Slip shod past The Wimplebee

goes Woodriff Shloop, at half past three.

This Shlizzmagora found his way

to Littleman’s Wharf, or so they say.

Then Woodriff’s portulimpical arc

sat still while still he could be park’d

at Donegal’s the story goes

to drink eleventy more of those.

Now, the dishlee, Griff Labasherimm

found Woodriff Schloop and asked of him

to kindly wait till half past three,

to slip shod past The Wimplebee.

* * * * *

Half a day and half again

since Donegal’s had seen the man

who trundled round the farberquim-

the porter claimed he’d not seen him.

And grumpy Griff Labasherimm

insisted he’d seen nowt of him.

Then near to half past quarter ten,

a-spied he was near Quibulen,

with characters of shifty sort

and women, or so they report.

His coat in tatts, his trousers torn

his nose a’blooded, face forlorn.

with scuffed up shoes and smudged up knees,

for Shloop was shloshed at Schniffery’s.

Stop. I hear the running colors,

bleeding their way into staves of

yesterday’s piecemeal hide and seek.

They have a way about them, stoic and

unyielding in their passion.

 

Maybe it’s the seagull songs,

where nobody knows the words?

But the shear intensity of

competing voices marks territory

for newcomers and ne’er do wells.

 

Maybe it’s the ease with which

lyrics come back from high school sweet

heart songs? Backseat strolls, stretching

out winding fingers, unseen aches;

the Marco Polo jaunts of un-easy un-initiates.

 

Maybe there’s blood in the notes

that tease from privileged places,

hung high upon their low lying lines,

the wide open spaces where old things ease

and new things grow? The music of veins.

 

Maybe clapping these rhythms merely

confuses our steps to a dance, unfrozen,

that teams with uncertainty, like deer on the highway?

This dance, best left alone, makes off

with all remaining reticence, leaving behind

only tired partners.

 

Maybe, like the salmon choir, we submerge in

subversive harmonies, fit only to glide

through effortless musings on riddles of

the underworld? Faint words and muffled sounds

force us to listen more closely.

 

Maybe, instead of the insistence of virtuosity,

primping and perfectly postur’d, we should let

our barstool voices take us where

only friends can go. Sometimes,

there are better tales told under tables,

than solos sung from spotlights.

 

Maybe, the worried demeanor of

our shaky performances stalls itself,

out among the cocain’d critics and shadow-puppet

friends? Would that we only pursued

what’s dangerous, dying in the process, than

soil ourselves waiting for graceless applause.

 

Stop. I hear the running colors,

taking up their places, im-prism’d.

Reinstituted truths of tales best left

un-sung, songs best left un-painted,

casting long shadows on the longer land.

 

Image found here

 

 

There is wonder in the weeds,

stallions in chicken coops where

the tame things are –

waiting, transfixed beyond the scale of our

misconceptions. Only the breathing green-

sleeves of jacketed noon ever make it

past the sifting of a targeted light.

 

Not everyone fears what everyone fears.

Sometimes all the berries congregate at the

bottom of the bowl, past the necessary stuff.

Sometimes we self-gift with what matters least,

except for whomever owns the mirror.

 

Could it be that someone pushed too

hard and a cart pulled a horse? Would that

be so bad, given the size of a cart,

the nature of a horse? Down-trodden

are the nightmares of the demure ones.

Instead, let the hunger feed its own will.

We’ll take our tea in bed.

 

It gets into you, like blood on cotton,

thorns in feet. They only pull when we’re not

watching. Waiting their turn to

preen the pastiche until

its awake enough to turn and

face another cautious page, inked and

waiting – where the real things are.

Listen loudly for the stirring glass

of day, unknowing. Her constancy

rewards your swelling incontinence

of spirit, grey and unraveled. She lowers

her eyes in hithering glance.

 

Listen for stolen subterfuge and

let your wings unstretch and prepare for flight

to the forgotten address, that place without

doors. Only windows looking out like

grassland sonnets, playing their words

for rusty ears, still ringing.

 

Listen for the ache, for those moments

when the pregnancy of pause reminded you

of anxiety gone bad, replaced by the

hearing of silent songs, brightly sonorous.

Even in your absence,

they sang for you.

 

Listen for the memory of color,

the liquidity of mind, dressed in its own

repast. This is the ocean floor, unmitigated

and confident in its vast demeanor. In these

hands, you are again – and playfully small.

 

Listen, unexpecting and directionless, for

Heaven’s mapping of your vine-choaked heart.

Something strangely reminiscent of good, acceptable,

perfect tunnels down to brooklets of diamond

water, tickling your subterranean way.

 

Listen for the intuited climax of

nothing special, wrapped in candy of evermore.

Blatent in repose, the jacketed wonder of a

good day, surprising you in presence. Listen here.

You have found the nothing

you didn’t know you were looking for.

 

Legs dangle, arms crossed, nestled in the humming lilacs,

oblivious to all but the playful patter of unicorn hooves –

a wax doll flays a panda and steals a school bus

like the lips of Judas kissing his friend.

 

There is a flower, stamen intact, but anemic to incursion of lesser bees,

boasting contempt for unadorned suitors, never met.

Sweetest honey, end game of lovers and shared hives,

cannot match the preferred taste of a bloodless friend.

 

Pen at the ready, the steady scratch of solitary ink,

the price of life pretended, unlived living gets written instead.

Freedom, pillaged by cool tranquility, sits aloof on a park bench,

munching contentedly the bones of a dead friend.

 

Drifting, like the Lady of the Lake on a

fairy tale palm frond, someone catches a reflection –

a presence, vaguely recognizable, still unflinching,

puckers again the brutal kiss, in full view of no one.

 

Yet even Judas was brother to some, friend of one.

A silver mouth overlaid with the tarnish of deceived deceit

was still not enough to steal compassion’s face,

bearing down on the grain of a lost friend.

 

Image: “The Kiss of Judas” by Caravaggio