TANGLED LEGS

(2 POEMS)

A WARM BREEZE ON APRILS' WINDOW SILL

To Sylvanwillow & Versailles Leaf

Forgive me if I seem oblivious to your fame.

I can't get past the butter of your sunflower skin

and honey licked mane.

You smell of the promise of the promise

of tender flesh and tangled legs,

more tender still.and I can't shake the feeling that you're

only a warm breeze on Aprils' window sill.

If the taste of your belly matches

the berry of your eyes'

p r o m i s e

.

I will live on nothing but your flesh until,

my eyes open no more, nor see.

There may I live,

in my own

little

me

¿

"DECODE THE PHYSICS"

To, TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

                           sounD takes its time; travels slower than a bullet

                     eyes extinguIshed by fire

                                 who's Cavernous mouth forth spills

                                             tHe thunder, in time, lingered

                the same thunder that tOok

                                    away my breaTh

                                           purloined frOm the distant hill

               an equal exchange, vibrant, fragMent of lead plunder

                                                  fragmented bY trees as springswell, sputter under

             the concealed, manifested fast, as tHe bird's wings' flutter

                                     from the fume Of the heat form rose

                                   the soft shell, Who's yolk wrens the tides' - asunder

                              betide, bechanCe, betake, befell

                         becoming, not my weAthered expression, nor glance's mutter

                                              as a dull kNife or

                                         deflated pIllow

                                               an esthetIcs' dust . cigarillos' billow

                 nationalism through intermitteNt radiance, obtrudes from each gutter

                                      pray, behold The carcass of the vulture

                                                  sHadows on waves

                                          audIo expression,         wake!

                         mute the viSual voices' quake

                                        our Lives our stupid things

                   held together by shadOws strung of echos' strings

                           of tragedy born of Vile born city of hope were desires' bell rings

                                         besieged facEs of cells bloom not, sing not, no refugé

                                        arose the Ruin of a rose's rot

                                                piErced

                            an amour fuSee

                                a lean sIlhouette

                                soft Shelled emotes'

                              curTails, solid to smoke

                     fumes as a cIgarette

who swallows my hapless rheToric.   

additionS that come to no final sum*

                    They make the thunder

                    deafenIng the tongue and box ear's rung dumb

              but the eyes are Left intact - cruelly - see

4 walls of mirrors' memory* ceaseLess, enigmatic eyes, the least lucky

eyes   extinguished   by   fire

what expression was I to give to comfort myself

y  e  s  ,    m  y    e  y  e  s  ,    t  h  e    o  n  l  y    e  y  e  s 

e  y  e  s   b  r  e  a  t  h  i  n  g   i  n   t  h  e  b  e  l  v  e  d  e  r  e

fair  eyes  that  heard  death  mama  near  is  calling  me  hither

e y e s t h a t h e l d t h e m s e l v e s o u t a s m y h a n d

Clapping  two  coins  pays  from  the  army's  cashier

Summoned   back   to   wither   here,   dust

Among the soft grass of the belvedere.

to  corrode  as  iron's  rusts

my    last    tear

d  i  e  d

drier

am

                                                                  I

* Lines or partial lines from poems by Tennessee Williams            

("TANGLED LEGS" 2008)