Fast Day 121 September 26 2009 {At the Morning of Consciousness Cafe}

At The Morning of Consciousness Cafe


Kin I fix ya up with sumpthin' ta drink?
Huh?
...coffee...coffee...coffee...coffee
and a glass ah water...
all waters? Huh?
I don't like chemistry
may I milk fer my coffee?
Yeah, Hon.

Ready ta order? Huh?
Ya ready?
Yeah...eggs
eggs...flapjacks 'n buckwheat.
Warm this up fer ya? Coffee?
Sure...no...hand over cup like a retract
thunderdome over the stadium of life...huh?

Are ya still workin' on that? That concept there?
Still workin' on it?
Worryin' around the plate
like a dog with a bone?
Huh?

no more coffee...please...two hands over cup
and the waitstaff pours it anyway
hot upon yer hands
you yell and
everyone wakes up, like, they had been
asleep and dreaming in a tocata state
and fugue...huh?
staring with wide eyes.
the tip is a tenth and a half o' that
and then a bit
added to the pre-tax subtotal...
and you think it's such precision,
and you think you got it knocked,
and you think no one has keyed your car
within the parking lot!

Fast Day 120 September 19 2009 {Ghazelles}

Ghazelles

O, delight of the eyes!
dancing in the court of the sun!
dancing to the lyre of enchantment!
my bewildered thought...
my plain and simple passion...
beating my heart like a dhow upon
the Red Sea's storm!
the dynamite of touch!
razzia of devotion!
melt slowly...
into the ghazelle's soft, wet
tender muzzle!



*
*
notes

razzia - a desert raid by desert tribes

Fast Day 119 September 11 2009 {Winslow Homer Sky}

Winslow Homer Sky

She paints where Winslow Homer sat,
looking out to cyan sea's green pelagic vastiness,
through mullions deftly drawn upon a net
of highlight cedars, and glass panes
filled with carandache soul;
dreams the waking dreams of watercolor
and wonders where her brush has gone...
where could she have put it?
Her daughter will soon be wed...
where could she have put it?
The outboard motor's chug is heard

as the punt swings into view,
blinding sun, shooting flowers
on plates of translucent chlorophyll;
her husband returning home,
clothed in sunshine harlequin and clown,
and she dreams of oil paints, layering
thick coats of patina
over umbral background
as he slips into the sea.

*

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notes:

I was early with this, and I meant to save it, but Blogger had different ideas, and I just did not want to waste time editing, so there it is - one week early.

I wrote the poem yesterday for my wife's birthday.

The persons in the poem could be Penelope and Odysseus, or Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams, or unknown wonders of life.

carandache - Russian word for pencil, also a brand name of crayon: caran d'ache.

Fast Day 118 September 4 2009 {On Watching TV}

On Watching TV


A filigree day on the filigree earth,
bound up in filigree and ribbon!
At home in a fragile Universe...
sit back and kick off a gaze at the TV
shining like a million crystal rhinestones
thrown upon a rug
of a garden
within a courtyard
of a palace
in Damascus
irrigated by streams with a pentagon
symmetry
and their rest punctuated by armies
marching on the edge of chaos.