vertical verdure
impromptu arcadia
uprooting cynics

icarus speaks




sun above

sea below

one possible end

o irony

this moment alone

to learn

the death spiral

our one

true flight

iknew

i knew

even as i ascended the stairs,
carrying her dinner on a filigree tray:

it was over.

fifteen is so young to know

but i did know –

and so did she.

her life was measured in giving;
so much
for so long
to so many
that we
who received her
selfless abundance
had long since abandoned
outward shows of gratitude

(we were not above thanks; rather,
she was embarrassed by
the merest morsel of appreciation) –

she existed solely to give;
we learned that accepting
was the kindest recompense.

she gave us sundays
around an ancient multifoliate mahogany table

on creaking, faux medieval
red-seated crackled pigskin chairs
(grandfather’s was the only one with arms);

she gave us food beyond imagining –
perpetually overcooked;
each course gray and lifeless
yet somehow ambrosial –
served between snippets of
minced Methodist hymn

(grandmother could neither cook nor sing
but paid no heed to destiny
in pursuing her passions).

she gave us a place at the table –
a place to rise above our shared DNA.

she gave us
ourselves.

it was because she had given so much
that i knew
it was over
when she asked me to feed her.

one paper-thin, velvet touch of her furrowed hand
on my anguished cheek
heralded her obsequy:

‘Lambie, would you…?’

Lambie would;

Lambie did;

knowing full well
what it meant –
what it took for her to ask.

an elegy in applesauce;
one teaspoon, just level –

tissue-thin lips on generations-old silver,
a glimmer of rheumy, empathic understanding;
a flicker behind the cataracts
and then

for one terrible, beautiful moment
i glimpsed the universe of pain
from which her infinite gifts had sprung.

a delicate, labored swallow;
the rustle of lilac curls on crisp linen;

i remember
(or perhaps only wished for)
her featherlight kiss on my fretful brow
as i leaned in to say goodnight.

i knew

even as i descended the stairs,
carrying her dinner on a filigree tray:

it was over.

fifteen is so young to know

but i did know –

and so did she.

triage

today

my jubilee begins;

half a sentient century –

five decades extant,

sextant eyes

seeking event horizons ...



today

my jubilee begins;

i am surrounded by revelers

expecting a speech.



certainly

a marker is warranted,

some shred of sagacity

to eulogize youth

amidst encroaching nitre and rheum.



obligated by longevity;

resigned to the impossibility

of reprieve;

peering inward and

steering a poetic course;

returning to scylla and charybdis

armed with shards of battle-scarred outrage,

i steel my newly wizened, hoary spirit

for apocalyptic confrontation

only to discover

a child’s laughter –

tintinnabulation from

armageddon’s crater.



three truths reverberate:

i am here,

(far longer than i ever thought i would be);

i am happy

(far more than i ever thought i could be);

i am hopeful

(a mockery of reason, and yet …).



my thoughts now

are of daisies

in reckless profusion –

an ebullient garland

of undreamt tomorrows.


bereft of appropriate thanks,

i giddily chart a course toward home and

my well-meaning friends –

returning to their

jocular gibes and black balloon bouquets

with unprecedented equanimity.



today

my jubilee begins;

sagacity will have to wait

until the child has finished singing.

consonance

for one moment
arm in arm,
gazing skyward
(who knew that stars could
actually form a canopy?)

for one heartbeat-optional moment
bathed in twinkling chastity
we lived wholly within each other,
you and i –
perfect friends,
god-given

for one resplendent,
montane midnight moment
we held
one breath
in two bodies
beneath Orion
with Philotes smiling down

for one unstained moment of divine grace,
twin exhaled awe-spirals danced
a November paean

for one immortal moment
(that one was enough)

agápe
was ours …

exordium



she wore


her hair



in one long braid,



wound around



the top of her head



until it became



an alabaster pillbox –



prim standard



of her unwavering



propriety.





she was neither



oblivious to



its effect



upon her pupils



nor deterred by



our unruly gibes –



in the end,



the pillbox prevailed



(so it continued



through april --



we flouted



every primer,



learning nothing).





six a.m.



one bright may morning,



early to school,



i padded mischievously



down the asbestos corridor



to peer in



at her classroom door;



puckish surprise



my puerile aim.





