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{the state of our poetry} ron androla the blueness (for robert bly) winter breaks from noon sky like a cracked-off, sharp iceberg. locusts lift out of seagull wings to electrify the cries of birds wailing thru veins of blue air; in hollow bones microbes grow silly, jokingly, blowing thinnest flutes. what are you feeling this minute? is there snow patched around edges of a pond, & what about geese? we've all whipped around the sun with drama dreams flashing in our geode heads after a blink of the eye & before we see again oak trees grunting & trying to burst green. *** making a moment (for robert bly) the last snowflake spins into a thin drop of rain seconds before touching the top of a skeletal maple tree, & the tree hovers over muddy pot-holes in a street! & i'm fifty-one years old with grandkids, & i'm really going bald now like a white tensioned balloon. brown reedy weeds are ridiculous arrows around our garage shot down by tired, fatalistic angels. i picture a crow on an old lawn & you watching it from a shed window. *** eyeballs (for robert bly) marbles of them, eyeballs, bubbles in a red felt sack; stretching the skin of a slit cat open & there's no blood, it's frozen. a dead dove on a sidewalk. you with pillow- puffed white hair sipping a second coffee. to hear a clock is a thing from the past, but dawn is always light & the dead are ghosts. everyone hears kids playing in a soft, distant way. *** in a barn (for robert bly) it's been ages. all that yelling & the razors of echoes from living in a city; my knees pulse with pain as i walk steps. 6 stories up i wonder what a window wld be without its glass. what i might realize listening to a train in cold wind at midnight. yellow butterflies burst from my ears as metallic bark breaks from my bones. *** one old man (for robert bly) he sips adrenaline boosts with each breath, which lightens his body, & his mind multiplies various ghosts of itself, they hover with dangerous hawks behind him, out of eyesight but within feeling, he knows it, he knows it. *** picture (for robert bly) you want to die while it's snowing over the woods white & rounded, in 20 below air, on yr back with the body all numb & eyes still juicy with seeing. smiling isn't important. in spring thaw you'll be discovered. yr hands will be curled flowers in low snow. |
