Four-Handed Brussels

Four-Handed Brussels


Why is a waltz when plod is daily?
What is a blindness lifted?
Who is the hammering slamming one-note?
What is a growing storm?

How is the light-tripping sweetness danced?
Why all the slowing gold?
Where is the brass-tipped backhand stored?
How stop the shattering waves?

wingfoot goes flying

Big and loud wants to be quiet
colorful says don't see me! don't look!
slaphappy punchsilly slams on the brake and just about
        wrecks it all

wingfoot goes flying and yearns to be slow
yesterday barrels right through tomorrow's lacyweb
outside wants in, barking the age-old plaint of caverns
straight and flat wakes to a curly-edged dream

monster truck bursts to a lovestruck stop
reeking of mileage, trying so hard to be small
sunblue plays peek-a-cloud, where am I showing myself?
snorthappy big plays crouching unseen.

Each to each you hold my hand - ghazal

When I'm flailing topsy-turvy I beseech you, hold my hand.

All I ask is that across the snaggled breach, you hold my hand. 

When we're storming and the world is far too small to hold us both

I still love you. It's no walkfest on the beach. You hold my hand.

Please, when both of us are lurching, keep me steady with a touch

Just ignore the flameballs raging each to each. You hold my hand.

There is something that I do for you. There must be. Don't forget.

I'll be fine if you don't lecture me or preach. You hold my hand.

What is bitter now will be the thing my heart craves most of all

Though I'm thrashing at you I just want to reach you. Hold my hand.

Live-poem for sisterport

roomful of longstanders, faces on each of them
me with the five-minute mistake, later, later than should
sisterface, maybe I don't know your lookalike,
standwaiters, sitwaiters, hipshifting scufflino

******
and now a flood, the pullpeople eyewrinkled lagstepping
everywhereroom, boxyflat lowgray with smudgefinger lookthrough
which of the sistertimes will this be walkrolling?
toepointers all of us facepushing there, there,
the windowsquare suitcaseroom.

And here aha! my sisterface makes herself brightface, onething
against all the blurrymen
upglad the armbackforth, me to the worrygone slump
now just the waitstanding, hipshifting yes but it's worrygone

know-you-now smilewalkers outstepping, outstepping, outstepping
childfather hugjumps, girlgrouping pointy smiles
outswinging, outswinging gate
mewaiting slow, fine,
fuzzhaloes, shortpullers, stripechest-straps outstepping, outstepping
lastsister slowly now roomswallowed

worryback, mestanding, wonder and hipshift
sisterglimpse after all, waitstanding . . .

Live-poem

I live-poemed the first half of the France-Honduras game tonight.

noisetumbling

bodies in pain, turfrolling

roundkickers everywherebouncing, polegate the focus

aiming and kneepumping, aircatching

orangegleam footboats, sunshiny grassstompers

sweatcanvas chocolate and mocha, plainpink, scratchypeach, old orange

climb, jump, one ballpusher rolls up the other's worldbearing broadness

ouch and crouch, always a legbending tripfooting

pause

hugepeople closeups but no, draw away, tinymen all-colors

dancing the stripemarble down, down the greenfuzz

beephonking, peopleroars, dull, dull, constant

now again pain, downman the body wrongbending

crowdshovers scary a muddleheap

braverunners on, on, pretzeltwist kickbodies shufflerun brightfoots

oh boxfilling shoes, upspraying grassdivot mudlets

crosspatterns, twistsprinting

multiman millipede

pain again, flatbacking ballsplatting

huddledman curlrounding, upbouncing now again

play, always playbodies

closeface now, dripnose and eyeferocious,

ballrocket straightflight, hugballman falling the wrongside

clinch, clench, happymans eachdancing lookat-us lookat-us

yellowbright scarewarner, leftbodies rightbodies

and - done.

manwalkers legs, legs, legs slowtromping now.

Birthday ghazal for Michel

I think, after all, I must like you a little. I follow you!

From the glorious coasts to the towns you belittle, I follow you.

All those airplanes we've caught by a hair, by a prayer.

All those leases we've signed with a jot and a tittle: I follow you.

You have thought that I'm guilty of not enough caring.

Here, love, is my perfect acquittal: I follow you.

Houses, walk-ups, and rentals. More boxes, more movers.

Together in zigzags. Is that noncommittal? I follow you.

Here we are in this crazy-paint treehouse, amor

Slowly finding some kind of routine that we whittle. I follow you.

We're looking for things we have lost or we've wished for.

We're mellowing, softening, things that were brittle. I follow you.

In the ground a fragment of glass - ghazal

In the ground a fragment of glass, curved, blue, like a cup

In the mirror an angle of cheek I can see right through, like a cup

In the heat looking anywhere, everywhere, breathing

Reaching for sky, air, ice, like a prayer that flew, like a cup

On the wall a thick flat blue Madonna and child

He ignoring her white round breast, firm and new, like a cup

In my thirst crooking hands to catch trickles of anything wet

To capture the least hint of lingering dew, like a cup

Everywhere I look are the bowl-shaped curves, mocking drought

Collecting and pooling my bitter dry kisses for you, like a cup.

On the balcony there is a yearning bloom - ghazal

On the balcony there is a yearning bloom, bright yellow.
It is watching the sun and deflecting the gloom, bright yellow.

You came home hot and dry from the day, footsore and dusty
Found the flower that beckoned you through the room, bright yellow.

A drink for you and a drink for the potted plant on the railing
Boom, the leaves perked up and the flower: boom boom, bright yellow!

A pot and a stem and a spiral of buds in waiting
Where this flowerhead wilts there the next will resume, bright yellow.

Swirling reds on the floor and the blues on the wall fan into the dusk.
But again you look up with a smile. Va-voom: bright yellow!

Hot - slant sonnet circlet

Fighting the heat I am fighting my self-creature, legs brain skin.

Skin-sticky, tired, snap-ready, no body here but me to lay into.

Into the evening open-mouthed, breeze-waiting. The day my undoing.

Undoing the doing of cool unflappable me. Undoing me.

Me in pieces, in crazy, in wanting you all gone pronto.

Pronto you skitter-scatter, empty is all there is here now. Hot.

Hot room after room, me fighting me fighting me fighting.

***

Fighting the dead slow air I am breathing alone. Losing.

Losing the wait, losing my snap-together cool.

Cool is a memory gone flat, melting. Kissing what I was.

Was one piece. Was think-alone, stand-up-straight, watch out scary!

Scary the falling apart. Now alone. Empty hot cavern rooms.

Rooms for chasing the gone-away air-breeze here, there.

There is no me left. There is only the fighting.