From My Corner Seat Page 6
assumes a micro grit
to settle sifting down
into the clanking gears
of regularity.
Examined time dissolves
into the reel allowed
by unexamined sprees
pretending to be time
unmeasured: desert spent
in restlessness, a waste
expanded in malaise,
sincerity in sand
slid over sand by sighs
of long neglected winds.
WCF
19 October 2010
Re: Joyce
One step slips through the narrow gap,
investigates this other side
and brings a single, lovely bloom
to visit through this afternoon.
So neighborly is beauty come
with unassuming, open joy.
The blossom punctuates the day
and proves of neighbors this delight.
And so I celebrate the hand
that planted, she who chose this plant
and set it there to perpetrate
this beauty’s neighborly ingress.
WCF
23 June 2001
Pen to Page
The poet leans to write
lean words on latent sound;
the pen positions, light
and slight upon the page.
These words sing slim encores
to sounds that simmer, seethe
upon that scintillating
provision silence weaves
about the soul. We pause,
as poets must. We pause
to listen. Silence, sheer
and crystalline attends
to poise of pen. A lift
of delicate aplomb:
sounds, resonates, escapes
on brittle silence, lures
the pensive pen to write.
WCF
9 June 2001
“Begin Anywhere”
The magnet says John Cage
has said ‘Begin Anywhere.’
An affable commending,
a word spun easily
leaves undefined the world
of origin. Beginning
is anywhere in three
or four dimensions. When
I pause to complement
the manifold of hope,
I understand the subtle
complexity of want.
Beginning, as a when
or where, is anywhere
in time and space, a bliss
of face and gentleness,
an undone readiness
to wield and yield at this
revisitation, meant
impossibility;
the access amply gapes
before the prescient start.
WCF
26 August 2011
Against May’s Mime
Of Next July
The hands reach up to trail
the dangling hair, to lift
new tangled strands along
the head, leave bare the nape
and free to vagrant breezes
the gleaming moist skin there.
She holds it with one hand
and stands aloof to talk
and linger on the words
that rummage how the deep
emerges in her tryst
with personality.
Alone as this she holds
intriguingly aloof,
aloft, afresh the poise
of readiness for naught
of my reclusive bliss.
WCF
14 May 2010
The Now-Bare Hill Crest
The years they tilled the land,
converted rolling soil
to feed and food, the house
was lively. Those years hold
a distant memory
in aging folk. The house
appeared as weathered, worn
by sun and storm and time—
relentless time. The old
barn stood in bare planks—yet
erect and proper. Together
they huddled on the top
above the road, and lone.
The old tree still bent shade
by afternoon along
the porch. Then yesterday,
when I walked past, I saw
the open, barren spot
where house belonged and barn
assumed its rightful reign.
Equipment, large and brute,
still sits beside the waste
as haste prepares the land
and soil for fallow use
in pending days when neither
the house nor barn belong.
WCF
24 August 2011
Carmella
remembering
As boisterous bold, a slice
of boiled tomato slopped
upon the grill of life,
with strut and scruff, a slide
of burly, tough approach…
deciduous and kind,
she swaggered through the days
in brazen will, a lapse
to generosity
and sheer devotion, spent
on covert will and want,
an overt effort wrought
in crusty tenderness
and teasing, gentle heart.
WCF
2 April 2011
Hard Frost, I See
A frost-clad green lawn spreads
beneath the pearl grey light
this early morning filters round
these hills. I give the cats
their food dish filled, and wait
as Arthur distillates
the night in right relief.
Unseen, the song birds thrill
the nascent dawn—the sun
not yet above the hills
to fill the sky with ripe
blue radiance. One wren
sings out; another calls
an answer—fluid joy
within the morning. Others
extend less florid songs
to fully grace this pause
between the night that’s gone
and coming daylight’s shine.
WCF
10 May 2010
The Sign
Red thumb tack holds the sign
announcing Seating On
the Deck—an arrow points
along the hidden hall.
The breeze of fans creates
a flutter in the card-
stock sign. It bounces, wags
and indicates a flush
of energy, the sort that rides
as flutter on the wake
of passing breezes blown
by passing bodies shown
in exquisite display.
The sign begins to weave
significance as sign
of breezes raised behind
the passing on to leave.