inside,



she sat –



a septuagenarian sylph



serenely brushing



six feet of



undulating alban



gossamer.





i remember



weightlessness,



reverie,



light



and music;



nothing in



nine years



on earth



had prepared me



for such



ineffable



radiance.





i stood



transfixed;



one glorious moment



in Dian’s presence



before backing away



with shame



hissing



in every cilia.





later,



her immaculate cataract



restored to



pristine cylindrical obeisance,



she expounded upon



the virtues of cursive



and made perfect



chalk spirals



to inspire



fit chirography.





having seen her,



i scribbled stupidly



and dreamed of



wings ...

ποιέω

words

express least
what most needs saying;

poesy’s heresy.

master?

mendicant?

words
do not signify –

age after age,
anguished odists spew
misanthropic monody.

perhaps
verisimilitude
in versification
is elegiac:

epics echo only to cithara;
lyrics, to lyre

(for want of barbitos,
ballads languish).

what if
Apollo
(god of prophecy)
once decreed:

poetasters
are born
when pipes do not play?

prosodion
devolves to dithyramb;
order to entropy
for want of
accompanying airs.

what if,
in worshipping praxis,
we deny poiesis?

might
ars poetica
be not Appolonian –
but, rather, Dionysian?

tonight. a new enkomion:
a threnode to Bacchus,
my paean
to Pan …

desktop thaumaturgy

a paper clip,

discarded casually;

casualty

of routine operations.

processing administrivia:

removing the woebegone wire, i am

exchanging inanities with a co-worker

when (in mid-sentence)

i blandly cast

the misbegotten miniature grapnel

aside.

a graceful arc;

a glimmer of suspended animation

and then

(inconceivably)

impertinent,

indomitable,

insouciant,

the coquettish coil comes to rest

in flagrante delicto –

coyly cantilevered

on its own rounded edge.

time stands still;

drawing in breath,

dimly aware of divine mystery,

i, bug-eyed and breathless,

whisper to my colleague,

“you saw that, right?”

mutual synaptic anarchy:

what were the chances?

in the nanosecond

between cognition and comprehension

the higgs boson is confirmed,

cancer is cured and

peace pervades the middle east;

for one gleaming arthurian moment,

anything is possible.

one frame later,

in epic synchronicity,

my colleague and i

(succumbing to

primordial hunter-gatherer dna and

envisioning youtube immortality)

lunge for cell-phone cameras.

stop-action, slow motion danse macabre;

infinitesimal seismic armageddon ensues –

elbows connect;

the mythic minimus

capsizes as

monday’s mundane mantle

once again

descends …

Epic



Three booths down
at the Chinese buffet
sat Beowulf.

Hair, flaxen;
skin, corrugated;
eyes, cerulean (flecked with brine);
his essence imposing, burnished, severe and commanding
(even when hunched over crab legs).

An Anglo-Saxon warrior in t-shirt and jeans;
out of place and time,
apparition and archetype all at once –
corporeal String Theory and living Literature
materialized in a single skipped heartbeat.

Not so much sculpted as hewn,
his bulk and heft evinced
snapping sinew and cataclysmic combat –
an image borne not of aerobics and Évian
but by preternatural victories wrenched from the maw of Doom.

His aspect, wholly planes and angles;
nothing more than straight lines required
for authentic rendering.

I, not given to staring, stared.

Simultaneously emasculated and vindicated,
comparatively effete,
(having fought only to bring words to life),
with chopsticks breathlessly poised over cooling Chow Fun,
I vainly sought plausible justifications – social survival strategies -
should he interrupt his gnawing
to return my admiring gaze.

After a long while,
he rose to return to the feast table –
towering, immutable,
mythic in his gait;
striding purposefully across the ages
to plunder and devour.

As I regarded with awe the fluid sinews
of a bronzed, scarred forearm –
as he deftly severed the claws of steamed sea monsters –
the long-abandoned Herot of my imagination regained its hero
and I became the anonymous Scylding scop
heralding Hrothgar’s legacy for the ages.

Toying coyly with a limp rice noodle,
I was pondering immortality when
azure eyes met mine,
glowered
and dismissed my
envious intelligence.

