Lullaby

Arbors of clientele,

physiognomies

cast by articulate

leaves.

 

An owl's coo and flutter the coda

as rustling leaves lull us prey 

to strange aspects.

Lockdown Spleen

 

Barricade streets, confine living souls,

you cannot kill the love inside us.

Throw families out into those streets,

starve the poor,

let the elderly perish without a word

from loved ones...

Be clinically cruel as you wish,

it will not kill the love inside us.

You only kindle bonfires that shall 

make motes of your feckless cruelty.

Wealth of Nations

The Gates are horrid, 

built with the bone and sinew

of indigent test subjects.

Far away on private isles

our wealthy benefactors

are deflowering children

or drinking their blood

to procure eternal youth.

In boardrooms quid pro quo

proudly slaughters millions 

to reap robust return.

Pandemic and shutdowns for subjects,

mandating untested but profitable 

vaccines to mint trillions for gatekeepers.

The Prick Kicks

Cocky Paphian, teeth bared boldly, 

savors tastes of comestible booty.

His tactile leer caresses flesh

on Sun sopped promenades.

He struts erect as a rooster,

relishing each coup de foudre.

Reflection

       

The Eugenicist at Home

At his mahogany desk

constructing a standardized test,

calipers dangle from the wall

like lynched relics.

                                                      An unconscious numerologist,

                                                      he avoids six and embraces seven.

His bookcase to the right

stuffed with titles by

Murray, Attenborough,

and Flynn is dusted

by a servant whose name

he never recalls.

Her dark face 

entails an occult

erasure.

 

Philoctetes

Lit a pyre and burned again

for an abducted princess.

To Troy he sailed 

with Heracles' bow

to snuff twin flames.

Hera sent a serpent

to cross his aims. 

                                        He's bitten.

                                        The wound stinks.

                                        The poison rots

                                        as each hero shrinks

                                        away fleeing his

                                        accursed state.

Until twin wits plot

to purloin his bow...

But good faith prevailed

and provided a cure

for all he ailed.

On the Good Foot

 

Draped Pedestal

 

It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night

The Timid Suitor

 

Save the shaky palm which strokes the brow,

  what can untimeliness do to assuage?

Censure wayward star, contritely pen a vow

  and wish your eyes smile on the page?

Harvest

Breaking the circle of page and path we step aside.

     Harvest Moon, pregnant with soft gold,

                  denudes heaven.

It posts low,

vigilant over spoils.

Pull back the sheets. 

Cover mouths.

Mute pages sleep,

dreams reaped 

by prying eyes.

 

Nightfall

We cannot still desire or silence fear.

This print, Nightfall on pale as day pages.

Sun tucks eye under margin 

to close glaring Tribunals.

We're sentinels of night.

White blanks intimate explicit silences.

Every page a canvas where desire passes

kept breath. 

At Sleep

Wilds of her dark hair
alive with mystery

August's potent scent
steeps still air

As shared breath braces
the hush of chapels.

Parmenides

Only one story and one way
appearing many that is.
Never disparate, but facets
full of all that is.

I turned away from Pythagoras 
and all he learned from the Egyptians.
Parts wise, but the whole
marred by his own
artful knavery.

My chariot Plato nicked
for his treble soul
shall never roll.
And the Sail,
whether white or black,
still swells full
in Sailness.

Temporal Economy

Days short as a breath,
nights lasting epochs...

Youth's extravagance
mints time's mounting debt.

Words written or spoken
hang swords overhead.

Conscience, a shrill picket,
disturbs placid temples.

Articulation's Progress

Born so stuffed with words
all we do is laugh or cry.

Pulse a deviant metre,
resonance sculpts its
scales in the ear.

Whispers inside engrave worlds
to find shelter in or escape.

Ultimately we cede expression and accept
the eternal peace of Heaven's boundless prospect.

Il fait très chaud

Intime oui

Sweet Depths and Splendor

Inauspicious Summer's Face

"Un souffle vague émeut les sphères vagabondes/Mais nul esprit n'existe en ces immensités."

Ode to Button Noses

Piquant and fine, exquisitely it doth blow.
Cloaking within crude hair and buggers that grow.
Peak raised high to savor best heaven sent scent.
These are the noses that tweak mine eyes ardent.

A Hike

Blue above soft as cheek's down,
wake of her scent buoys each step.
Grass bends pliant underfoot,
giving way like lovers' limbs.
Dew decks skin in dazzling raiment.
We stride in time to sylphs chirping.

Vampire's Tango

(all quotes from "How to Quiet a Vampire" by Borislav Pekić---from Postscript 2 "Professor Konrad Rutkowski's Secret Testament, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" and "Editor's Notes")

III.I. a. "An intelligent man must rationalize his murder logically, with higher motives, he must spiritualize it with ideology, complicate it with precedents, in brief---he must give it a theoretical foundation."

