Tuesday, October 01, 2013

OF KITTENS AND KAHLO, WAVES, BRUSHES, AND FABRIC—MORE FINDS IN THE POSTCARD MINES

§
Another bunch o' cards for your perusal. I was very wordy on my last post, so this one's just pictures and poems.


"Will you want me
when birds walk across my face?"
                                     Ian Williams 

Once I wrote a poem
about a peach falling
to the ground, how perfect
it was during the flight.
Now I imagine a cat
attempting a similar feat.
That moment of leaving
the branch, the perfection
of air time. The first
was a love poem. This,
a conundrum.
"Sin goes to the neck...there I raise my ghosts, feed them
and they swim like black horses in my sleep"
                                                             Ghassan Zaqtan


Not a black horse, no
but a monkey on your back,
black horse, black monkey,
hair, eyes, unibrow,
thoughts, all black,
yet when I think of you
colour bursts like a sunflower
or an unrepentant orgasm
all those brush strokes
all that pain
swimming toward you,
through you and away,
this is what feeds you,
this is what makes you whole


“There will be in it waterfalls
and jungles like salvation.”
                        Jennifer Maiden

In the spare, spent hours
before waking he waves,
invoking swirls of them,
crests like glaciered mountain tops,
impossible clouds into which
he rides, this cowboy dreamer,
water whisperer,  swell sweeper
who wishes for horses
that he may ride unflinchingly
through the rest of his life.


“along the naked back and arms,
            the hands, fingers reaching”
                                    Alan Shapiro


Oh, those greedy, grasping,
thoughtless artists,
always complaining they’re not
paid enough, respected enough,
grasping their pencils and brushes
like weapons, as if they were
running down something to be
killed, as if imagination could
ever be enough.


 Artless
            is my heart. A stranger
            berry there never was,
            tartless.
                        Brenda Shaughnessy

Some days there are two of me.
One of us deals in mundanity
while the other looks out
over trees and clouds and static,
nods sagely and lets it all go.
We are cautious with each other,
speak in fine riddles,
dust off chairs long not sat upon,
finger the cobwebs in each other’s hair
then go down to dinner,
hopeful there will be more
than simply sustenance.


            “Why collect postage stamps when you could take broken
laundromats to the dump?”
                        David W. McFadden

            Just imagine it—a tub full of cats
caterwauling mid-tumble,
a bumble of bee-smirched
felines feeling fine,
pouring wine for wasted
winsome wastrels who won’t wait
for the spin-cycle-Message-to-Michael
Joni song to come along,
pass the bong, what exactly’s wrong
with that you caterwauling,
bumbling, tumbling tub
of crazy cats? That’s that!


“I want to take it all in,
            and I do — so far in, so strangely
            and imperfectly inside me.”
                                    James Pollock

            They are all fabric affairs,
            are they not — the swish
            of a skirt coaxed into
            a quick turn, the hiss of a long
            zipper, the smooth swoosh
            of silk rushing off a body.
            The crumple of cotton,
            the radiance of discarded
            rayon, and then, and then,
            the satisfying scrunch of
            two bodies sinking into a
            600 thread count sheeted bed.
§

1 comment:

rinebird said...

Beautiful cards & poems.Thanks for posting.linda