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

poem

to the one who jacked up my car in order to steal my catalytic converter, but then didn’t

Not sudden flash of conscience nor your flight
will save you in the eyesight of the lord,
you know. He sees intents and purposes.
He knows the secret turnings of your heart,
and yea He looks not kindly down on quitters!

Far worse than theft, you’ve done but half a job
and then you’ve gone and done it poorly. While
for two long moonless nights this week my car
stood unattended off the ground you skulked
about and nursed that stitch in your side.

Now I can’t blame you (much) for running scared
the moment that you thought you heard footsteps
approach. I’d do the same if I were in
your place, which anyway I wouldn’t be —
I’d have had at least two lookouts, signals pre–

arranged, diversions, varied alibis,
a safe house. I’d have cased the joint so long
I’d know like family who parks their cars
here, license numbers, favorite foods; I’d know
their noses itched ten minutes before they sneezed

— but that’s entirely beside the point.
Whatever honor is among us thieves,
it’s not in getting caught. So by all means
do save yourself. But take a little pride!
Leaving tools about is just unprofessional.

[…] true community, ie., a group of rational beings associated on the basis of a common love […]

W.H. Auden, the enchafèd flood

muggins

for GW

You say a people lived who counted not
by peaks but by the valleys of their hands:
eight passes in between the knuckles, see,
and clever bastards, even did their math
that way. What would they make of this whole pack
of nonsense we call “playing cards”? I think
they’d count sixteen two, sixteen four,
and take the extra point at thirty-two.

For only landed English gentry with
ten fingers, too much time on hand, and God!
a poet too could make up all these rules
that add up nowhere else but on this board.
At least when we play, taking points off one
another, we don’t play for petty cash —
just honor: who, when it’s late, can best keep score.