I began to see old lanterns, books
opening/folding within your eyes;
a pale light running as silver
to the sea.

Then crestfallen leaves dangling
as from fishhooks or the autumn moon's
skeletal lightness tossing a path
between waves over this sidewalk, that,
with the back streets passing occasional
hisses at the main culprit, night.

The prim measurement of your smile,
not the wan neglect of cool skin tones
or fabric always more suggestive
of summer colours, sideway movement
of shadow into tickings of a clock.

Rather mist and clamminess,
lipstick in a smear as a
thumbprint before the
coughing of a motorcar
as its elliptical wedge
tears darkness
away from sight.

[22]

Only marginal chances
of finding a Great White
in my coffee
although the cigaret's tubular belly
is flotsam against my hand--
a dirty kerosene color, sleek & grey.

2
And stirring the embers of my cup,
suppose the grinds become primitive shark lore
of forgotten peoples or death sticks,
dry rot teeth, fathoms
squinting light.

[23]

The four Equinox sisters,
the one, Fox, streaked--
all color, a blur
a Bloomingdale's on fire,
a wedge between Everest
& her fortune.

Samantha, the other
dun-coloured
earth-tide (in full bloom),
blossoms vernally & literally
busting out of her breeches with
eyes like barely sugar.
Jubilee. Fête de la vie.
Lighthouse keeper beckoning twin
shafts of warmth. Camberwell Beauty.
Rattan Bar, shooting star.

Carraciou (and castanet) an evening song,
the most buxom but with dog days & tiresome moods
flushed with heat.
Tidewater in full ripple, a
murmuring of abstract intelligence
orchestrating summer's growth.
Emerald keeper. Silken flax
beguiling smile, wiggling toes.
A stickler for detail, she was (with endless
contortions) always in the grass.

Brumaire, evaporating vapors,
the most withdrawn &
difficult to know--
a dead leaf combed thru
wind-swept hair.

Infernally inclined, a modicum
of sparse economy idly knotting ice thru
a cadaver fence before putting on a brave show--
her stern beauty and most commanding feature, snow,
shone like almonds or stars twinkling from
an anorexic fist.

Alabaster, her prison whiteness
this Brumaire.
A clock, pier,
immovable, still.

Firing up the flashlight
in the dark like
beautiful woods sleeping.

[24]

Fall was a tubercular cousin
residing in the country
sparse hair,
rasping cough.

2
Night air was damaging
stringing pumpkins
around orange chains, the
milkweed pod shivering
in open shirtsleeves
little noises sifting
from burrows in her chest.

3
Fall was...
reputedly from another country
wore glaring cravats,
gold leaf and Rubenesque chain;
stalked the lark
mocked the breeze.

4
Penny wise, pound poor
leaves
a shock of hair
prematurely white
degradingly picked from
the comb
flung out fireflies
crisp bodies to singe
fire-cold light.

5
Advancing stairs
in poor light,
the season became makeshift
wallpaper
hung by tedious hands.
Little seep of plaster dirt
escaping the touch,
grass bristled by frost
where occasional flower
was torched with cold
savaged bees
stumbled from the weeds.

[26]

There is a star near
the hinge of planets,
a barn under
a cow's lick of moon--
plausible people
moving thru an
airless universe.

Pay attention to the frond of lilac
. . . limestone troughs upon which
thickets of Indian scalp &
devil's paintbrush soar
to the horizon
and, afterwards,
little creeks run
with the sparrows of evening time
in step to tiny boatmen
that echo enamelled snails
from the very consonants of earth.

Rustle of leaves,
some might argue
breathless gasps
to intone the savagery
of little seasonal voices
cut off
mid-stream.

A spate of bees,
early colonizers
deflower blossoms and
strip-mine lava butter of erupting
hard-shell tulips:
such careless penetrations--
volcanic intrusions entomb
their hairy bodies caked with
the iron-lung of blackened soot petals,
each a cough drop
on the heaving breath
of a declining afternoon.

[28]

As you enter into dream--
its the unconsciousness
which stifles,
the thin embers
called flame
that outdistance
the controlled rubric
of desire.

[29]

Her emerald top
phosphorescent candy glow
stick candy,
sno' cane--
floss like
the mane revealed beneath,
spun hair matted/woven into
icicle lengths & pubis mink.

Her presence as a monk sliding
under a cowl, jet-black velvet
or midnight eye-liner shadow
knotting strands of dark.

She comes on waves--
candelabra is a name
deft movement of finger
caressing storm, bare legs
shining wet street lamps
decantered ambered wine.

Cigarette floating between lips,
uncharted voyage of the smile
where puffs of smoke
are parrots' wings,
incandescent show-girls
in novelty across the flame.

[30]

In the ardour
of an Asgard fire
see adders from her
vinous fire per
adua ad astra.

Listen to the wind--
the ageless, intoning wind,
a sea-hag encrusted on
a mattress of waves.

Cat's footfall,
breath of fish
the flowering beard of a woman.