Time folded, suspended
as he grunted primordial awareness –
then resumed
gorging on Grendel.

clara

s

he

wan

ted a

modest

alabaster

obelisk so

me two feet

in height; ne

ither insignif

icant nor osten

tatious; set on a

simple base and

vined with piquant

sculpted ivy on a fili

gree trellis lifting sw

eet words of grateful

remembrance to wait

ing Heaven. A reason

able request, she thought,

in light of a lifetime spent

thinking only of others, giv

ing endlessly and uncondit

ionally, without complaint.

To rest under an artful spire,

reflection in minimus of her

heart’s secret cathedral, would

be a most fitting denouement.

She made her wishes known

to her husband, later lost at

sea in a pointless and ironically

tragicomic polar exploration in

volving ice floes, an albatross

and a badly corroded compass;

she also expressed her wishes

in painstaking detail to her six

children, each of whom appeared

to be reverent and rapt and each of

whom promptly went back to his

or her monumentally self-absorbed

excuse for not living productively.

Upon her inconvenient demise, it was

decided for the sake of economy and

expediency to install a respectable

BLOCK OF NEW ENGLAND GRANITE,

PRACTICAL AND UNIFORM, WITH A

LL OF THE REQUIRED INFORMATION

SET IN NEAT ROWS OF DIGNIFIED, M

ASCULINE BLOCK LETTERS IDENTIC

AL TO THOSE ON THE OTHER STONE

ES SET IN NEAT ROWS THROUGHOU

T THE MEMORIAL PARK. YEARS FRO

M NOW, ONE OF HER GREAT - GREAT

GRANDCHILDREN, A GENEAOLOGIST

,WILL STOP BY FOR A MOMENT TO M

AKE NOTES AND TO PONDER THE HE

ARTLESS AMBIVALENCE OF DEATH.

self, savaged, seven

i will not die before my death
 
i will not settle for
 
         putrefaction and spiritual half life
 
i will not drink
 
         the malevolent venom of petty revenge
 
when i arch my back
 
(and i will arch my back,
 
as it pleases you…)
 
the beckoning curve will bespeak
 
         promise
 
                   pleasure
 
                             passion
 
all for you
 
my defiler
 
i will become most fully alive
 
only in your saurian clutch
 
i will live,
 
in this moment of your squalid satisfaction,
 
more life than you will ever know
 
in the full diapason
 
          of your fetid conquests
 
i am now
 
ever was
 
ever shall be
 
woven of the fabric of forgiveness
 
my warp and weft
 
substantiated with each infertile thrust
 
you are waning
 
as i rise
 
i fly
 
as you flagellate
 
           your flaccid fantasies…
 
grunt;
 
         sweat;
 
                  swear;
 
you will have no sway
 
in pursuit of
 
the precious, perceived innocence
 
                                               i lost long ago
 
i am empty
 
blown before the first bud
 
you cannot fill me
 
with your rage.
 
today
 
i am your atrophied angel;
 
tomorrow
 
when you tire of me
 
i will write poems
 
newly chaste in their truth –
 
each word
 
a belated epitaph
 
to

fear

weight
 
i

most of all
i remember being held down;

riding my bike
and then

on top of me
(never above me – not for a moment)
suffocating, excruciating weight –

nameless, contorted masks
many in succession;
(many more, once the word got out…)

i knew them, i am sure
knew each of them
sometimes i knew their names
sometimes their faces
but i did not know
not then
not now
(never knew - not for a moment)
their reasons
for feeding on pain
pain for themselves
pain for others

as a wide-eyed nine-year old
in the canned goods aisle of the local IGA

a musky presence fumbled from behind
as i was carried
through flapping, filmy, filthy thermal fringe
to a back alley

minutes-like-hours later,
a grimy quarter was pressed into my hand
with a slumbering admonition –
be a good boy and don’t tell.

i did not tell;
could not have told –

i only told my mother i had found a quarter

‘a whole quarter?’

