Two Sons
I
have two sons.
One,
bright face
of moon
floating
through
thins shreds
of cloud,
his laughing
mouth round
as his
quicksilver
wafer face,
one a wild
man
stamping in the yards
below. Each brother
knows he is a god,
each waves
his arms
and sends
gifts out into
the friendless
world.
One sends
green
waves rampaging
against
rock
and shore,
one sends
the Blues.
Both fashion
brilliant
crustaceans
among the
gleaming pools.
They sing
in the humid
dark. Both
court
daughters
of the curling
vine. I
have heard them
together
many times,
rolling
their dice of bone
across a
hard-packed floor.
One rides
out into night’s
mysterious
arms waving
cloth woven
from starlight
strings;
the other, perched
on an elephant’s
back,
beats blue
thunder from
the ivory hollow of his chest.
________________________________________________________________________
The
King of Worms
Our halls
are made of mud, and brown
rain sloshes through every street. Feel
the sucking at your feet, each step a wet
and gluey stride, wagons sunk to axels
on this disaster road. Make way for the
king of worms. Everything slides to
lower ground, oozes to drain and liquefy
as if the whole world had turned to tears.
We who slither in his entourage ask
nothing of the sun. We speak our names
beneath black, roaring clouds, our eyes
tower above sinking walls, and every
empty belly knows the beans we sow,
handfuls of hope in our knotted fists,
hard and maggot-white. Out on swelling
seas, the last ships toss and roll beyond
brutal blur of rain. In the street of statues
gone to wash, melting glory of the days
when gods sang in our hallways and great
birds raked their iron wings against the sky.
__________________________________________________________________________________________
Back
in St. Cloud
Nine
states in seven days and now I ache
like an old man on a winter’s night, scuttling
along bright avenues in this town so full
of its own rich blood it wants to disappear.
Red marks on the
lintels of my door, open
wounds torn into hands. Shadows move
beyond the tree line where river laps against
muddy banks, draws against its undertow.
Here where wind stabs
between whip-like
branches and dust kicks into the air like
powdered gold, I want to place my head.
I want to rest on the gently hovering grass,
hold trajectories
of small gray birds in my
calculating mind. Here I want to press
burning lids against my dry red cheeks
and pass into some apple-smelling trance,
a vision
of planets and broken crested hills.
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