pureed fast by education
in cafes and carafes
in destinations

at tables where they never serve a feast
on wards where your feathers matter least

these goodies come in two’s
drunk down in the halls
so bring the sweaters and your knees and
the medicine balls

but leave out the kiss
we’ve lent ten borrowed lips in torn ragged strips
to a secret Eden’s inn
and there’s no kiss when a lifetime is remiss

twin toy nuclei bearing thread, bearing whisps
bearing out, bearing in
your head’s feeling thin, starved on memories
of crooked hose routed and scorched –
we checked once at the door
maybe now under the porch

the pieces we thought whole
look just like the one’s of old
that the years have torn to pieces
when on our crosses we met Jesus
– It’s us you want, not blooms from the East?
thin drafts and far often hindrance
a purse of sand
my kingdom for an ant’s smile

any takers, any hands
to bear a dead cold kingdom
dead cold?

so spin if you will, bring the East in
we’ve won the one about the sergeant surging ahead
and dying for your sin
the fine fellows in their ships
who kept Virgil lit and withered
the Viking seekers wallowed lame until dec(r)eased
when their boats were finally tethered

Gosh, doll. You’re over-brimming with measurements
treasures you have pending, waiting to be sent
to lands without any olive glades
not missing our sacks of moths
cold hands and freezing rain
the hacks at months away
like some fate that went astray

in theatre fever, getting shirred
smiling at hairshirts meant for Tunis
give me my rhyme in three-color lemonade
give me a golem in my den, foals soft like fleece
all our scars labeled, snapped, snapped, snapped
then ceased

the good earth is a good slayer
of the little things, and as the slain go
we are wry, off our bees in gibes,
sometimes high, most times low

Gosh, doll. Straighten up then.
They’ll take no care here to free the able seekers
who prematurely end.

I think one of the great joys of writing is discovering something that you’ve written that you’ve totally forgotten about and really loving it (as opposed to the usual, which is discovering something you’ve forgotten about for good reason and cringe at). It’s like getting a surprise present from yourself. I wish it would happen more often.

I found about ¾’s of this over the weekend buried at the end of a file where I’m trying to work out anagrams for what seems to be a futile attempt to rewrite Gerad Manley Hopkins’ “Easter Communion” as one large anagram and I really liked it.