'i'm not sure, mother...

it has no face.’

ii.

many missing faces and
two decades later

i learned to disappear

although i could no longer feel the weight,

in quiet moments

i pondered whether or not
Bernouli’s principle
applied to the human form

dreaming all the while
of tall buildings
and release

i did not understand
(never understood - not for a moment)
how i could invite the faceless ones
when others like them had caused so much pain

how i could keep inviting them
again and again

here
now
so long after
the weight had gone

as a child
i could not resist;

no longer a child,
i could not desist -

disappearing had become so easy

i did not see
(never saw - not for a moment)
that i had a choice…

they followed me,
the faceless ones, and

i followed them –
i disappeared nightly;

they never did


iii.

once

in the twilight
between decades

(just once)

i took a deep breath
and, hovering in the limbo between
helplessness and invisibility,

watched myself say

no

watched as

the monosyllabic archangel of my nascent redemption
escaped my blown lips
only to be snuffed out
by the weight of a grimy hand

try as i might

i could no longer disappear

i stayed, then
raping myself anew in my silence

i did not cry
(never cried – not for a moment)

Bernouli was a charlatan

iv

one stifled summer sunday
i flipped that faceless quarter;
that badge of crippling cowardice,
now a talisman of misbegotten Providence –

flipped once
(tails!)
and began a crime spree

shoplifting only what i did not need;
sneaking it all back later

distracting turgid, thick-waisted security guards
with anonymous. androgynous whispered solicitations

in my fantasies
they ran me down

they punished me

i did not consider
(never considered – not for a moment)
the possibility of a life without fear

this ended
as unexpectedly as it had begun

on the winged, leaden morning
when first i considered the possibility
of an identity
without fear



v

now
middle-aged
stout
happily married

i am
a teacher –
respected, revered

living abundant dreams (nightmares’ progeny)

having long since forgiven my silent former self –

as it turns out

i did not believe
not then
not now
(never believed – not for a moment)
that the faceless ones
were inside me to stay

now that they no longer appear

now that i no longer disappear

now that i

my own archangel

have ascended…

i,

reborn,

ponder Bernouli

and struggle

with
weight

keep



in these stones
live truths i never told

they are not dead

in these stones
abide surreptitious, crepuscular echoes
of my stifled, stolen innocence
lost before it could be reckoned
stillborn on the cusp of perfection

they are not mute

in these stones
lie tears i never cried
glimmering harbingers of feckless hope;
fountains staunched by the eidolon survival -

they are not barren

in these stones
in each of these stones
rests a shard of glorious promise
shattered by the quietus
of my numberless, perdurable aborted screams

they are not insensible

in these stones
lurk shades i leave unanswered
importuning corporeal justice
from passersby

they are not cold

in these stones
dwell memories i never countenanced
experiences unbidden
rushing the brim of despair

they are not vacant

in these stones
stay secrets i sequester
bound by mortar, the work of man
prisoners of wild, witless will

they are not inert

in these stones
seethe unseeming desires i smother

they are not of God

Punchinello’s Last Gloaming

the particular ways
in which we forget
               to see
                        to cherish
                                    to remember
                                               
the particular days
in which we fly
            only
                        to
                                    fall…
 
the particular haze
in which we flaunt
            our
                        umbrageous
                                                   myopia
 
the particular maze
in which we forswear
            absolution
                                    for
                                                all…
 
the particular praise
through which human frailty
            reveals
      
            amour-
                                            propre
 
these amaranthine roundelays
                              each
                                            a death
                                                         without dying,
 
must not define
what Art we find –
 
O, yet there is time:
 
 
rise;
 
listen…
 
                        SEE…




Commitment





Charybdis

in your eyes!

 

I,

drowning,

do not die.

 

Sputtering;

flailing;

an abject,

tragicomic

centrifugal arabesque…

 

I careen

toward epiphanal oblivion –
 
plunging inexorably

into the terror

of the known.




