Written on a bridge at Featherock, on a bridge, in November, that being the Featherock in Schulenberg, Texas.
Middle Tempest
I. Fog Lecture
October.
Thunder in dull moments
Shuffling puddles around tanned grass.
And when the gusts settled,
There was a serious silence,
Your brow contracted with a seaward knowledge.
What is the question answered?
What the place of moments of contraction?
This gaze and brow temper
Like fog in a drought.
No, you are not allowed to parse the
Fog in a face,
Nor the dusty marina, out of season.
No, you do not answer,
But take a pencil and scratch—
II. A Holiday
Among apple dumplings, peach-rose chairs,
Blurred within humid cheeriness,
The wine swirled before a whorish grin,
Before the roasted-almond beef a la bru—,
The boys muffling the new glee of a fresh-shorn, frenzied joke,
During the stuffed bells, grown luxurious from the grin,
Among some chatter of the election,
Grandfather Ted nodded his head,
And fell asleep.
III. Voices
I read something, last year, said Leverenz—
And not too soon, for Helen now shifted her feet—
That’s fascinating, she said, and held her cigarette like a black and white movie.
Taking the cue, Leverenz crossed a leg.
I write, on occasion, but all I find is coarse,
Dull, so un-aesthetic (with a victor’s frown)—
Of course, of course—with a two-lipped kiss of her butt.
Temples erected in sin,
And Marge is mad again.
Temples triumphantly…
the adverb speaks.
We have wasted in little tiffs,
Riffs of buzzing chords—
The z letters extricate
What they significate.
Wasted words, quickly wrought,
Prated by Johnny Walker Blue.
Words mean nothing,
So so do you.
One’s got to vote conservative,
What with a war on, and all.
But I must say—George, no phone at supper.
Deep within the Loch of Aberdeen,
A rippling tide resounds against the gorge.
Leviathan erupt, erect, silent as yet,
Paws the silky weeds, unscrews his jaw.
Boom.
The rubbled streets
A little black boy’s feet.
Boom.
Fallen Appalachia
Returns to native dust.
Boom.
Grandpa woke.
IV. Creek
Had we all but the time in the wild park,
Dangling our feet off the center of the bridge.
An acorn tossed down the planks, and I mark
A Cardinal’s curiosity, but reasoning’s my privilege.
If you had seen, you would, with me, wonder
Was it the nut or plank, the cause of the bounce.
If the waning creek below had kept its depth,
Would we tribute the source or grounds?
Such thoughts tremor behind a gentler thought—
That such a time as this would persist
Toward a more meaningful summer’s fall:
The nut, rotting cap and shell, stops.
A heavier air.
The puddle that was a creek, murmurs, quakes.
If only you could see, with me,
And outlast this…misunderstanding
A warmer air still.
The sea-girl’s glance is grayed, aphrodisiac.
Droplets of warm rain patter the planks.
The girl of the seaward glance, fearing a cold, retires.
I, feet hanging, am witness to the creek.
The nut—mud’s his christening—drinks deep the rain.
And his offshoot—rotted, like the seed?
‘Till all the seas gang dry
I would have answered,
But the age refused an answer,
Thought it uncouth.
Thoughts tremor, a gentle rising water.
