Sending the Alphabet to the Back of the Line
Childhood is plural for away,
China’s clay soldiers are shooting you with BBs.
Childhood is 1536 and King Henry’s clemency,
The death-bird whistling a Baltic melody.
Childhood is memory’s monstrosity
That thrives because it is deaf.
Oedipus Rex disdained the moon at its apogee,
Appealed daily to his legislature:
“Outlaw it being anything but new! My eye-
Sockets bleed in moonlight, soak my PJs,
Because I can see again as a child, okay?”
What John Smith sought was the rattlesnake’s fontanelle;
1608: “My nostrils imply a new Bethlehem,
But at noon the settlers appear to me…mannequins.”
Some dough boys were virgins; with gusto
They died in poppy fields and kissed Calliope’s
Fingers, whose signature shot the air with curlicues.
Aquinas denied his cicatrix, as did Belthazar –
“To credit father’s brand with our success!”
The end of childhood is the rainbow’s unity
Of hostile, verisimilar illusions. (re: Howard Hughes.)
The end of childhood is a flashflood of gravy,
Or for some, an old, nude harpy crying, “You! You!”
The start of childhood is always tardy; not sex,
But a staggering of Who, What, When, Where and Why,
Like pawns. The start of childhood is the end of easy.
Beauty is what the mind can wrestle with but never pin
The man of the house rewinds the future,
He plays cat and mouse with shale and
Voluptuous death and in dreams he’s a
Tired little boy.
The woman of the house has painted
Their lives the color that God perceives
As red, and her odor can send God
Down Memory Lane.
The baby of the house will grow
Her own orchard, where Father and
Mother are not themselves, but rows
Of columns to clouds.
The dog of the house has rituals;
He forgives a cruel master because
His ancestors tell him “Good boy”
Is an angel’s bone.
The cat of the house has built cathedrals
Of lies that he only tells mice in a sort
Of benediction; the cat duly mourns the
Sacrificial robin.
A new physician like myself becomes
Abstract, my outline fades and
Poetry prolongs my lifespan but
In the wrong direction.
My wife at 32 is sewing quilts that
Capture light voraciously as fronds
And give it up as fuel for death
Chasing our dreams.
My daughter at 18 months initiates
Plants and animals into her club by
Composing the texture and taste of a
Resplendent parallel.
Cornelius, our cat, persuasively lays
On my lap, gently as a sword sliding
Through ribs, with a piercing love
My guilt thrives on.
Dashi the doubtless, our dog, nose-
Bumps my hand, a gesture like your
Mother being young so you’re never
Lost in thought.
Emma the emissary is a memory
Freed from the self, our cat that
Dutifully zig-zags about the room to
Guide the present.
Copper, our Copernicus: dog born
With one deformed ear, survivor of
Torture, whose pain is the poem
Recited by spring.
Hymenoptera
For Ben Shimon, a friend I met in high school
You were the adverb God prescribed to “Being,”
Embezzling the breath of tropics, drinking
Fermented rain with pop-stars while they’re kinking
Their fame and fallopian tubes for you. And “Bane”
Is how your name’s pronounced in quasi-cliques
By pseudo-citizens of Cool; “He ekes
Himself, it isn’t fair!” “Hizo bien”
Is what you hope they’ll say in heaven; “Soy…
¿Cómo se dice lost?” Go punch the cantor
In his rapacious Kaddish. Loose your plantar
Fasciitis on his Hebrew. “Sui
Generis: Epitaph of far too many,”
You heard Westminster Abbey say, its tinny
Lament: apology; you’re like the Sioux.
Childhood is plural for away,
China’s clay soldiers are shooting you with BBs.
Childhood is 1536 and King Henry’s clemency,
The death-bird whistling a Baltic melody.
Childhood is memory’s monstrosity
That thrives because it is deaf.
Oedipus Rex disdained the moon at its apogee,
Appealed daily to his legislature:
“Outlaw it being anything but new! My eye-
Sockets bleed in moonlight, soak my PJs,
Because I can see again as a child, okay?”
What John Smith sought was the rattlesnake’s fontanelle;
1608: “My nostrils imply a new Bethlehem,
But at noon the settlers appear to me…mannequins.”
Some dough boys were virgins; with gusto
They died in poppy fields and kissed Calliope’s
Fingers, whose signature shot the air with curlicues.
Aquinas denied his cicatrix, as did Belthazar –
“To credit father’s brand with our success!”
The end of childhood is the rainbow’s unity
Of hostile, verisimilar illusions. (re: Howard Hughes.)
The end of childhood is a flashflood of gravy,
Or for some, an old, nude harpy crying, “You! You!”
The start of childhood is always tardy; not sex,
But a staggering of Who, What, When, Where and Why,
Like pawns. The start of childhood is the end of easy.
Beauty is what the mind can wrestle with but never pin
The man of the house rewinds the future,
He plays cat and mouse with shale and
Voluptuous death and in dreams he’s a
Tired little boy.
The woman of the house has painted
Their lives the color that God perceives
As red, and her odor can send God
Down Memory Lane.
The baby of the house will grow
Her own orchard, where Father and
Mother are not themselves, but rows
Of columns to clouds.
The dog of the house has rituals;
He forgives a cruel master because
His ancestors tell him “Good boy”
Is an angel’s bone.
The cat of the house has built cathedrals
Of lies that he only tells mice in a sort
Of benediction; the cat duly mourns the
Sacrificial robin.
A new physician like myself becomes
Abstract, my outline fades and
Poetry prolongs my lifespan but
In the wrong direction.
My wife at 32 is sewing quilts that
Capture light voraciously as fronds
And give it up as fuel for death
Chasing our dreams.
My daughter at 18 months initiates
Plants and animals into her club by
Composing the texture and taste of a
Resplendent parallel.
Cornelius, our cat, persuasively lays
On my lap, gently as a sword sliding
Through ribs, with a piercing love
My guilt thrives on.
Dashi the doubtless, our dog, nose-
Bumps my hand, a gesture like your
Mother being young so you’re never
Lost in thought.
Emma the emissary is a memory
Freed from the self, our cat that
Dutifully zig-zags about the room to
Guide the present.
Copper, our Copernicus: dog born
With one deformed ear, survivor of
Torture, whose pain is the poem
Recited by spring.
Hymenoptera
For Ben Shimon, a friend I met in high school
You were the adverb God prescribed to “Being,”
Embezzling the breath of tropics, drinking
Fermented rain with pop-stars while they’re kinking
Their fame and fallopian tubes for you. And “Bane”
Is how your name’s pronounced in quasi-cliques
By pseudo-citizens of Cool; “He ekes
Himself, it isn’t fair!” “Hizo bien”
Is what you hope they’ll say in heaven; “Soy…
¿Cómo se dice lost?” Go punch the cantor
In his rapacious Kaddish. Loose your plantar
Fasciitis on his Hebrew. “Sui
Generis: Epitaph of far too many,”
You heard Westminster Abbey say, its tinny
Lament: apology; you’re like the Sioux.
