The Quantumverse
The sun, great spectral
obstetrician – yes! –
doctor
of divinity – M.D., M.B.E., A.C.E.
delivering us to morning
in scrubs of light –
and us squalling our birthright
across the broken waters,
our faces squashed with
pillow marks,
anxiously counting our blessings,
our newborn fingers
and toes.
For dVerse Quadrille
And The Twiglets
the geese nervous
in the wolf grass,
their necks question marks
unanswered
fishhook rain worms
cast in the shape of query
spit out and drowned in pools
on the sidewalk
the river incult, incant, trolling its
inquisition questionable, a
what have you
mist, missed?
For dVerse Quadrille
We hammered words
into the soil,
our mauls spiking
“necessity,” “desire,”
staking guy wires
to raised intent.
And the sun lay on the wind
like a pair of work gloves
left on a roll of cable,
the evening and
coming rain,
our unfinished labor.
For dVerse Quadrille
Jammed my head
into the mud, let
my mind root around,
thoughts coming up
roses or thistles or
rutabagas,
dirty minded sure,
but what price
glory and riot
of color, scent,
her wandering
in my garden, pluck,
bringing to her lips,
sips, like nectar.
For dVerse Quadrille
February’s frost
kissed the water pipes
and they burst –
just like back when
it was you and I
and really hot,
so for Valentines
I got you a plumber.
I know how sexy
it is when I look at you
and say
“home repairs….”
For dVerse Quadrille
On Finding Ezra Pound, insane, locked outdoors in a cage in Italy after WWII
John Berryman, The Cage
This much is known: A bee winging it
at the resonance of quantum verse,
subatomic buzz weaponized
into stanzas, words in flight,
les mots juiced like wine –
can ride the fog of war from Idaho
to Pisa, then jackknife
out of the smoke into a cage
where he stings and swings
the cold bar blues.
Flying into rage, insults flying
like rain and sleet flying in the face
of reason, he’s St. Francis of the wasps
and hornets, nectar held tight between his knees,
praying in the sun to piss.
Unknown: how to equate
the velocity of scribbling, scrabbling
at the speed of unsound mind,
with reaching past sanity and breaking off combs
until detritus of poems run sticky in your hands.
For Jillys Where’s Ezra?
A lifetime of trawling cod
from the Gulf of Maine –
a fisherman I knew
Would spray WD-40 on his knees.
Even better than motor oil he said –
and rub it in deep into the joints.
Gotta get some swing
back in the
hinges,
He said.
The body not a door
that closes with age,
But a boom that
sweeps and hauls out
over the waves
Year after year.
Close to the salt
but not of it.
For The Twiglets
