Or maybe it is a simple
ensnarement in a yesteryear
belief, which dangles memory
in the mental house living room.
Isn’t this the identity
you swore to never abandon?
I answer, I do miss the fit,
same as a favorite jacket
purchased elsewhere but long ago.
This is what tortures this artist.
Or maybe the issue is
no more nor more less than exercise
in choice between reality
and realism, the bullseye
closer to the point of focus
on that concreteness; rein, gather,
all the children that wander the face
of this terrain that sorely lacks
in what those whose heads are set
on the nobility notches,
recognize as cultivation.
Yet how to collect scattered tribes?
Our golden king appears to so far
spare the charcoal coated alien
who came hopping into our space
sometime in what is now a hazy
memory of a smokey summer.
But enough of practical earthly
reality; somewhere a trail turn
succeeded in tempting this poet
creator to forget worlds unknown.
Maybe that’s the meaning of graven.
In recesses exist conversant
crows; they swig skunk liquor and comment
snidely about less intelligent
animals that pass through forest grass.
Who knows what wild scenes gave up hope
of ever seeing daylight or hear
midnight auditorium applause,
all because of the opiate ease
of reporting on reality.
Dearest Make-Believe, I beseech thee.
Fantasy is not the worst consignment
for the dreamy sort to slackly snuggle
within a within which bears space capsule
semblance; release every stress, whether
green or burden brought from antiquity.
Decades dining and selecting from shelves
plates and packets guaranteeing wholesome
ways of wisdom written before paper
fell like genuine leaflets on oak desks.
Gray guys like me may now extol daydreams.
Forgive me for being less than omniscient
dear stick of a wider floral world. The great wealth
you and your brethren branches offer to senses
can in this poetic head incur overwhelm.
And one may hope the trees understand these furtive
looks around the vicinity, scouting for ears
that may overhear, for you would have to agree
or if not agree at least trust this human
telling you it is considered an oddity
to perceive communication using spoken
words, not to mention marvelous diction mastery,
coming from a tree, specifically a twig.
“Seems hardly nuttier than seeing an osprey
where even we who now stick out naked, leafless,
have no problem recognizing an empty branch;
oh and your assumption that eagles in this neck
of the wilderness give a hoot about fame. Lame.”
Fair enough. Yet I sought not to assume; presume;
just wanted to try a hand at… forgot the word,
a literary term. Anthropomorphism?
“If eagles had horse cubits you might be breakfast.”
This is the bittersweet farewell sendoff
season, and like it or not, the river
is drafted to handle transportation,
though not for all the wilderness flora,
mostly for the fated or fortunate
(certainly each perspective will differ)
born to take part or perhaps to witness
riverside episodes in which handsome
birds of prey play leading roles by default:
eagle or osprey, watching the water,
the latter for an excuse to practice
diving form, the former, to strike a pose
since stories are told of postcards and stores,
“they may never know my name but at least
my intelligent scowl might make a print,”
or so he may say at the cliff tavern.
Just then a twig, newly in nudity,
said, “hey what happened to the autumn leaves?”
might Sex be the Kingdom ruler?
Thus all the paradise fruit trees?
Passions kindled, wrath gushes hot.
Knowledge once tasted, Light fills all,
guaranteeing Death, as well as
restoring high noon sunniness?
No wonder bodies ancestral
buried seed of guilt to the hilt,
multiplying, filling Earth with
all manner of flesh pleasure fear.
Wielding magic rods upon seas?
Erotica flavored by Bronze?
A casual chronicle glance
shall bring shame simply by way of
by-product; the recipient
of smiting being ‘suggestion’;
in other words, the influence,
in the sense of potter and clay
on tens and twenties and thirties
of western generations must
be characterized as a stout
and monumental obelisk,
placed in each county; atop beams
a beacon that spies on humans.
Could it be Sex rules the Kingdom?
Thus tasty paradise fruit trees?
After Knowledge, seeing the Light,
Death is a granted, but so is
eventual return to life?
Passions kindled, there blows hot wrath.
Wield the rod to part salty seas?
No wonder ancestral bodies
buried to the hilt guilty seed
and to multiply, magnify,
belief that Pleasure equals Sin.
What if it is Erotica?
Mister Cozy Guy 