                                                                                                                 sensitivity suite

                                                                                                                              i

                                                                                                                              
i am eight
on a sand bar
which
like me
only appears – only comes out –
when the tide is low and all is calm

my father has left me alone
‘wait here and swim’ he said;
dropped me down
and sped off
(who imagined the old boat’s propeller could turn so fast?)

apparently
there is a girl in a white bikini
near the mouth of the inlet
screaming out to the open sea
dad to the rescue
‘son, wait here...’
dad to the rescue
my sand bar is sinking

she, grateful, hugs him
he lingers in her embrace a long moment past awkward
before ceding her to the singing beach
all the way back to the dock he will tell me
how her name was merrie lee
how unusual that was
how impressed he was with her character
character my eight-year-old ass
you son of a bitch

like that sand bar
the whole business was beneath me
but i clung to shrinking, shifting sands
just to keep breathing
near the end i went under
more than two feet deep now
and beginning to move fast
i lay on the bottom
(the bottom that only moments ago had been the top)
let out all of my air and
lay motionless – looking toward heaven –
breathing in a new element
thinking those fluke were really onto something
breathing happily in a new element
until i found myself inexplicably aloft and sputtering…

that he came back for me at all
continues to surprise

we had been fishing, father and i
outboard set to troll
i hovered over the rotting transom to steer and to spy
feeling the motor’s heat
envying joan of arc
so clean an ending – so incontrovertible
(they say her heart did not burn)

my true purpose in this faux-halcyon escapade
was to look through the clearer-than-you’d-think-it-would-be water
clear down to the bottom
to spot marbles
marbles you see
are the eyes of a mythical fluke buried in the sand
bigger than a volkswagen, says dad
old flat poseidon
he is down there somewhere
and my father ahab
will see him rendered in strips
battered (how appropriate words can be without knowing)
and served up with ore-ida’s finest
at our family’s rendition of the perfect friday dinner
‘round the table
amen
norman rockwell would have been proud
but scratch the canvas and you’ll find we were bosch
painted over
in suburban teal and burnt orange

so i called out 'marbles!' as we trolled
and dad would drop the hook right down
up came fish after fish
hooray
sportsmanship for assholes

every fish was smaller than expected
every summer friday a bit closer to the fall
disappointment was my father’s condiment of choice

i learned in the sixth grade
that fluke, like their smaller cousin the flounder
(flounder? how could we not have known?)
begin life with two eyes on opposite sides of their head
like any other fish
then, slowly,
in an effort to avoid being seen and eaten
they flatten
and both eyes migrate to the side of their body that looks toward heaven

smart fish

i helped them, you know
i called out only the barest few, and then only
to avoid being seen
to avoid being captured
to avoid being rendered in strips
to avoid being battered and served up
to postpone the burgeoning, insatiable chagrin

even today
when the tide rushes in
i bury myself in the sand
and look toward heaven
waiting for my eyes to migrate

                                                                                               ii


these pebbles –
lava from a volcano
that exploded a whole lot of thousands of years ago
nowhere near arizona
where i am now
after riding a bus for three days
to an acting job my parents said i shouldn’t take


fuck them


i am seventeen
i hop a big apple greyhound on christmas eve
the peter pan touring company is the key to my nascent career in lights
but on the way
mister dumbass producer skips town with the money
one blinding incomprehensible greedy twist of balding sweaty mama’s-boy fate
and my incandescent debut turns out to be
just another case of ‘my parents were right’

i wait in the phoenix bus station
it is three in the morning
no one has come to claim me


my doppelganger walks up,
says ‘are you here for the peter pan touring company?’
‘it’s about fucking time’, i say;
only to hear ‘no – i am stuck here, too’  and
suddenly it all comes clear –
he is bob
from somewhere vast and flat

we are soon joined by a third
named larry
he is heir to the kodak fortune
(no, really – i checked later)
he is a peter pan touring company rising star
like bob,
like me…
his parents turned out to be right, as well –
(bob doesn’t have parents
but if he did, they’d be  ri…)

fuck them
fuck them all

we do not have enough money for bus tickets home
we consider selling ourselves
we’d have done it, too
but that only would have made our parents more right

fuck them
fuck them all

greyhound ad says ‘buy two, get one free’
holiday special
we pool our resources
who knows who, where?
i win; my cousin’s in l.a.
 
