From My Corner Seat Read online

This summer night, when poetry

  had teased a mind, tomatoes come

  abundantly, demanding now

  the steady hands that bathe and pare,

  prepare the pulp in jars that fill

  and take their lids and bands and sit

  in boiling water, invigorate

  the steamy air, entice the sweat

  that beads on brow and drips from cheeks

  leads trickles down the back and arms

  and everywhere. The centered act

  displaces for this night the train

  of poetry that lingers long

  upon the mind and dawdles longer

  along the hand and pen and page.

  Amid this steam, tomato acid

  impels the senses to arrest

  whatever dalliance may tease.

  WCF

  16 August 2011

  One Man At Prayer

  The hands in folded form,

  held as a burl before

  the kneeling body, beneath

  the bending head, expose

  a gnarl-like presence: strength

  and concentrated means

  of consecrated thought.

  He holds this presence while

  his children squirm in yet

  confined assertion: life

  is lithe enjoyment. Still,

  the interplay of fingers

  so plaited in a ball

  asserts whatever else

  allows a man to prayer.

  WCF

  24 July 2011

  An Unthought Legacy

  He does not want to say

  life hedged on promises

  presumed, eroded all

  the castellated fare

  imagined in the throes

  of courage, skill and will

  with dragons, demons, shill

  and subtle want. He stands

  as always on the stout

  resilience of a stern

  possession. Facing age

  and bitterness, the wage

  of frailty in the face

  of his triumphant rage,

  he turns a nasty tongue

  to hurting children, finds

  excuse for undertows

  where love’s support might be

  anticipated. Now,

  he rankles over words

  of bitterness, distraught

  as flimsy veils of feint

  in formula fall away

  and leave him battered. Life

  is but a fraud, he says,

  on all presumption won

  and held and manufactured—

  as such a fraud, the slap

  of fate demands return

  of such a slap by lost

  contentment. Ahab stabs

  against the whale in vain.

  WCF

  10 July 2011

  The Early Thunderstorm

  As if a barge dragged down the road

  too many yards, the thunder rolls

  a scrape upon awareness. Soon

  enough it ends and sundry pauses

  allow a peppered silence room

  to weigh upon the ears before

  a close clap slaps us silly, leaves

  the dogs in terror, masters caught

  in leaping fright. Endurance bears

  the early morning thunderstorm,

  the wash of rain amid the crash

  of elemental excesses.

  WCF

  26 October 2011

  The Tulips

  Beneath the spreading dogwood—white

  with floral opulence—the nine

  stout tulips shine, each blossom firm

  in richest red and capped in flare

  of yellow graciously arrayed

  in shade and quiet through this bold

  late April afternoon. The sun

  glints brilliant on the white; it toys

  with green leaves opening around

  the fragrant blossoms, garden-set

  and glorious. Those tulips rise

  to prise the shade, entice a glance

  to linger in this glade and gain

  the bare designing of the round

  where green abounds—this florid spray

  is evidence of bounteous Spring.

  WCF

  23 April 2010

  A Hymn Is Sung

  On Mother’s Day

  His mother’s hand plays listfully

  across his nape, his fingered hair

  while others sing the hymn. Her gaze

  is disengaged, it seems, without

  a focus, over many things

  that manufacture how her day

  is running now. And he, as she,

  stands with the rest and waits the time

  for sitting down. For now, he knows

  her fingers in his hair—and leaves

  her rustling touch as the gentleness

  that settles on this morning’s weave.

  WCF

  9 May 2010

  A Quiet Reading Preferred

  A little privacy of lines

  read silently, perhaps a trace

  of murmur muttering a sound

  around, with a cock of head aside,

  the leaving of her framing hair

  to weave suggestion in the mouth

  and color toying in the cheeks,

  moist eyes crocheting through the air

  a joist-plied sort of misty lair

  wherein the secrecy of liens

  left in the lines assimilate

  the readiness to infiltrate

  this aural dalliance when lines

  like these inhabit eyes that lead

  to soundings in the soul, a mark

  or two or three or more in depth

  as we go floating in the channel

  begun and flushing out in gift.

  WCF

  20 April 2010

  Head In The Cloud

  The steam emerging, billowing

  about her head and shoulders, as

  she bends at waist, knees set to hold

  her balance while she places things

  within the dishwasher—all as

  she handles, arms in dangle down

  in front of her extending lean

  while all that roiling steam escapes

  to bathe her face, her throat, her nape

  where hair pulled up would tease a breeze

  to wield relief—there is her pose,

  a temporary icon left

  to implicate the curvature

  of nature and the manifold

  of person meant to master sight

  and figure in the mist of dreams.

  WCF

  16 April 2010

  Pictured Arrayed In

  Almost-Lines

  Ridiculous, perhaps sublime,

  the ordinary grin arrests

  a tousled formula about

  the rounded face, above the sweep

  of arms brought to converging hands—

  a sturdy sort of elegance

  inserted in the scheme of these

  so cast as to be cast to play

  at soundings in a roundelay.

  By homing on the poignant face

  my honing’s on a piquant trace

  within the undone boundaries

  and posed redundancies. The face

  entices dalliance
in spite

  of this ridiculous sublime

  commission of a ruddled grin.

  WCF

  23 April 2010

  A Gathering

  Across The Shelf

  Immediately live

  and subtly lithe, a glimpse

  allowed its dalliance

  while supple lips expand

  into a welcome smiled

  sublimely close, I meet

  this meet allure across

  the counter top, begin

  the rote exchange by way

  of business of the day.

