Day 389 August 23 2015 Aylan

Aylan 

Indifference is the ghost beneath my bed,
the bush where tinsel ghosts congregate,
trolls that wish to party and dismember me,
to scatter the pieces of my body
around the Mediterranean -
(Venice of the soul, as we sink into a sea;
great Doges of our madness!) – 
like the alabaster torso of Osiris
washed up from Syria and Beirut,
drowned upon the shore,
where we Instagram
and soon forget
th’indifference what drove us mad.


 --
written 09/03/2015 on hearing of the death of Aylan Kurdi of Syria.

Day 388 August 16 2015 Soon To Be Grandmother

Soon To Be Grandmother 

 Fiery and treasured stone of the wide world,
deep earth stone and fire;
Sun of dawning iridescent stone:
Vesuvius of flowing love, like cooling lava,
wrapt in smoke and lurid glow,
which gives to our unheedful Pompeii souls
the blatant mortal bodies, so easy on the eyes;
Mother, lovers, father, daughter, and mother again.

Thus the way is uncovered
to the Villa of the Mysteries,
and Demeter wanders no more;
she comes home to Eleusis,
finding her way by the geography of baby clothes.

--

Day 387 August 9 2015 Old Age

Old Age

Muses of old age cough...
idyllic pleasures culminate,
into idle agrimonies for pain:
will-o-the-whisp dreams,
hawthorn days,
finger-apple cancer,
chafeweed elbows and joints,
so take sprigs of rosemary
to the closets and the library
to avert the moths of time...

in shivering frost and a coldness that cloys
like sugar on tooth decay...
no hearth

--

Day 386 August 2 2015 Cottages

Cottages


I had a cottage I stained green
to match the under foliage
of the pear trees all around.

I had a house I stained smoke
to match the banshee scream of clouds
of the approaching storm front.

I had a house that I limed white
to invoke the lofty cumuli
tumbling from Lake Huron.

--

Day 385 July 26 2015 Romeo In Exile

I understand the honey and the sweet
which is that power of your letter,
conveyed to me in Mantua;

I flee as a butterfly from wormwood
to the deeply embroidered valley
of your carnation satin breast.

--