poems
For Emily Dickinson
On a porch, and that it not
The case, more likely on a bench
I see a former building once a court
That has the look of a colonial house
It is going to be converted into offices
I can imagine a glade or a meadow
Where the birds and butterflies
Will be part of a Markowitz portfolio
The area of land, in perfect competition
Overseen by a credit rating service
Will the spider’s web get an AAA?
But
The building has an aperture of decline
On its eave where moss and leaves sprout
The iron tracery has gone to rust and one
Feels delight in the imperfect paradise
Where feral dogs roam the Chernobyl
One can sit on this porch with cheap wine
Think of the future, as a real green idyll.
For Walt Whitman
Let’s celebrate the sunshine
That comes over the Constitution Hill
And where the gulls in wheel of feathers
Escort the morning to those below
Let’s welcome the slap of the Irish Sea
On the pebbled beach where the seaweed
Straddles the foreshore, where ambergris
Is rarely found, where the paddling Victorian
Found the solace from the grime of the industrial
Let’s invite nature into the window of our souls
And breathe the air of our earth and our home
The salt on the skin and the breezes through our
Fingers, let us taste the rays of light that emanate
From the furnace of our solar system, let us
Be together in the past, present and future
Let us shake hands Walt across this Time.
For Federico García Lorca
Winter at the Gate
There is winter at the gate, the crows
Will on conifers from which snow
Depends, will like those old men
Selling chestnuts on open briars
Shift feet, to the dust of white sprinkle
That reminds one of flour from the
Hands of a mother making a pie
There is winter at the gate, the Christmas
Kitsch accumulates until it obscures windows
Where the prices of items are discounted
Before January, it is like the orgasm before
The act, it is like the death before one has
Lived, and winter at the gate, it is summer
And I swear the cuckoo has struck thirteen.
For Sappho
I imagine, and you will
Allow me this, I am on
The Kalloni beach and
Let it be off season so
Bit of a chill in the waters
Let me wade into the
Lagoon and let me then
Stoop to dive into blue-green
Coolness as the brilliant
Sun tans my shoulders
I see the fish of your words
Flit among the coral
I follow the flow of your
Poem as it ribbons
Towards an amphora
Then let me discover
The wine of your wisdom
To drink from your poetry
To surface then in the triumph
Of Otherness and grace.
For D.H. Lawrence
A tired tortoiseshell takes
The last laps, it moves
Around the lamp shade
Bought in Palermo
And does a disco dance
Around a now defunct hi-fi
The flaps are of exhaustion
And the clap of colour to drab
Reminds one of the shadows
On a Punic wall and then
The fabric one might find
In the bedroom of James Abbott
McNeill Whistler, finally the
Butterfly expels its life force
The wings flutter of their own
Accord, then from ever more
They are the servants of the wind.
For Cole Porter
The sun is going down
You can see it in the champagne
You have the pink
And I have the red and orange
The day is going to sleep
But night is knocking at the door
I say
It says
Come out and play
I can’t possibly dance
Not now
But you look out of the window
I say
It says
Come and play
I can’t possibly sing a song
Not now
But you look out of the window
And the moon is up
It is imploring you to come along
So we open the door
We slide down the steps as if there is no tomorrow
Then you take my hand and I take yours
We drink our champagne
We dance together the night through
With the sea, it is looking on, and the moon
Is getting all misty-eyed
And before you know it
The sun will be up very soon.