grass,
placecards of wonder--

retreat in the vacuum of snow
retreat in the flavor of night
retreat in the style of shining
retreat in the stillness
of sudden sound

I'm telling you she loves verbs!
She knows three adjectives!
She's so great the elevator
can't stop at her floor
only her ceiling

it's the leaking mist on the brick
glow, where the monumental grass
smiles, the circulation of living glass
hair of the mother, father,
lover, child, cat, enigma

we will flood the baskets of crust,
the murmurs of autumn
the whirling muscles of night

register now for the
pale undershirt of dawn
greet the new flame
with spangles of innocence

leave the ache behind in
your other throat

no promise too viral
no stone too placid
no finger too hidden
no better dampness anywhere

one more word
come on one
more word just
another

I am the last of my kind
who rode a trolley
who swore with real wool
and paint, who watched the lantern
swaw until the chant began.

No one can see what I
have seen as if they care
as if the light smacking the air
spinning your mirror
were made of rooftops

and a questioning stare
that never leaves
and never returns
and is never there
but is always present
above and behind

the heaped bows
of the performing ships
honking their way into history
of your heart, of your
earnest nouns

and the feathers drip
with inky blood
while feral adventurers
sand the hull, mumbling
in neon. Hammers
bathe the dazed lobby
with scarred nerves.
If no one sleeps, whose
dream can this be?

Victory

We have seen your visions of platonic sluts
gurgling in the backwash of victory.
Stables of ermine corrugated peaceniks
verging on plumes, nailed to freezing
clear rain. The evidence is
formulaic. Worship from urgency
sells books and flares blood
but reality frags its irritants, bulging
with flu-like symptoms.

I think the reason for this is
evident. It creeps through
the version of fatality you
urge on the unrequited.

Idiotic flame-throwers on sale
and belabored grills flopping
on the shore. There was
no prison so clocked
as your agenda for the banished fame
of our weary and sincere.

Now that you eat wet forms of
tribulation and spit out the former
fuming reliance on fortune,
yes, you can exact the pallor of your
resentments and call them deep
sparkles of destiny but

the clinging clanging dancing plate
inside the wobbly body
flips through the glare with its
own long yawn
regardless. Regard
is for us. This is
where you truly fail.

12/04

hastening, the obligations

hastening, the obligations
furl, furrow the pinky
of fair Minerva, bathed
in fright. Edge

of leers, pounding
smooth with repeating

the bones of her hand
fit in your hand

near now, the burping drip
and corona of fuzz,
as she returns in her abrupt
pale orbit, humbly
awaiting worship.

Slipping the mousetrap
of identity, reedy
wind, you remember
the ocean. The ocean!
Just in time.
She can't get you now.

near normal


oh let the candle
handle the last
details

your knees will lock
as you don doublet
and whistle---

each bleak step ferments
the reminder,
eggs
on the rivals to your

green flame,
bundled
like so many back aches
in tribute to fur,

we walked,
arched
by penniless softwoods
unable to buy their freedom.

Black waves cut
knotted fingerprints,
leaving
our normal amazement.

1/05