IV.4. "Nihilism proceeds in two directions that converge only at the conclusion. On the one hand everything is declared to be an illusion. Naturally, in a world of illusion, not even betrayal can be real. It too is illusory. If the world does not exist, there can be no betrayal of that world either. On the other hand, everything is worthless, primarily because it is illusory, but beyond that it's worthless in and of itself. Everything is empty, repetitive, past....And in a world of no value, betrayal can even be good. Because if this world is evil and condemned to ruin, everything that hastens that ruination is good."

IV.5. "Soon even words will become superfluous.They'll be replaced by the initial letters of concepts and then by numbers. People, of course, will keep suffering and dying, but they'll endure it more easily, because misfortunes will lose their critical significance for life and become logical categories."

IV.6. "Need it be stressed that an intellectual can only scorn such a life? The fact that he himself is to blame for it, doesn't take away his right to scorn it. On the contrary. That right thus becomes even more justified. Because who can know the shortcomings of his work better than the creator himself? But, at the same time, he fears life as well. He hates the life he's betrayed, a life that now, of course, doesn't offer him anything but new betrayals and deeper falls."

V.3. "Alienated even from our sense of guilt and, because that's our sole unmistakable mark, alienated from the essence of the world, we begin to hate that world, as if it had been created not by our own hand but had always been here. We flee from it in disgust into a molehill of personal security. We finally feel relieved. We think that a way out has finally been found and that the dichotomy has been resolved to everyone's satisfaction: reality is happy and all our principles are present and accounted for. Or as the Greeks put it: "Just as the bread is good, the dog is sated."

VI.2. If such insanity is given the opportunity to gain a foothold in history and become one of its driving forces, the results are worldwide movements, religions, fanaticisms, or collective missions, But if, on the other hand, these individuals fail to grab hold of history, they write delusional books or rush through the streets bearing crosses on their backs, foaming at the mouth and brandishing knives. In the first case, the escalation of insanity sometimes even assumes the guise of civilization. Entire state machineries are placed at insanity's disposal so it can create a new world with their help and according to its own warped image of itself. In the second case, the story ends in an insane asylum. When all is said and done, I have to say I don't see any particular justice in that.

Editor's Notes

"In part VI, section 2 of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, in one of his lucid moments, Professor Rutkowski discusses the escalation of insanity in history. This is a significant and bitter confession for a man who openly agreed with Freud that "our greatest hope for the future lies in the Intellect(the scientific spirit, reason) over time attaining a dictatorship in the inner life of mankind."(It has already almost reached this state, but nothing in our lives is any better.)"

My Imaginary European Friends II

An arrow shot into the Sun
above sky blue seas---
We swam and kissed clean
salty skin.
Méta's tan arms and face,
dark hair stroked by breeze,
hoop earrings swinging in time,
yellow floral top sans bra
foregrounding erect nipple...
Her eyes penetrated mine.
We eclipsed the Sun,
outstripping curtained worlds.
Our eyes always entwined
but aware of everything else,
a backdrop to being
inside each other.
Her image on dark glass
a better shade than Helen's---
never inspiring bloodbaths,
only carnal immersion.

My Imaginary European Friends I

First place must be given to the State Dept
funded scholar in Madrid, gracious as she's severe.
Stern and glorious face, so beautiful it's
terrifying. Says everything and still shushes
with the mystery of all beauty.
Her mother of ancient Prussian Nobility,
father a wealthy Mediterranean merchant.
She picked up chain smoking and
self doubt from him, hauteur and
spontaneous grace from her. We fell
out taking opposing sides
when a celebrity mocked
the Fascist granddaughter
of a dead Fascist.
She had the misfortune of knowing
everything(Faith) and valuing nothing(God)---
including herself who, she'd always say,
"Fell short."
Her mother adored Rilke. His precious
letters to Prussian Noblewomen, redolent
with flattery and polished sentiments, gave
her immense pleasure. Every time I
eliminated or passed gas, regardless of
what orifice issued from, I knew our
tenuous bond would sunder. 
She rarely talked about her father. Save
for reservations about smoking, which
she shrugged off as a "Catholic thing".
I thought of my habits and...
I miss her more than I fear 

her disapproval.

De Natura Kirsten

To Mnemosyne

Hair blonde April sunshine,
neck's down velvet lamb's-ear...
Eyes clear Aegean noon,
laughter blessed birdsong...
Smile a Parian quarry.

Her kiss a pleasant Sirocco,
sweet as pink Moscato.

Verbose but verbless strokes...

