Sunday's Undersong

 

Play those flirty notes to
someone else's neighborhood infant child
topless in a too big lightbulb head
and white diaper
some son of another white man
polka laughing at passing cars in flippant melody
melancholy Sunday sounds
fresh lawn grass cut to a carpet's relaxed charade,

the sun's sharp evening shadows stretch
o'er renter's roof tops
angling over old shingles
and in the pine needle blasts cling
outstretched red bark fingering the last
golden curtains of the weekend,

over here it's the smoking hour
wreathed in a witch's crown climbing
fists of silver foxtail smoke
the color in my beard finally
beginning
to betray my age
openly defiant
those lonely notes
calliope through the chain link
yard notes
above the din of Sunday going down
a thimble-full of undersong
of dusted flower olive drab
and pyramidal
some truth hidden now laid barren
in these ageless bones,

glow of the hot fire in my glass
rush of blood
stiffening the life of my soul's manifest
the last of the light
vanishing
and now, we wait suspended yet again
this beacon in bondage to our every hope
to reappear
to steer us onward past morning,

open window
open so my little green gypsy can thrive
the crying infant son
the treason of gray growth
the flute notes flirting still.

TA  

Wally

 

I looked for him
blind in my left eye
and in my right eye
Wally masking his heartbeat
soft on the stone in his summer socks
wafting in warm light from a fire I could
   not find
Wally in waist hosiery laughing
ghosts among the vaults wailing too
climbing architecture
former house of God
of bat of bone
Wally in and among the dozen lost souls
a man at home
my fingers following
   where blind mice lead them
surfing along the slick rock girders
I hiccup

and the sound that left rose upward
climbing architecture
angels with faded fangs faded back
old hawks leapt into empty abyss
still, rose my throat's chuckle
Wally gazed on
Wally in his gifted two-step hard to catch
hard tonight
watched my breath burst through the rafters
reach starlight
and midnight's magic

was gone

Wally in glazed focus teary now said,
"see again,
   let there be light"

and there was light.

TA

Lost Nobility

 

I read SupeGirl when I was a kid too
I knew about booting up
stretching the rules
straight to the main vein
I knew what you meant
   when you wondered should she be stiff
glossy magazines
cigarette diaries
a tree with a shallow grave underneath,

these were learned lessons
fast
wasn't enough
asleep under the blue glow
big brother-turned-stranger thumbing soft strings
and the sound of the real world,

I've heard bears in the woods
I know what it means to become stale with fear
useless,
and I know what it means to be at peace
useless,
I read what the Devil did
carried the guilt 'cause
I believed it
I was so young dammit
spent too much time bent over yellow toilet water
wasn't fast enough
hadn't heard that elk
in that canyon
yet,

now I know
time is of the essence really
madness is not merely enough
elk pass often if you know where to look
singing to one another in the night
like whales beneath the sea
velvet crowns and silk stocking'd
guarding their wooded fiefdom
a baron's ballad echoing from the dark trees
lamenting lost nobility to the stars
a trumpeting to outpace Voyager's golden heartbeat
a bellows of exploration
a call to wildness
don't say you are alive
if you are not.

TA

The Black Wood

 

I smell you
the black wood
pulse of subsonic desire
the white stones
and wet pine
blurry shadows with yellow eyes
with dog breath

I awake to the scent like a song
cold wind just above the water
a morning fog
his majesty in velvet crown
with birdsong calls the sun to rise

I hear you
in hot hymnal
breath from the black wood
that alluring edge of whispers
tangled roots
footprints where silent the wraiths passed
silence to usher me awake
heart throbbing
the blood in me stiff
struggling to gain air
to tie my boots and start marching.

TA

Left Knee

Skinning you from your witch's robes
proffer your naked flesh to Old Moon
with wet lips plucking sadness in your voice
soft midnight blue like first snow
   settling on your round breasts

left knee

realizing too suddenly that capturing you
is impossible
not in four lines of long-form poetry
not from a man who isn't sure how to own his name
a break
and then a single left knee?
of what is essentially an endless linear loop
like time itself, I guess
like the way I loved you in that dark red wood
bleeding from the parts of you the asphalt took
so clumsy the wine hour falls
not from a poet nobody's ever heard of

three piece combination
right elbow one
left elbow two
Sal Paradise
and all those beat mother fuckers.

TA