Wild Nights - click for AGNI Magazine
Backwoods - click for Salmon Poetry
2 poems - click for Solstice Magazine
[2 Poems]
Music of the Spheres
On my birthday, I attended
a performance of Bach's fugue in una chiesa,
my phrasebook my pikestaff. The organ
shook trains from Venice to Salerno.
I staggered out, an accordion, wondering
how to make a compound sentence,
where gelati, where some money,
why the best phrase I could muster
in Italy was: mi lasci in pace,
then wandered the Museo Galileo's giant hall
of mechanical devices, repeating to myself,
Museo. Galileo. The building's front
a Medici fort, stood close to the water.
Inside were complex systems, cogwheels
barometers, disks, simple microscopes,
telescopes like lifeboats on the walls.
Later, in the hall of the Uffizi,
I stood face to face with The Annunciation,
Gothic art of Memmi and Martini,
in thrusts of brilliant gold
the angel and the virgin (which is which?)
locked in gilded mist between his fingers and her chador-
robe. The self-preserving curl of Mary's shoulders
denies all physics. My heart lifted
to the lily's bright leaf.
The displeased fire lens of her gaze
said so much more is ahead.
Then I wept, hardly knowing I was standing
with anyone but the saints, in their exclusive panels,
their stares the still twin eyes of storms.
Odysseus with a Siren in the Corner of His Eye
What are you afraid of? You’ll see her
gleaming from the cave, her stare,
stony, unreadable. By ear you navigate
your cruel way home, short of breath.
Walls along the crypts,
a chorus on the shore, spikes of glass
track the ridge. What is it in her words,
frozen grains opening melodically
like tiny grates. The nautilus.
Admit it: your grizzled eye
is pleased. You hoped for
salt flats, white beach, dead sleep,
the grotto where she’s not supposed to be.
You can’t have everything. The veins
in your arm swell, stoked
by wind, blue on the prow.
Do you know you’re angry?
Backwoods - click for Salmon Poetry
2 poems - click for Solstice Magazine
[2 Poems]
Music of the Spheres
On my birthday, I attended
a performance of Bach's fugue in una chiesa,
my phrasebook my pikestaff. The organ
shook trains from Venice to Salerno.
I staggered out, an accordion, wondering
how to make a compound sentence,
where gelati, where some money,
why the best phrase I could muster
in Italy was: mi lasci in pace,
then wandered the Museo Galileo's giant hall
of mechanical devices, repeating to myself,
Museo. Galileo. The building's front
a Medici fort, stood close to the water.
Inside were complex systems, cogwheels
barometers, disks, simple microscopes,
telescopes like lifeboats on the walls.
Later, in the hall of the Uffizi,
I stood face to face with The Annunciation,
Gothic art of Memmi and Martini,
in thrusts of brilliant gold
the angel and the virgin (which is which?)
locked in gilded mist between his fingers and her chador-
robe. The self-preserving curl of Mary's shoulders
denies all physics. My heart lifted
to the lily's bright leaf.
The displeased fire lens of her gaze
said so much more is ahead.
Then I wept, hardly knowing I was standing
with anyone but the saints, in their exclusive panels,
their stares the still twin eyes of storms.
Odysseus with a Siren in the Corner of His Eye
What are you afraid of? You’ll see her
gleaming from the cave, her stare,
stony, unreadable. By ear you navigate
your cruel way home, short of breath.
Walls along the crypts,
a chorus on the shore, spikes of glass
track the ridge. What is it in her words,
frozen grains opening melodically
like tiny grates. The nautilus.
Admit it: your grizzled eye
is pleased. You hoped for
salt flats, white beach, dead sleep,
the grotto where she’s not supposed to be.
You can’t have everything. The veins
in your arm swell, stoked
by wind, blue on the prow.
Do you know you’re angry?
