From My Corner Seat Page 3
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