Poems

 The Parisian Tablecloth

The petals from the tulips Cecelia brought

have been falling for days, littering Bellevue

and parts of the 20e as far as Butte Chaumont.

A grease stain has yellowed the blocks

before the Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est –

a morsel of cheddar forgotten after dinner.

Someone – was it Mrs. G? – spilt the beaujolais

whose stain runs now from the Grand Palais to Parc Monceau.

Another vintage has sullied Stalingrad;

and over there -- if you’ll move your napkin, please --

see? A petite deluge of gravy overran the zoo

and children’s park in the Bois de Boulogne last Thanksgiving.

I must confess to loosing the coffee flood

three days before Christmas. It was only a minor glitch

with the French press, but it left the brown watermark

from des Invalides to Montparnasse, and west

as far as the Café de Suffren where

once we ate sanglier a la forestier

all those nights ago

when we were young

and it rained and rained

and the lightning cracked.

published: Jefferson Monthly 

 *

Biloxi Morning

A thick and sullen beating of wings, the Palmetto bug

clambers for position in the dark wooden shutters.

I can make out its shadows in the predawn.

Little broken pieces of its dark fussing, there in silhouette.

When you get back with the beer we will sit outside

on the porch and watch the sun come up.

published: Verseweavers 

 *

The Mouth of the Rhone

Tell me a lie about horses, she said

The white horses sleep during the heat of the day.
They find deep pools and walk in up to their heads.
They sleep thus, almost floating, their great eyes closed,
home to dreams of a time when the sky was all flamingos.

 published: MARGIE

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The Zone

Special units of the MVS police the Zone. 

We had hoped for ice cream, 

we found ashes.

We live here because this is our home. 
Every March the geese come up
the Dnieper and the Pripyat
to the gleaming of cesium isotopes.

Every March when the geese come
the drunks parade all afternoon
in the gleaming of cesium isotopes
on the Boulevard Raskolnikov.

Drinking all afternoon they parade 
platoons of mismatched shoes march
in step on the Boulevard Raskolnikov
my hand on your beautiful Russian ass.

Platoons of the mismatched walk here. 
We live here because this is our home, 
me and your beautiful Russian ass. 
Chernobyl means black grass.

This is our home — my head to your belly.
How do we feed hungers that come upon us? 
Chernobyl means black grass.
As we have learned, so do we serve,

but do we feed hungers that come upon us?
Red to me as any young commissar,
some learned behaviors do not serve me. 
Instead, I will bury my heart in you.

You are now red to me, sweet commissar, 
Marxist red painted here and there
I would bury my heart in you.
The nightjars gackal in the trees.

The Marxist red paint fades to nothing.
Chernobyl means black grass.
The night jars gackal in the trees.
We are the fervor, the oil lamp.

Chernobyl means black grass.
Every fall the geese follow the rivers south. 
We are the fervor, the oil lamp.
We live here because this is our home. 

published: Verseweavers

  *

Christmas Eve

We are the last dancers today when the hall closes at four.

The market noise almost drowns the Canaro milongas.

We laugh at our gliding over stumbles of my sloppy lead.

Today the dance is pivots and trespies.

We hold this flame to the face of Winter’s geometry.

She used to take the train north

and stay in the Mallory Hotel in Portland.

She would eat a secluded dinner in the dining room.

Paired white columns with gold painted capitols

below a thick white cornice, chandeliers and indirect lighting.

If she could have come again this year

she’d have had Yorkshire pudding with the roast beef

because its Christmas. The dining room is a quarter full.

The same quiet people. Waiters in black and white;

at each place, little paper cups

filled with candied Jordan almonds in white and pink.

Later tonight, there will be church

another tangible dock to visit dazzled and amused

like a tour of a marshland as we become exotic birds,

we wade in the shallows, boasting of our crocodiles.

We will hold candles and hug strangers.

After church, a fire of fir and madrone,

we open the presents that have lain

beside the black Japanese chest in the living room.

And with the bill, a last paper cup arrives

this time with salted walnuts which sometimes

she eats and sometimes she saves for later.

published: Nimrod

*

My Room

My room was the room of my grandmother until she broke her hip and went the way of her mother before her.

1954, the land crabs clatter over the concrete outside my window. My father steps again and again on the memory of the same scorpion.

Three showers a day to buffer the heat, our clothes not dry since April. A Grumman Albatross rumbles overhead to land in the bay out beyond the grove of coconut palms.

For a special Sunday night we drive to Biscayne Key to eat in a restaurant with air conditioning; but usually for our Sunday dinner we’d walk up to Carl’s, to sit on the screened porch under the black ceiling fans that cranked the cigarette smoke and hot odors of frying chicken around and around in an imagination of an offshore breeze, a zephyr from Cuba where Batista still rules, counting out turnips for the peasants.

 published: Verseweavers

  *

The Railroad Station of a Small French City

The poem ended naturally and so I couldn’t fit any more in. 
Such anticipation like ozone.
Now at last we are aquatic, radioactive, tribal.

All eyes swing to me as if I were a crow. My explanation? 
Startling woman with friction. I didn’t use all
the words: Chianti, rafters, risks, fallen and salt.

Let me mouth you like music, a bite of peach. 
Conjecture and amplitude are our words. 
Craig wants us all to write a page on death,

so he can make them into a small book on the subject. 
I’m not sure why. I have a very long list.
When relatives visit something is always torn up.

The sky, an endless blue, is absolutely realistic.
We stand waiting before the dark-wood shuffling
around the edges or else the lights short out at Christmas.

And then it’s my turn. All night we winced, hidden sparks 
beneath the sky of disappearing trust and yellow storms; 
this whole Western morning: inner bone.

It’s always odd times of year that we go to Shore Acres. 
In the pond with the bronze egrets, lilies,
there is a very long list, a small book on the subject.

We could sit on the sunny Mexican shore
on straight back chairs leaning against the stuccoed wall 
above us a sunshade of music and palmetto.

Startled by the woman with the crooked smile
we give our names. We are married you and I.
We have deep anticipation like ozone like glass like varnish.

We hold Sibley guides, binoculars and paper cups
from Starbucks. The radiation sifts in; nearby
Apaches sit on folding metal chairs. 

 published: MARGIE

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