  A quiet manifold

  of interchanging glee

  revamps a presence left

  as lea for composition,

  remote and leisurely.

  Such ambiance beguiles

  against presumption, whiles

  a weaving, warp by woof,

  to veil immaculate

  collusion completing next

  this latent shy delight,

  with subtlety as bliss.

  WCF

  23 April 2010

  From The Chrysalis

  of Complaint

  As radiant, this darkness gleams;

  the brooding, shrouding clouds ignite.

  Blonde glitter traces full caress

  on cheeks and jaw, along the neck—

  the open throat exposed to glow.

  Proclaiming darkness’ irritant,

  the scowl consumes the face, portends

  a reasoned grief that rends the whole

  imagined grace—until that face

  emerges irrepressible.

  And coyly teasing pleasure lure

  a glance into the dancing eyes—

  moist, blue, entrancing on the crest

  of joy, a dalliance in light

  this darkness fails to foil at all.

  WCF

  21 April 2010

  When All Is In The Air

  Anticipation plies

  imagination, leads

  intent to entertain

  a smile, a laugh, an ease

  particular to one

  habitual entente.

  Appearing possible,

  I pause, intend to appease

  my glance and gaze, allow

  a certain mystery

  to ply its moment where

  seclusion finds a breach

  that must allow a soft

  inclusive reach its power,

  endowing supple joy

  within the gathering

  of gaze and arms, of smiles

  that knit this while into

  the escalating will

  to savor. So I stride

  with bounce in step the walk,

  ascend the slope, the step,

  until my knuckles rap

  against the door, the jamb…

  the silence leaving me

  elusively distraught

  as images begin

  to deconstruct and pose

  their disengagement as

  residual descent.

  WCF

  16 April 2010

  And All The Rest

  The notice left announces how

  these missing would have come, except

  demands reject their willing choice

  tonight. And notice unannounced

  assures the eager faces leave

  this fare for other contingencies.

  I stare and see the ghost-like faces,

  the poems nowhere heard—except

  my voice enunciate the words

  and leave ripe traces of the lines

  provided in the sultry air.

  I gaze again, reconstitute

  in some fantasia face and eyes,

  the lines of tresses, smooth recesses

  in cheeks, the sweep of jaw and chin,

  descending to an open throat,

  the supple creamery that fails

  my evening’s grading into sigh.

  WCF

  20 April 2010

  Great? Or Merely

  Well Enough?

  She says she’s great. I shrug,

  admit I’m well—but then

  I can’t say great. She lifts

  a glance, admits by murmur

  that great might really be

  hyperbole; but she

  as well is doing well,

  or well enough—a weave

  by stammer to relieve

  the presence pressured here

  in moot reserve resolved

  to balance everything,

  aspire to muster right

  desire among the faces

  of customers and like

  desiderata spiked

  in presence over coffee’s

  allure and pleasured moods.

  WCF

  9 April 2010

  Beggaring The Question

  Receipts in hand, she claims

  she is a beggar now,

  the taxes paid at court-

  house satisfying state

  demands. She chortles as

  she buys her coffee, sits

  to amble over these

  continuing receipts.

  I ask of the beggar’s cup;

  she pulls the cup aside

  to save the whipped cream glob

  from interdiction by

  some well thought tease in form

  of coins for beggar’s bid

  to fund recovery

  beyond these tax receipts.

  WCF

  9 April 2010

  The Comfort An Infant Glows

  The little hand holds tight

  her mother’s shoulder, leaves

  the palm to ride along

  the bare skin felt as fond

  assurance. To adjust

  she squirms and fingers hair,

  entwining it within

  the fingered dalliance

  with comfort her delight,

  and mother’s careful tact.

  WCF

  4 April 2010

  At That Later Seam

  Among the faces stirring round

  this seam-time near the end, those two—

  so clouded in their inner range

  of bothersome deflection wrought

  where observation fails—confound

  some evidential swale. His rise

  is normal and his loping strides

  eclipse the aisle directly—grey,

  his face, and furrowed strangely, worn

  with predilection of some cast

  of further norms. And he is gone

  while she abruptly rises, moves

  (her things caught awkwardly in hand)

  into the aisle, turns round and scurries

  in hastened steps, her burrowed face

  bent from the nape, concern wrought harshly

  where pleasantry is habit’s trace.

  Intoning words bring seam to close.

  WCF

  2 April 2010

  Acceptably Assessed

  Soft generosity of voice

  conveys a thanks, allows a smile

  and up-cast eyes their proper toil:

  caressing face and mind and more

  with opulence. Her fingers claim

  the offered sheets, anticipate

  the poems there, the dandled thoughts

  and observations of
a day

  no longer here, of incidents

  that linger on impression-laden

  imagination. Pictured so,

  the image of the generous

  allowance in a voice, in face

  and living eyes begins the sharp

  sway tarrying about the mind

  as one accepting such caress

  and wondering if a glance returned

  accounted for a like embrace

  within the casual and passing

  eased ambiance of a graceful muse.

  WCF

  9 April 2010

  A Surreptitious Sleight

  The shadow weaves

  illusion, leaves

  a purple hue

  upon the air,

  a fair form flashed

  with bounding curls

  in ill restraint

  about her head.

  A somber gaze

  some other way

  than this, a stay

  against the slight

  effusion served

  in silence, lest

  I dally over