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I take the bread. I set down
the heart. Through a small opening in morning, crows.
A bucket whistles past.
I have a mouthful of night. The leaves, spot-lit. As you wish. As you
vanish.
Who lead Germany during the Second World War? Hands shoot in the air. All dying to be right.
The Revolutionaries
are at the entrance of the church, testing the temperature of the holy water.
I breathe in a world
of water and leaves. Leaves being raked. Tables being wiped. Filled in by
furious
late morning light.
Thick trees where we
are rerouted by nightfall.
The funeral director
on our street is rinsing silverware. His first date in years.
If you scrape the walls,
there may be enough to get high.
Here at the end of
the world: hydrangea, blue grass, on television.
How about some advice
for me, the King of Wishes: Do not seek, do not condemn yourself.
On nights like these,
sleek and black, the seeds rattle inside the hands.
The light is a door,
large, open, brighter than the rest.
Voice
Shipwrecked clipper ship
clouds
A horse scratching his ass
on the corner of post-expressionist canvas
Will there be perfume in
the afterlife
with names like Inflorescence, Possession, Testament?
it is, in the gunburst
it is, in the stolen into,
in the mouth of night, in
the man praying for weeds,
a lubricant,
plum olive sky
wickling, exact, seeped shadow
light travels, light touches
Grand life, the hour guided
by clouds
God & Policemen
The humming is what?
Brings you to the field,
as colors bring the kingdom together.
Night, even. The stars guide,
spread like breeze through screen.
Dusk is painted on. The gulls
are hungry, throw down their meal on the rocks.
So shall it be.
+
The wind dies. Gold trees,
disentangle.
Come look at the stars. I saw one fall.
The night is a book, a history,
tipped-in illustrations.
The field is a room. Everywhere
I look is green & a key.
The heart of the world is
breaking, the reason I am sad.
Why am I happy? The heart
of the world is breaking.
+
Workmen are lifting darkness
from the roofs.
It comes up in one sheet.
They roll it evenly like a carpet.
It seems just yesterday they
were laying it down.
An intricate net of bird
song and flight.
Light seeps through it, forming
lattice shadows.
A window display in the blurred
morning light.
Residents stroll through
the square, placing vases of daisies
where there aren’t
flowers already.
It is against the law here
to say I love you and not mean it. Is it my imagination,
or do all the policemen look
like e.e. cummings?
Copyright @ Leonard
Gontarek
