Iron (daily poem 1)

Its cold mineral song
is an industrial murder message--A tall tale of Henry,
An image of steamboats emanating
like southern crusaders
out Twain's gums,
A vision of boxcars
through the vibrants
of Guthries gitar.

A left over fork covered with the farmers squash.

Found in the mountain,
to the mountain it returns
like dust on the case
that's blown off
back into the corner.

Land

The kind editor, Phillip Levine, at the chronogram decided to publish my poem "Land" in their July, 2009 issue. First publication. Praise the Magus!




http://www.chronogram.com/issue/2009/7/Poetry/Poem-Land

There is a Stage

There is a stage
Where the players
meet their faces

That sing silently
Until they walk
Within each invisible cast.

A trinity of actors.
Their dialogue deaden
By hysterical audience
Laughs—
The loud wave in a
Sea of chuckles
And the boyee guffaw
That’s heard after
The rest have calmed.


You sit
Your knees pressed
Against the velvet stretched
Spring chair in front,

And ask a little girl in a dress—
Shoulder padding,
Lace around the neck—what all

The cackling is for?

She turns to you,
The chandeliers
Dim crystal shine,
Like a candle on a
Bedpost,
Frames,
Her hair is curled.
Her eyes cola brown.
Her face is powdered.
Her mouth is frowned.

Falling open to a whisper,
She tells you the tale
Like a playwright
Spouting his masterpiece
Over grace at dinner.

At the start
of each act
they see the actors
In Death’s mask,
Who then move to their faces.

He rises like
One of his victim’s clients
To the walk.

Tip pacing along
Lightless—the phantom’s way—cloaked
And waiting
For a fond farewell.

Not ‘till
The drapes close
Like the eye
Does he drop back
Down with the sand bags
To mask.

They laugh
Because when
Death has gone
Up to the rafters
Their voices are strong enough
To muster is up.

It’s the last scene.
Now watch them
Go stiff.

the alchemist.

Arsenal Fishing

Its gills look like vents spitting red
Dust out moist from condensation.
James, Mike, and I stand
Around its sun belly,
Deciding how to wiggle the hook out the mouth.

Our parents behind up
The lake house lawn
Around the grill—“some fine looking burgers you got going there”—but we
Take turns yanking,
Watching for the sharp fin jolts that rise like the
Helpless fists of a detainee.
James and Mike give up,
Walk to the shed and get a Black Cat bag
With roman candles and firecrackers,
“It’s going to die anyway”
Mike takes a Buck knife and chops off its tail-fin,
“You ever seen one of these alone??” he
says sticking a firecracker in the mouth.

They light it and throw the fish
To the cove where freshwater weed plants wilting
Wrap around it as the eyes blow
Like a July 4th supernova.

I’d never caught a fish nor saw
The blood of an animal more close than a deer
On the roadside,
And I didn’t cry.
No tender boy voice cracking
Yelling stop.
I just looked at the paint-chip like scales left on the bench,
And the hook shining through a small rim of flesh.

Nursing

So I'm a pretty big fan of Neutral Milk Hotel and Jeff Mangum...



Blistering words of surreal sadness spit through
my smiling and swollen head phones,
Reclined in a rocker glided with each line,
My odd two-heads separate—One on my shoulder the other on tree skins
And the wild population from childhood
takes a flight in an Aeroplane over my skull.

Chords and versus lead them down to the long sewed runway scarecrow
Waving his crooked arms in copters
as if saying,
Anywhere down here
Scattered
Is fine.

I graze the vast sunflower fields that grow encouraging stalks,
And mills away
A hotel rests
Nursing me with neutral milk.