Depth
Take the depth of spring in air
A depth-charge of life that is also death
To be in the right place
To take their picture
Others sit near the river, bounce
Or stand and walk over to the railing
The sun set, soccer players still playing
As it gets colder and darker
From this high vantage point
Buildings appear elegant and natural
Normal in the darkening, dark seed pods
Hang, the piazza illuminated by electricity
Flutter
The decibels lifted, frost abate, listless
Waking, and the continuous flutter whisks
Sideways, a whole lavish sense of living,
How to portray oneself and colleagues, performers
Blinking toward the audience, slinking back offstage
To cold rooms warmed only by a gentleman’s cane.
Frigid personality suffered deadlock most fitful,
As youth determined, once again, the finish line.
Gabrielle was thrown, once, and after that never
Sits for stills, the idea of daffodils not far off,
Egypt is like a suburb of Augusta.
What are you saying? You have gone stark, raving, clinical,
Abetted by a ravaged retail fringe, young
Hipster hottie clique clientele, bandit moron
Moose deflector, a saturnine blemish thwarted.
This Makes Sense
Not only stars and mountains
I too have existence
I see the white butterfly
The pigeons and the plane
I can no longer be afraid of existence
But must go deeper into it
Nothing here makes sense to me
What would make sense is nature
This makes sense: even these stumps
These roots and grasses, fences,
Even this concrete pathway
I love those green weeds crowding the sky
Battleship
I would be looking toward the sky
But also in a way toward the sea
To see a 2-D battleship shuttle by
And all the plants on verandas and lives
Flags flutter in the breeze
The sky is mottled cotton
Traffic pours down its vein
The breeze on the veranda is luxo
On the hill, or down on the sidewalk,
Mosaics, or garbage piles, and flies
The same mountains burst forth
The same trees cover them, and clouds
Choice
If I were to think
What truth would work
I’d say the one on
Which the most have won
That would be dribbled
Down mouths, through streams,
Infinite clogs of seeming
Sentiment interfered with again
For the last, I will
Make that choice, come down
Where leaven evens out
The field for one all