we three
salvaged by cousin tom in a dented orange pinto
lived in his garage
for six months
sleeping on and under a ping-pong table
and eating avocados fresh from a tree in the backyard
eden without eve –
one night
we fumbled clumsily with each other in her absence,
deciding in the end we were better off sans satisfaction

two weeks into the eden experiment
proving once and for all that i am my pragmatic parents’ son
i borrow a bicycle
i ride each day to the redondo beach boardwalk
where i sell flowers in an open air market
i get this job
solely because albert the owner's son desires me –
sycophantic albert, whose middle name was futility…
i sold only flowers
(once, to olivia newton-john,
a single red rose
she was so…pretty)

bob went back to his vast flatness;
larry, to claim his diseased fortune –
i held out ‘til the last
feasting on pride

fuck them
fuck them all

my mother’s quavering mouse-voice on the telephone
she is worried about me
have i been drinking?

so i cave
i fly back to new york
(much quicker than greyhound)
i would say i missed home but
you read my last poem
three weeks later my cousin called to say he had not seen me –
had i come home

three weeks?

fuck him
fuck them all

thirty years later
a quiet moment draws me back to
these pebbles –
lava from a volcano
that exploded a whole lot of thousands of years ago
nowhere near arizona
where i am now
if only in my mind

if only 


i


had been able to explode…


                                                                                                  iii


i insisted on seeing my brother’s body
it nearly killed my parents
it nearly killed me
but see it i did
(one thing we had in common,
my brother and i –
we were born to ruin)

he was lying on his right side
one eye gazing opaquely outward
the other half of his face
covered by a starched white cloth
i asked to see
the other half of his face
to make sure it was there
to make sure it was him
he was always a trickster
i asked to see the other half
of his dappled face
and they told me it wasn’t there to see

the shotgun had done its work -
who knew his arms were so long?

i had to look at what was there
at what was left
the freckles across the nose were darker
there were more of them than i remembered
the eye was no longer the color of the sea
but it did slant upwards at the corner like a grin
yes, i concluded
this was him

i was just about to look away
when something moved –

breathlessly i waited, praying
for his last trick to be real
for him to sit up
for his ocean eyes to twinkle

it was a maggot

i am okay with that





460 east



he was lying face down across the threshold
of a decaying last-chance westbound motel room
naked and pink
blistering in the slant sun of an August
afternoon
at the center of a uniformed beehive
with crime scene tape wound in jaundiced, wormy profusion about the perimeter

from my vantage point across the median
cruising east with the window rolled down
sucking indolently on a root beer slurpee
i contemplated how meager a movie’s budget would have to be
before creative integrity succumbed, even momentarily,  to such squalor

still, i thought
it is a pleasure to find Art in unexpected places…

at the last possible second
before the sordid amateur tableau faded from my periphery
the unmistakable stink of death intruded
followed by a nondescript churning in my stomach -
vague nausea  induced more by environment than diet 

looking for road kill,
seeing none,
i cranked up the window
to appease my aggrieved nostrils

it was ten miles later
when, faced with the numbing exponential monotony
of rural detritus and fallow fields,
i pondered the wayward cinematic dumbshow i had witnessed -

the surfeit of activity
without direction
without purpose
without promise

well, you get what pay for –

at that precise moment
some archetypal genetic remnant of hunter-gatherer sense memory
connected the dots without my consent

the authenticity of the seediness registered
and i plummeted into a paroxysm of revulsion…
pink man
            was real.

not eau de road kill, but
          actual,  mortal, vomitous death
had come unbidden
splaying itself voluptuously across a country threshold
to fill the blowfly’s cornucopia

i exited my own body through the mouth
retching absurdly
metamorphosing into a ruminant
an emergent element in Death’s pastorale

both car and i
gasping, grasping blindly for a shoulder

in the end
spent and shaking,
i hung
wasted  and wrung into abject insensibility
across the threshold of the car door
across the yellow center line wound in jaundiced, wormy profusion
over a landscape which previously had not seemed to undulate

there,
corporally untethered
hovering in surreal exile over the pathetic entropy
            of my own transformation
i saw my corpse

naked…

pink.

i cannot say
by what string theory chicanery
it was possible for me to sit in my sodden car
in the middle of 450 east
until the sun slipped away
leaving no traveler to pass by;
to witness my ruin

i can say
i have many times since
made a half day’s detour
to avoid
traversing that augural threshold
 
again

Rich Follett has recently returned to writing poetry after a thirty-year hiatus. He lives in the sacred and timeless Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, where he joyfully teaches English and Theatre Arts for high school students.