Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: August 1, 2010

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LOVE POEM THAT LEADS ME       
TO A FLORIDA CANAL

The ban­do­neon trans­ports me
to your lips
relaxed as they are
like orchids
on a late sum­mer trellis.

Orchids climb­ing the trel­lis
of your throat.

Orchids like verbs
strug­gling
with existence.

Orchids
like lovers
from the grave,
as lovers
often appear
from graves.

Beau­ti­ful.

Impos­si­ble to resist
in their splen­dor
of Span­ish moss
with night herons
perched on giant oak shoul­ders
cir­cling the moon’s silver waist.

Oak moon.

My moon,
tum­bled dry
so many times
that wis­dom
sep­a­rated
itself
from young poets
who occa­sion­ally slip
from their con­scious minds.

A caballero strikes a match
in a Juarez can­tina;
older women
sway;
young…

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Posted on: July 17, 2010

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Appro­ba­tions 565

—after Trygve Seim’s Between

 

 

 

Between stare                          stare

            blank

opac­ity

            resembles

much

of the broken

                        semblances

cul­ture con­tains, intangible mores

                                                                        focused

finite and inex­plic­a­bly distant

from con­sis­tent virtues of

ital­i­cized

                        beau monde.

 

 

Appro­ba­tions 566

—after Marc Johnson’s Since you Asked

 

 

 

My silence recalls bland-​​​​tongue

            architecture,

                                    achromatic

logic con­tain­ing

prayer­ful condi­ments, muti­lated con­nec­tion.  Your asking

con­tains metaphoric trails, my standing still

of an oaks’ neigh­bor­hood of size, style—

 

rean­a­lyzes your truth of com­mit­ted understanding.

            The ideal

would be con­ver­sa­tion occurrence

                                    coun­ter­ing the silence

my sound releases

                        broken

con­fused mean­ing of my mind’s innate sepulture.

 

 

Appro­ba­tions 567

—after Bobo Stenson’s Olivia

 

 

 

Wears inter­wo­ven light like shadows

climb­ing con­tex­tual walls of needed

iso­la­tion.  Her

                        alone

retrieves an image of pale, bleached stone

engrained into sand’s warmed appre­ci­a­tion, resting,…

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Posted on: June 15, 2010

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Flower Poetry

When the flow­ers first escaped the row,
hav­ing scat­tered their gen­er­a­tives in time with a good wind,
I used poi­son to con­tain them. 
All gar­den­ers know you can only own beau­ti­ful things
if you keep them in a square.

These were hearty poison-​​​​eating flow­ers, I dis­cov­ered.
Soon, they made the grounds, even root­ing in the con­crete walk.
Hur­rah for wild­ness, hur­ray for its life, I thought,
leav­ing them be.

I remem­ber too clearly the morn­ing I wit­nessed
the first flower to get inside the house.
It was grow­ing from the kitchen floor.
I con­tained this pretty crea­ture by set­ting a large soup-​​​​pot over it.
By next after­noon, the flower had called a com­pa­triot,
and the pot had been overturned.

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