Clauses and similitude mount
feral as her thighs grip.

In starry shade

Raysun d'Être

In this Duchy of Downpours
the Sun is an ideal.
It shines bright when we close eyes,
blinds keen as a kiss.

The well lit streets shine up
and shade damp clothes dull.
The sky's frown is shunned
as crowds seek shelter
in dry oases of gold light
and white décor.

Close to Close

"We lost you there", the nurse whispered.
Took his bite then his breath,
as rain buries sunshine.

Crystal lauded in exalted tones
of mystics describing transports
of bodies flooded with Holy Spirit.
Daybreak hunting mushrooms in wet grass
and the soft musk of soaked leaves...

Fair is fair, like ecstasy and death.
He touched both and knew mysteries.
Poets plying wordsmithies never
sing sweet as birds at sunset.

Close to close,
they cut off his clothes
before they burned
him to powder
fine as Crystal.

Helen Unshaded

Every ray of Sun strokes me
with the lustful warmth
of a sharp stylus' prick.
Flame gushes from heaven,
anointing my form in fire.

I am the world, idol of all.
Unwritten name on
every book's cover,
idolatry be damned.

Leash Life

The Snow Maiden

To freeze or bleed to death is the same.
One welcomes warmth as life wanes.

The Snow Maiden
culls gelid hearts.

Her touch intoxicates,

a pitiless elation.

She does not believe in tears.

They, like breath, turn to ice

which breaks on heartless earth.

Ovid at Sea

My step wise to every rise
in the cobblestones of Rome.
I stumbled at Julia's backdoor
and Rumor whispered
my name in August ears.

Careful to hush His Ganymedes
and legacies He forced
  His offspring to suffer,
Augustus hurled thunderbolts
   from Olympus.

Verses my fame, now my Lake Trasimene!

Women of Rome,
How can I live without you?
Your tales, smiles,
tails, and scents Mnemosyne
cannot resuscitate.

Inauspicious undulation of the Sea...
my gut sinks, but not so low
as my heart.

Death is Noble, Dying Ignoble

Life abhors the dying
and honors death.
The living hasten
their span of breath
into ground or urn
and call it rest.

Dying lust,
feral and unseemly,
honors life in greedily
rasping its last gust.

Proud life scorns to draw a breath
and welcomes the firm grip of death.

Quarantine

Orange cones, barbwire, and signs mark the terminus,
streets barren as salted earth.
No rustle of footsteps, murmur of voices, or crisp flutter
of birds in flight. The drone of electricity and motors gone.
The hollow city stretches like skeletal remains of a mythical giant
for miles. Haven't touched another hand or face for months.

When the contagion spread black wings over the city
it disdained to take me. My wife and two children lasted two months.
I still have pictures. I've built palaces for them in dream.

When the military came to cordon off the city they didn't
bother rescuing survivors because, I imagine, they suspected
we carried contagion or were in league with it.
Probably made up a name for us like "Viral Terrorists".

Run into others at least twice a week. I keep my distance, avoid
eye contact, and dare not speak. I resent other survivors more than my
own survival.
Down to three cans of soup, two boxes of cereal, and five water bottles.
Each day brings fainter whispers of miracle.

I hate this life. I fear losing myself and memories of those I love more.

Sobriety Cruise Lines

The boats are all sober.
Passengers drink sweet cocktails
on disinfected decks,
Redskins dead or fronting Casinos
for Western Capital.
Endless green seas stretch
under gray heaven.

The cash boxes and
prison ships have won.
Arthur hails from
the virgin page,
"Smash them!"
Nobody hears
over the calm drone
of gray-green
above and below.

Grave Solace

The Dead know our hearts.
They can list every
insult and lie calmly.
This is their Heaven and Hell.

Still, liberation is theirs.
No longer must they live with us.

Take solace.
The day comes when we'll know
living hearts just like them.

"Where are the Bichons of Yesteryear?"

Oracle

Blue skies and blades of grass,
Rising seas and red leaves,
Exquisite the scaffold
and tyrant's severed head
as flames lick armories.

The Hulks

  I'm never the shipwreck,
    but ever the wreckage
     
    Lyre like lungs sails
       plucked by tides
       and sea monsters

    Bones rotting wood
      dismantled by the
        circumambient
     vale of briny tears
     
  From these depths
  the Sun wanes pale
   as an unreachable
     pill promising
           peace.



   

Australia is on Fire

Saturn

Shackled in shame behind the Sun,
thoughts ripened
by everlasting night
and set on vengeance,
He returns from exile.

Ravenous,
He craves
all living flesh
that mocks Him.

His hunger never sated.
No rest until,
belly bursting,
splitting a grin,
everything taken,
proudly He leans back
pruning the masticated.