two ships

If you protest our introduction,
beating against the intransigence
of a well–meaning (well, meaning no
harm) and not uninebriated
friend, know I take no offense.

Tonight we intended to make light
work of a dear and enviable
thing, to send off in a marriage bark
two loves upon (or just beside)
the waters where they met.

But then it was insisted that we
meet here too, seven leagues and seven
deep in drink to speak for myself: just
so deep as unmoors mouth and mind, not
near so deep as courage rests

a hulking wreck just faintly spied from
the surface of our conversation
(can you call it conversation when
winds rage and rather than collide we
tack to pass by cloudless skies?)

epithalamium

for RD & SD • 15.x.22

S–—–, R—–, if you knew
The surface of a placid lake
When subtle autumn breezes make
It dance and leap, you’d know the same
My joy to see the two of you

As one and at the same time plunge
To deeper waters than that lap
Upon the shallow shifting sands
Of mere acquaintanceship and chance
Encounter; and, that shore undone

By wave on wave of choice and care,
Resurface at the center of
An ever–outward rippling Love,
That like the wind–swept spray above
It dances, shimmering, in the air.

canis minor

A shadow of the usual kind
is not so hairy, that is true.

More ordinary shadows take
to training easier as well:

they sit when you sit; walk, they heel;
shake hands, roll over — say the word

and demonstrate — they follow you.
An ordinary shadow needs

supremely little food or care.
It’s cheap. Long–lived. But then again

a shadow of the usual kind
cares very little who it tags

along behind. It may be well
behaved (an ordinary shade

will rarely gnaw the baseboard or
jump on the counter, eat your lunch,

then beg for more). It may not gaze
deep in your eyes and cock its head

until it’s your apology
to make. But at the end of the

most soul–excruciating day
at work that you have ever known,

a shadow of the usual kind
won’t bound the distance of your day–

–long separation, leap and lick
insistent, innocent, to ask

But aren’t you happy now? And now?
And now? and now? And how ’bout now?

westward

Caught by a stroke mid–stride
Eyes fixed beyond the world’s
North edge (not, in the word
Of the caption beside
You, westward) I wonder:
Were you tall for your age
Or the lines of your face
With long miles under
The sun just rough, rough as
Your father’s though near twice
As young? Given the choice
To farm a life or pan
For vaguely rumored gold
In California,
Can anyone blame you
(I can’t) for grabbing hold
Of your best shirt and boots,
For rolling your shoulders
Before a land broader
Than God — what could you lose
But what you’d never gain
At home?
But I admit
My reasons are selfish:
This afternoon the play
Of gold upon your frame
Lights the entire stair.
Two years ago I’d stare
Anywhere else for shame
I didn’t understand,
But your right hand deserves
Attention, and the curve
Beneath your collar, and
This thin veneer this sheen
Like dust–traced sweat leaves
Very little between
Us. I know, as you knew,
The shadows that these wide
And cloud–daubed blue paint skies
Cast on a landscape strewn
With expectation, know
That every hue and shade
Of you already fades
Away.
And even so.
If vast waste lands await
You, and thunder, and if
Each day is a brush with
Inevitable fate —
If your eyes are but for
Those pale and fluttering
Apparitions pointing
To our manifest our
Dead certain destiny —
At least you stood a time,
Caught Mr. Blashfield’s eye
Amid the subtle heat
Of a prairie sunrise.
At least beneath a dome
Of finely fashioned gold,
Caught by a stroke mid–stride
I stand, eyes fixed beyond
The world’s rough canvas edge,
And lift my hand to rest
For now (where else?) on you.

olympic

Hurricane Ridge
On second sight, the mountains aren’t all
They’re piled up to be. What were
Below the mist–encircled crowns of tall
And craggy kings of old, and burrs

Of firs-de-lys thick on their velvet cowls,
Above are blown away: the fir
To sigh and sway in solitary hours
As patternless as ever,

The mists to fall and break upon the bare
Bright shoulders of the ridge, and words
To end unthought–of in the thinning air,
Though understood to go unheard.

Highwire after Frank O’Hara
Well I’m balanced this morning on the corner of
3rd St. and Pike watching buses buzz by, the electric
buses that is, as the others don’t buzz. Though actually
these don’t either, much, it’s the wires overhead
that are bouncing and buzzing
no it’s the spits of
chicken and lamb at the Market turning, burning
no it’s the grate at the top of the hill over
flowing with the taste of last night’s rain as it
drains all the way to the Sound
no
it’s the buses buzzing after all to and from on 3rd St.
and elsewhere I presume I wouldn’t know
because instead
I’m balanced on the edge of the curb and imagining
views from a seat right up close to the front by
a window or, giving that up to someone who actually
knows how to pay for their fare, from the seat at the
middle where the bus bends and buzzes on its wires
overhead while
all the while Puget Sound makes its churn
and the ferries sneak in and all of Seattle buzzes in turn.

To Be Intelligent after Marianne Moore
is to be bored
I’d think,
and then to have a hint
in every pore
and chink
of your arms! Pressed against
glass, leant forward,
blinking
in the dark water’s glint,
seemingly more
large pink
barnacle now than an
animal, coarse,
you shrink
inward and so intent
to take a form
you think
will outlast our interest,
hold quite still. More
preening
urchins and otters, bent–
–neck seabirds (poor
things) think
if at all but to spend
short lives adored,
& succeed
in forgetting they’re pent
here so far from
the sea.

at the phallological society

Now you all think you’re very clever, eh?
To order, please! How are we to conduct
Our business — no, I’m sorry, quite enough
Of that, sit down, this is a serious place —

When members, even of long standing, still insist
On writing on their nametags hi! my name is dick