ludic verbosity for the win
THIRD rock from the sun, zoomed in on wetlands,
SLIMY, ooze and muck richly specied.
SUNNY days, binoculars out, this kingdom might be
AVIAN: kingfishers dive, while Whitman’s thrush warbles.
Excerpt from Whitman’s When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d:
MOTEL, finally! 900 miles and a terrible burger at the end to calm the
GROWL of my queasy stomach. I lie down, check the TV. A Raquel
WELCH B movie. Hours later I wake, the burger feeling like a
TUMOR in my gut and the TV blaring: low rent moment.
WASTE: time, soul, life ebb out on lapsarian tide.
CRAVE more! But know: to crave is to pray.
HAUNT, o God, each time, place and quark with memory of future splendor and present grace.
YOUNG and old have only you for inheritance that is not waste.
GLINT in my eye, as I hear faith likened to
OPIUM again. Tired tactic, trite and worn.
WORSE: you lay claim to noetic
DROIT du seigneur: please yourself in your beliefs, ravage another’s.
URINE trickles away, yet not regret, as I lean on prickly
HEDGE. I can’t go on like this. Dizzy head craning up to sky, I find it:
NORTH star above—even drunk, I can plot the dipper’s handle.
LASSO me, Polaris, a stable place from which to change.
RALPH along the bank staked claim for gold and named the river Ralph.
INGOTs, not names of rivers, shone upon golden ingots to his imagination,
COVET so much a thing it becomes all: Ralph saw only gold.
AMITY never took hold along the river Ralph.
BRAKE, gloom and cease: grey mood release!
AORTA ferrying air to every cell, carry forward joy as well.
OPERA or chorale now sound of many strands one chord in beauty crowned.
HASTY claim of fate’s iron law, replaced by free and wondering awe.
WORDY me, gab my way through every turning.
ORDER, grace must run in depths beneath shallow speech.
SCOFF. Condemn. These beckon, false channels for words to wend.
SPOOL of grace, unwind a thicker strand to thread me past my gift of gab.
FLUFF of dandelions, floating over meadows, in my dream.
REARM yourself, creation, at springtide rise!
WEEDY shore bank in my mind, green and flowered,
BROOK whispering by under a sun that warms. When?
SONIC spark: the radio starts the song, filling the
SHACK–that plus radio are her capital. She often dreams of
CABIN life, several rooms, maybe a TV. But this is her song!
BROOM caught up, she dances across the packed dirt floor.