Eight poems from Comes a Time

FOCUS ON SANITY

Parting silk valances
The chef turns
His brine rag
Into the astonishing bouquet
Worse crowds have been known
To cheer in times like these
In his head
A glowing disk
Bulging his eyes
At some point no others
Will be allowed through these doors

BERNARD RETURNS

Coughing an intimation
Of Vesuvius 
Keeping himself amused
I saw this drummer so wobbly yet composed
Jawbone connected to the bass bone etc.
This was in D.C. before they invented cigarettes

BRISE MARINE

The gas man 
Stopped by yesterday. I guess
He’s some kind of manager. Asked me
What I “do,” a rude temperament that goes
Nowhere in this world. Badger
Head, said to be a chauvinist. There are
Definitely interesting things
To be said. A swan lurks 
Behind the ballast and the ballast 
Is holding down
Albertine with a large balloon.

A bunch of grapes goes ripening 
In the window the special car
Made its way through
That window yesterday morning.
No fruit can replace the breathless
Waste of a pantsless afternoon. All day
I will be
Outside
Who knows where.

I’m gonna go down
To the little weed place. 
Thank you, dear open 
Sesame against common senses 
Just across the way. The chestnut
Trees, the wishing
Well. I get lost, no power 
of thought.

I come here for the birds
For the long forever look
Of the whole wide side of the sea
Interesting enough to not have
To go in all the way. Where is 
All the kitschy decor
To tell you where you should be 
When you aren’t all here. Who will make
The horrible velvet works
They say we live many lives 
And the alphabet reminds me
Tip of the tongue
The stranger’s name
Blown in from the other shore
We should get another round for this
Blues and blushing sand 
Everything is a picture and nothing is real

ASPECTS OF THE POEM

for Charles North

Tell me again the story of the chair. A lot of people seem to think I started this business. What brings me back here? It isn’t correspondence per se, however the epistle charms. How I look don’t tell me how I feel. Canteloube. What’s your idea of a good time? Rising to the purest or whatever air. What other creature gets an axiomatic beholder? And the answer is what other creature. Hmmm. It smells of caves in this air so sweet like glaze. Everything not chamber music tends toward hysteria, OK? Walking, that does it. There’s no need to lead through the crowd yourself. Pull on my coat a bit. Let the four winds blow. Comes a time. Dark down strutter’s ball.

EXTANT 

She caught me
On my lunch
Fixing a buttonhole
There’s not enough time
I must do the work in my head 

Out the window
The good news goes
I find no good reason for this life of meaning

In the still of the night
She presses on my jugular
We look up at the tree
Wipe away our smiles
Sight unseen 

INTERMITTENT BACK-TURNING
IS A MEASURE OF SELF-CARE

We all know one word doesn’t mean anything
(Kyle Schlesinger)

and nobody cares how you hang
your spaghetti wash
on the Pasta Rooftops.
(Jack Kerouac)

These conversations start, 
and then engage the senses,
only half-meaning to. 
And then there is no choice,
and then there is no sense.
(Elizabeth Bishop)

I wish I could but I can’t prevent ideas for poems —
or anything else—from blowing away.
(Charles North)

HAUNTED HOUSE

Where our cups on hooks were 
The coughing man hung
Upside down we stood there
To try and gain control 
Hearts burning with mad fires 
We needed a new level
The house had black paintings white lights 
Of all things none worse than that floorboard
Bring back the cough
It’s a vulnerable business 
Upstairs they still trill you
To sleep by footfall
No more visitors today

MAKE A DANCE 
OF THE STAGGER

You and me and
falling down to sleep
not-you and me
the teepees blaze
beside the mine in candle-wax
a canyon
the icon of fidelity
in a new shape
to wake to 
scrape off your mask 
when you know 
the power well
and forgetting human
conversion experiences 
at gig speed
tea’ll do the trick

went with a flow like a whirlpool 
with riptides, and liked things.
— Peter Schjeldahl