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Keeping peace is without interest. The end is the capital.
The blood of greed informs our smallest words.
The country stays empty. The whole border is the capital.
The chlorine smog is yellow by day, thick by night, when
back alleys choke in silence. Strobes from police kiosks show
eyeless guards that someone new is in the capital.
The Sybil told me what could happen next.
I saw three men with purple-bordered togas
strangle lions amidst the ruins of the Capitol.
The preachers cried, “Be lily-white! Be squeaky clean!”
They snatched up porn and all the snuff movies
but kicked aside a copy of Das Kapital.
Sophie grabbed brass candlesticks and put vine leaves in her hair,
two fathers stayed with children in the clinic, while
the Doctor rubbed his hands and muttered, “Capital!”
Green leaves commemorate our losses and our loves.
Memories of death by outstretched hands hold up our lives —
of polished civilisation, we are the Corinthian capital.
Long ago she came from out that womb in the Valley.
Much mystery was set along her path on the road, for
Men have followed her to death and tomb in the Valley.
When first I saw the beauty of her form by the river,
My senses went awry! Such face and form were unearthly!
Intoxicating was her sweet perfume in the Valley.
The sight of her excites me to my soul; it is likely
My secret is betrayed, and others share in this vision!
All clearly hear my pounding heart — Kaboom! — in the Valley.
For years she's known (and scorned) my offered love. Without pity,
Reading every line in mockery to the public,
She burns my declaration (a pantoum) in the Valley.
Each letter, formed in love from my heart's blood, is now blazing,
Pleasing her with every puff of smoke to the heavens.
I watch in sorrow at that rising plume in the Valley.
What reasons lie behind the heartless ways of this woman
Disdaining men in oh such brutish ways — in ill manner —
That she foreswears no man will be her groom in the Valley?
No sun will ever warm her empty heart on a morning.
That terrain is cold and bleak — and yet I would love her.
O Sun! My heart is cold, knows naught but gloom in the Valley.
One glance from her is likened to a drought — a forewarning
Of doom to any man who might approach. She has stated
That she will give men's love no chance to bloom in the Valley.
To die, remembered by both kin and friends, is expected,
Though my Yahrzeit will be kept by kin. I regret that
To die, unmourned by her, will be my doom in the Valley!
Poor Robin is no more the Bird of Spring in its season.
Winter's chill has set upon my bones. I am ready.
My end is food for worms, I will presume — in the Valley.
Her stumble’s nebulous, so they start to question
the image her body projects. Superstitious actors
from the guild will toil and trouble on opening night.
So do a little digging. She’s iridescent, irresistible,
and you’ll uncover all the covetous estates when
the paparazzi begin to grumble on opening night.
They curse her – conjuring up a cocoon of lust. So
her evolution becomes a supernatural notion: one
that promises to bare her stubble on opening night.
Engage her surroundings. It’ll all be press-worthy (yet
elusive) after the franchise bursts its bubble – and then
the tinsel islands will start to tumble on opening night.
Shaped by sports machines: a young star who’d struggled
with her lyrics - Now she’s red-hot, a comet on the Hill,
and she’s ripe to show she’s supple on opening night.
Known in her village as the handless maiden,
The one with no hands, Bess draws a circle with the
Crayola Crayon — Happily Ever After.
What of her gauze dressings, those vacant eyes charging
You from her loose folded garment? Feral, she feeds
from the grove’s pear tree of happily ever after.
Like her, I am stalked in the familiar orchard,
Struggling for the sovereignty of these limbs —
like roots claiming her a happily ever after.
Banished into the underworld as Persephone,
We regain our grasp; bloom. Bess, who fashions your
Silver hands into this happily ever after?
Reassemble from the dark earth, return to us
The babe in your arms wakening — woman and child
Sketch your days into happily ever afters.
The tercet ghazal form seems odd to me,
but Robert Bly's attempt to innovate
may liberate my muse to nod to me.
I'm a bent old man who's single and white,
and my past informs my present. Can I
discard those thoughts that serve as hod to me?
I've read again a verse that deals with death
by one whose work in life had just begun...
The grave's no more than so much sod to me.
A predicate nominative made clear
that scripture I once doubted tells the truth:
If "God is love," then Love is god to me.
A baby grabbed this old man's thumb and smiled;
that simple act has quickened my heart and
renewed a life that seemed to plod to me.