The Blue Canopy

"And yet was she of esteemed lineage, my daughter, and guarded a deposit of the seed of Zeus that had fallen in a golden rain."—Sophocles                                        

                                             The spring, recumbent in the valley,
                                             Has inflamed the lord of heaven,
                                             Wroth and foaming, venting fury
                                             On the sweet pubescent belly  
                                             Of a smiling nine-year old
                                             Schoolgirl belle dame sans merci.                                          
                                             She, the mistress of the fountain—
                                             Tempter of the sky defiler—
                                             Left her limbs in some disorder
                                             As she slept in plaid attire,
                                             Open to the sky and smiling,
                                             Mirror smooth (the sweet dissembler).
                                             Her molten skin was bathed in splendor
                                             (Moutonnée—imbued with beauty,            
                                             Branded with the sky’s own blazon,      
                                             Cloud-tattooed and heaven-complexioned,
                                             Steeped, infused and impregnated
                                             By the God of ageless summers,
                                             Crescent, youthful, swollen, spilling,                                        
                                             Pansied, pied and gilliflowered,
                                             Fetlock-deep in river sedges,
                                             Where the liquid noon reposes
                                             On her gnat-embroidered fringes
                                             And her margins stitched with skimmers—
                                             Gaily carpeted with duckweed—
                                             While the water winds and surges
                                             Through her eely-throated channels—    
                                             Dappled like a painted pony,
                                             Exuberant, enthralled, coquettish).                                          
                                             First, the tarnished mirror darkens
                                             As the storm cloud’s violet pouncet
                                             Pounces on the dirtied water.
                                             Distressed and angry, turbid, swirling,
                                             The river’s back erects its storm quills.
                                             There is a whipping and a foaming
                                             Then the water licks its bruises,
                                             Stills, and smooths its rushy tresses.
                                             Honey of indignation glistens
                                             On the river’s lips, defiant,
                                             Hectic, panting, lightly parted,
                                             Shrouded in a virgin’s pallor,
                                             Burning on the wounded water
                                             Where the woodland smokes and rustles
                                             In the evening’s light and fire.
                                             Her smoldering heart is dark green agate.
                                             Shafts of sunlight burst and splinter.
                                             With a chill and slippery shiver
                                             She shows her sky side, fish-flash silver.      

                                             3/7/2014

Moon In His Teeth

                                  O for a May, a Candy, a Charlotte
                                              (By custom barb-wired and fenced)
                                    An innocent child, a sweet little harlot
                                             To rub my tumescence against.

                                    With legs like shoots and eyes like rain
                                              Gray on a green hillside,
                                    Impatience a little against the grain
                                              And a port-wine stain on her side.

                                    Fitted to still an old man’s grief
                                              And lifelong-festering sore
                                    With softness pliant beyond belief
                                            And the gossamer things she wore.

                                   Sweet pointy nothings emerge into view
                                              Each like a Spring dew drop
                                   When she handstands (“Look what I can do!”)
                                              —Both popping out of her top.

                                  Indeed, you turn nothing inside out,
                                              Sweet little upsidedown
                                  Girl with a circus flair and a shout
                                            From the gob of a fat-faced clown.

                                  His lips are stained with moon-white foam
                                              And he takes the moon in his teeth
                                  Every night with a book at home
                                              And a sore that the gods bequeath.  

                                And ever since, with a sigh and a wince,
                                              He breaks the eel on his knee
                                  And bloody tints from his fingerprints
                                              Disfigure his harmony.

                                  The stars effervesce in the liquid sky
                                              And boil up out of my loins
                                  And dissolve into mists when you are by,
                                              And the sun into golden coins.

                                  2/8/2014

Woman on Phone Drives Jeep into Herd of Cows: Cops (Police say Daisy Cowit was on her cell phone at the time of the accident)

Police arrested a 21-year-old New York woman who allegedly drove into a herd of cows in Orange County, seriously injuring three of them.

Authorities say Daisy Cowit, of Wawayanda, was using her cell phone when she plowed her Jeep Liberty into the cows on Mountain Road last Monday. Six of the cows were struck, and two farm workers were nearly hit, police said.

Three of the cows had to undergo emergency surgery for their injuries; they survived.

Cowit was charged with reckless endangerment, criminal mischief and reckless driving. She also faces charges of driving while using a cell phone and failure to exercise due care, both traffic infractions.

It wasn't immediately clear if Cowit had a lawyer.

(Nov 5, 2013)

The Moon Erasers

                                                 Black evergreens
                                                 Sentineled in
                                                 The moonwhite night’s
                                                 Bone-cheeked
                                                 Privet-hedged
                                                 Sun-swallowing
                                                 Transparency
                                                 Present arms,
                                                 Stand watch,
                                                 Expunge the light.
                                                 Erasers of the moon—
                                                 Expansive perimeters,
                                                 Silver glimmering
                                                 Shrinking circumferences—
                                                 Close ranks,
                                                 Jostle in quickstep,
                                                 Retract themselves inward,
                                                 Vanish in darkness’s
                                                 Juniper-redolent
                                                 Imperial honor guard.

                                                 8/31/2011

Metropolitan

                            All skied over with blue lip smear
                            Tin-snipped water sheeted the way onward
                            Drowning in its light.

                            Seven lights from seven beacons plumed the cheery shoreline
                            Hoarsed into silence by the nightless cavalcade,
                            The bright-lit pantomime.

                            What if an inky canopy stepped down into this jewel?
                            Would its footprint rouse the waters?
                            Would they slide, jelly-like, into storm sewer horizons
                            And the air quicken and depart
                            And four stakes tied with builder’s string mark plans for a new river
                            Under a blueprint firmament?

                            Almost it seems.
                            Meanwhile steel towers fend the day.
                            Daylight draws loops and cloud-curlicues in the festival air.

                            3/4/2011

How To Speak Dream

                              How to speak dream. I speak dream. What is sleep?
                              A tongue of water that makes seashells seem
                              To speak molluscan language. I speak dream
                              Endowed with speckled bivalves from the deep
                              Embedded in wet sand—not tampons, cheap
                              Medical waste with which our shorelines teem
                              Or flaccid pocket watches limp with steam
                              And hung on trees to sweat, perhaps, or weep—
                              Effluence from some meathole—but the sea
                              Cradles the infant language in its womb
                              And utters it upon the shore at night
                              And swaddles it in blankets white as foam
                              And in my sleep it babbles with delight
                              And cannot speak, and cannot speak, or see.

                              1/16/2014

Melissa’s Flame Red Ear

                                             I see Melissa’s flame red ear
                                             Protrude through amber tresses clear
                                             As water. While around it turns
                                             Murdered ice, it glows and burns.

                                             On the mountain vassal snows
                                             And assets that the winter froze,
                                             Locked in crystal vaults, prepare
                                             The limpid honey of her hair.
     
                                          Like water gelid, pure and chaste
                                             Headlong to her ear it raced
                                             To ignite and to expire
                                             Fuel-oil for a vestal fire.

                                          1/11/2014