chestnut hum

1.
the space between the dirt and the grass-tops
is brown,

the color of watered coffee,
one-coat-too-few;

shade paint.


2.
the brown is flecked with grey--
flint sparks

studded with the
dull copper rasp of
unseen insects.


3.
between the layers
of loam and seedtop
run taut
clear threads:

compressed,
wavering,
corded:

interlaced fingers turned upwards like a cage
(inverted birdwings).


4.
i am leaving new york,
and i see the signs everywhere.

the imprint of wings and grass are on the air
swept wings through residue,

bladed shadows
mimic the original.

birdstalk

grackles
walk the courthouse lawn,
looking sidelong
(yellow pupils white iris)

blue-black ballgown trails behind them in the grass.

sandpiper-like birds

early morning reading:

sanderling,
ruddy turnstone,
red knot,
ruff winter plumage,
ruddy turnstone winter plumage,
upland sandpiper.

willet,
dunlin,
whimbrel,
lesser yellowlegs,
short-billed dowitcher,
long-billed curlew,
greater yellowlegs,
hudsonian godwit,
and
black-necked stilt


(next up: the boat-tailed grackle: tail very long and keel-shaped; 3 or 4 pale blue eggs, spotted and scrawled with brown and purple, in a bulky cup of grass, mud, and decayed vegetation placed from 2 to 10' up in marsh grass or bushes).

house (reworked, in robert creeley-like format )

1.
bee hum
they have overtaken the tree
and scrapped evergreen shavings
onto the baked comb
of earth.

the afternoon is
flat in a white heat
(poems out of anger are best sometimes)
broiled, (em)broiled,
charged with sharpness like flaked stone.


2.
i pried the organs gently
out of a still-frozen chicken this afternoon;
ice slick film coating the skin,
soft chisel of fingernails secretly working.

i worried the pieces from the ribcage inside,
the red flesh flaked and banded like quartz.

i held the pieces in my closed fist until the pan was hot enough to throw them into.

the small heart looked
like a wax model of the thing:
tiny grey cord reaching up
aorta slight but unwavering,
waxy under the slough and slosh of floury water.


3.
the bees didn't seem to mind the slick chicken smell that wafted around their hive tree (from inside).
even a tight white drum of a house has small leaks,
like fissures (slow) grown in rock.
air currents and stock smells find their way through,

air-balloon striates when blown too big,
white stretch-marks bloom in grey ground,
(slumped accordians wheezing).


4.
our house is a pliant membrane of brick and wash:
in with filmed skin breath,
out in porous wet trade,
lung-dust and chalk coughed upwards from the sub-floor,
(secrets have gathered like fallen nail-clippings).

audible inhale under pinprick of stars,
fallen exhale like dusk descending on sharp hills.

house

bee hum
they have overtaken the tree
and scrapped evergreen shavings
onto the baked comb
of earth.

the afternoon is
flat in a white heat
(poems out of anger are best sometimes)
broiled, (em)broiled,
charged with sharpness like flaked stone.

i pried the organs gently
out of a still-frozen chicken this afternoon;
ice slick film coating the skin,
soft chisel of fingernails secretly working.

i worried the pieces from the ribcage inside,
the red flesh flaked and banded like quartz.

i held the pieces in my closed fist until the pan was hot enough to throw them into.

the small heart looked
like a wax model of the thing:
tiny grey cord reaching up
aorta slight but unwavering,
waxy under the slough and slosh of floury water.

the bees didn't seem to mind the slick chicken smell that wafted around their hive tree (from inside).
even a tight white drum of a house has small leaks,
like fissures (slow) grown in rock.
air currents and stock smells find their way through,

air-balloon striates when blown too big,
white stretch-marks bloom in grey ground,
(slumped accordians wheezing).

our house is a pliant membrane of brick and wash:
in with filmed skin breath,
out in porous wet trade,
lung-dust and chalk coughed upwards from the sub-floor,
(secrets have gathered like fallen nail-clippings).

audible inhale under pinprick of stars,
fallen exhale like dusk descending on sharp hills.

'travel' by seamus heaney

Oxen supporting their heads
into the afternoon sun,
melons studding the hill like brass:

who reads into distances reads
beyond us, sleeping children
and the dust settling in scorched grass.

afternoon

tomato juice
sun
bees
yellow shelves
birdcalls
largest crow
leaking afternoon light
clock tick
tock
smote (smite).

blue polished rippled stone
quiet hinge
right

in the middle

of the afternoon.


held breath stitch step

and then my head falls forward
again falls over into the end of the day.