Snow-crowned old town.
Tabique de ostión. Oyster or bone?
Gypsum or salt? 無 ;—
the sweepings of heaven. Snow
falls because it has nowhere else to go.
Here, coffeehouse clatter; oxbow
lake in a china saucer; puddle prints
beneath the bronze, brazen doorbell
—a fossiliferous postcard life.
Through a snow-reefed window
the moon looks over its shoulder...
Cathédrale Saint-Etienne de Metz
How well can you suffer? When your old wounds resurface like long-buried mortars; when your eyes feel clouded with fiberglass; when the pinch of the moment meets the rub of the world, when will you cry—Enough! I relent! I yield!
And even if—even if you succumbed to the false promise of relief, even if the angels washing the feet of St. George heard you, would your swan song not fall on deaf ears?
Yes, the votive candles warm the walls of the church with their small fires, but can that light embrace you beyond Metz?—in hell?
Remember how the shadows spun like roulette balls across the stained glass, not yet falling still, not yet enough to blot out the cathedral.
That must be how a prayer feels. It is the last gamble. The die knows the hand that casts is luckless.
o sadistic buddha! (axel, mortar, & coffeebowl of so many mortal hopes)
you must suffer my worship, my dalliance, my idle crucifixions and think me undivine. Not so!
Avow this. . . I am devout chum. My daily affirmation: libido ergo sum.
Ode to a Jar of Pickle Juice
Without you, O jar, how would I know I was bachelorized lately?
O, jar of vinegar and water, enlighten me:
Why was I so tantalized
by thine “bread and butter” pickles?—So sweet and so sour,
now empty inside.
O jar, you have become the reverse of a vase to me,
a sort of….urn for tuna sandwiches past,
yet, even more, a memento mori,
—the dead sea is as alive as you.
O jar of pickle juice, you teem with death.
Even your plinth in the fridge wasn’t immune,
the leftovers it sat atop have turned.
For a breath though, when you were full as the moon,
O, alas, when you were simply a jar of pickles,
I should say, things were different….
back then, when you were indefinite, indifferent,
as plentiful as any pickle jar has ever been… .
Now the shades of your mind are drawn shut, curtain’d loosely,
with an immaculate pale gold light peeping somewhat
through, teasing me.
Is it not enough that the polished reflection in your brass knocker
spurs on in me this skin-sickness? As I wait below your window,
rock in hand,
As I am unaccustomed to the doorbell. As
I wait, I bristle, I seethe,
impatient, although neither was I called upon nor beckoned:
As I hold vigil,
for a token of surety, an alluring gesture,
the merest gurgle of an invitation….
As if like Lady Godiva you will defenestrate suddenly—
from the window—on horseback—
recumbent, nude, flowing with the promise of milk and honey….