WCF
14 May 2010
A Mote Of Non-Constraint
A momentary carelessness:
the flow of everything about
distracts attention, leaves a twist
of neck, a flash of smile, a slight
ingressive word to her who walks
beside. Consideration quickly
absorbs abandon, overwhelms
the flash of joy to contemplate
reserved austerity. Yet in
that singular neglect the face
devolves its mystery, allows
the flagrant pleasantry to bloom.
WCF
23 May 2010
Postlude: In Underplaying
Within the web of jabbering
the subtle melodies emerge;
they interleave cacophony
with lilt to tease expectant ears.
Such supple satisfaction plies
the mystic sound against a din
provided all around. Attention
develops on gilt gossamer.
WCF
9 May 2010
The Focusing Smoke
An eerie night, hung still
and clear, as crisp-cold stuns
the face and subtle light
sifts through suspected frost.
The chimney smoke threads air,
a pencil line rising, straight
and undisturbed amid
the balanced ordinary
accoutrements of life.
That tingling stillness—all
of it—provides the zest
in steady, constant means:
it is our ambiance,
the nuance tenor-swept
throughout imagined life.
Yet, in the midst, that thread
of chimney smoke ascends
with caught imagination
to trace the warmth, abide
the welcome other-stretched
in my reality…
until some stagnant lid
prevents ascension, thwarts
the time in incense plume.
WCF
29 November 2008
As Thus Conviction Comes
As if it matters after all,
she comes across the aisle amid
the swirling figures bent on peace.
She comes to offer peace and takes
my hand. The words exchange as she
enfolds my single hand in both
of hers—her head bent down beneath
the shadow of her hat. I look
and all that I can see of face
is chin, a bit of cheek, enough
to sense a subtle hint of smile
confirming in the face the savor
her hands implored for mine. I pause
as she slips on again—to know
it matters after all, this peace.
WCF
2 May 2010
Table of Contents
From My Corner Seat © 2012 by William Flewelling. All rights reserved.
Contents
Reformulating
She Leaned To Cut the Blooms That Day
“The Older Woman”
BHS: Class of ’63
The Cattle Come And Go
A Birthday Thought
A Satisfaction Known
While Waiting On The Outdoor Bench
I Say She’s Chasing Change
Procedural Aplomb
As Choristers Implore
On Palmer Ridge
Implicit Solemnity
One Rose, Set Apart
In Howell’s Paean
An Unavoidable Passing, As It Seems
He Watches Alzheimer’s In Rage
The Familiar Crow Perch Tree
Directions On The Air
Shadow Work
Just Like That Maple Burl
The Deer In Flight
A Stark Night
All From A Fluster
And Mrs.
He Went Once More To Normandy
An Explaining Of The Night
An Exchange: Modest Enough
The Sitting Still An Issue
Tomatoes Win The Night
One Man At Prayer
An Unthought Legacy
The Early Thunderstorm
The Tulips
A Hymn Is Sung On Mother’s Day
A Quiet Reading Preferred
Head In The Cloud
Pictured Arrayed In Almost-Lines
A Gathering Across The Shelf
From The Chrysalis of Complaint
When All Is In The Air
And All The Rest
Great? Or Merely Well Enough?
Beggaring The Question
The Comfort An Infant Glows
At That Later Seam
Acceptably Assessed
A Surreptitious Sleight
“In Obscurum”
Intending Not To Overhear
And, After The Breath…
Inopportune Computer Glitch
Approaching Compline
Quite Useless For The Cause
As Cast Aside
A Visionary Dilemma
The Count
Sunshine’s Benefit Concert
Sat At The Next Table
The Quiet Man
Balancing Act
At Peace
Met Amid Necessities
Once Again, In Context
Renewing Now
Attending To The Chores
So Open In Defense
Lone Rabbit In Tall Grass
Jack Remembered
One Pause In Melancholy
On Hilary Hahn: Brahms’ Violin Concerto
All Aswirl Amok
Air Beneath An Arm
As I Ramble On
The Old Man
Recalled From Reverie
So Known As Missing Now
Exchange By Gesture
Held At The Font
We, Coming At The Last Of Times
Coffee Ground Upon A Second Request
With Utter Grace
Ankh
Correctly Poised
Beloved Yet
Upon Motet
At Departure
By Such Arrangements
Re: Joyce
Pen to Page
“Begin Anywhere”
Against May’s Mime Of Next July
The Now-Bare Hill Crest
Carmella
Hard Frost, I See
The Sign
A Mote Of Non-Constraint
Postlude: In Underplaying
The Focusing Smoke
As Thus Conviction Comes