Eureka Moment

September

wind whistles, the leaves dance

October

wind whistles, the leaves dance

November

wind whistles,
orange, red, yellow, gold

blow

wind

blow

The green minnow - by Robert Lax

the green minnow

bears a white &

black mark

at his tail


by which we

understand

what fish

he’ll be


(& all things

bear a mark

for the under-

standing)




your voice

in dark

is no

less, then,

your voice;


mine, from

behind you,

’s mine

as from

before



(whatever is

is mark’d first

as itself;


later, if ev-

er, as gener-

ic being.)


 

This poem was first published in the Robert Lax special issue of Voyages, vol. 2 no. 1 & 2, 1968


 

Hand grenade

Teenage trees, spindly limbs akimbo

blown apart by a hand grenade of hormones

with eyes wide open

Clearasil and mirrors, half-inhaled smoke

from cigarettes and hand grenades of hormones

exploding in the awkward trenches

Stockpile them high, keep them tinder dry

don't handle with care

hand grenades of hormones

blushing in the beardlessness

blushing in the beardlessness

blushing in the beardlessness,

blossoms bursting forth.

A Little Tooth - by Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet
talker on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall. 

Boundary

Day sheds it’s skin
no moon rises
nor stars shine

The sun that creeps
over my shoulder
is a cheat

I have waited
and waited
for leaves to fall

for earth’s appetite for light to stall
yet I am in autumn
you stranded in summer.

Above the observatory
geese are journeying
to the edge of the old night.

The Philosophical Tasseographer ..

.. questions his own game 

in a bedroom at the Eastern Hotel 

after the inaugural meeting of the Golden Triangle Magickal

Arts Society when he asks,

 

"Time is the strainer

that passes through me

 

Am I the tea leaves

or am I the tea?"

Bonsai Quartet

Bagpipes

When at work,
in the rain
or in the distance

if I hear the pipes
I always stop to listen

like a dog passing a lamp post


Big Questions

Always in and out of bars
we were young
trying at the limits
of beauty

What did we all talk about exactly?


Wrong Number

When my dream rings
you answer it
after a few seconds

Why did it take you so long to wake up?


Smirr

I saw you smiling in
the wind-shade sheltering
from the plainsong
of precipitation