heard overhead in a tavern sky of mocks and tufted wrens

photo by Edward Rinaldi

this is the poem 
where I tell you 
I love to name trees 
and this one is 
Lana for lover

what if daylight 
only slept with her 

the call to June came
over slate roof houses 
in a growing Sun
shining through 
the old pane
into a memory 
of maybe these 
are the words 
of now ...

'twas mid May 
I was littered 
with wanting wit &
a hey look at me soul 
dangling myself for sale almost 
in dappled silhouette 
she had this school 
she offered mastery 
of observing the seasons 
her lush entrance exams
were cold finger reaching  
maple leaves burning 
backdrops and dogwood blooms ...

poem and I 
went a-weave dancing 
a pink pilfered fancy 
with talking eyes 
we thought 
of all ways into 
your fob-tight 
kept safe(s) ...

we left a message 
a canvas spill 
a roadside 
painted world 
as it went by 
in today 
and perhaps ...

and like clung
little spits 
dripping over 
an open fire
we saw motor oil 
skim-surfacing  
an upwards breaching 
of downward planed rain ...

when I was young 
I used to watch 
when water
gutter flowed 
towards the drain 
I would sit under an umbrella
looking at all 
these fantastically slippery 
fans of color 
mesmerized by how
they ebbed and flowed
into the sewers 
it was as if some mad clockworks 
had been let out 
of the asylum 
only to ask back in 
pounding an unanswered door 
whence it knew 
how timelessly mad 
the outside world is ...

and when I got cold 
or bored I would pour 
Ronsonol lighter fluid 
onto the poems 
I had turned into boats 
and folded myself into 
I lit them on fire w/
pretense that sounded 
like Jimi Hendrix's guitar  
at a Viking funeral ...

EJR ©