Sins
anemone tentacles
on the throat of a dove,
or threads unwinding
from a beggar’s coat,
they barely bind,
hints of jail cells or guilt,
a trace that won’t sleep.
adulterous silence.
they chant, soft as dew,
patterns in clammy octaves,
when it’s dark enough,
wards of skeleton keys.
an armoire opens. who guessed?
grandparents pine there,
frowns that turn thumbscrews.
hands secretive as moths.
==========================
9/5/24 .... changed a word
Thank you for looking at the poems!
A quick note. I often edit a piece quite a bit after it goes up. The more-or-less final version, the one that settles in, arrives after a few days of the initial posting. (It's almost fair to say that a true 'final version' is like the Holy Grail and not likely to ever materialize).
Admittedly, this is a feeble strategy. I use it simply because it gets me to edit faster and more attentively than if the poems were merely tucked away in a folder.
The big downside is that readers who visit right after a work goes up are often met with a less-than-stellar version. For this I apologize. Again, my only excuse, albeit feeble, is the quirkiness of my own craft.
If you have comments or suggestions, or potential topics you'd like to see, you can email me:
owlwholaughs@gmail.com
Fly Well in the Dark,
OWL
============
A Widow
a Widow culls
the wails of lovers,
wanton as she goes,
smiling still
from mansion to shack
to home to hearth,
every incident of bed
beleaguered.
She watches dreams
from ants to lions and
elephants who dwindle
down tusky roads,
and the ill to violent swarms
who beat on misunderstood ground.
how they clutch it as they sink,
such sentimental liars.
almost everyone
lurched when lungs stalled,
cashiering for a coffin
their chains and chores.
chirped last cadenzas.
and these, the Widow thought,
never turned to dust.
and yet those tethered to tombstones,
or ladderlike prayers,
they always went down.
and those who archived long lists
of what was or wasn't.
so it went, tempus edax,
from mansion to shack to home to hearth,
incursions everywhere,
wherever death fed openly
and naked.
==================================
6/26 ... tried to sort out tenses
9/7/24 ... radically altered poem ... scary poem
=======
I would prefer to use "wym" instead of the male-aligned "men." "Wym" escapes gender. But the neologism would be distractive.
===========
A Love Poem
dawns and heights,
this mansion of my throat and heart
and my breath,
this rootstock of my life,
my laughter and reflections,
every molecule and aura,
she holds them in her hands
such sextants and her fingers
are the lockpicks of my evolution
and her eyes are the healers
when her body swoops and slopes to avalanche
so agile across the mountainside of my chest.
all my tides, the fault lines of my craves and emotions,
the tenderness of my failures,
and the triumphs of my lucky strength,
those brute and airy compositions of me,
every wound, shame or stall
dissolves when i lean into her ocean of murmurs,
her fluent bed.
candles serenade, and such wooed midnights
celestial, unfathomable, irreligious, the mystery of her,
this fair hypnosis when she
melts protean into my kisses and
shivers in a rain of pleasures down down
through the sudden lack of my secrets
whispering curved spells from luscious crescents
of gentle harmonious lips.
together
on a carpet of hourglasses,
nocturne- or sun-grazed,
deep in veils or astride pinnacles,
through such seasons which sprout or sink,
by days fallen bright or aloft wept,
rough-clad, winsome or satin,
there is no lack of perch,
for she enfolds me with wings
and i her,
she
who is the sculptress of my muscles,
weaver of my moved veins,
she
who seduces as art inspires with what
could have been lost, these broken aspirations of me,
this hurt magic that i am,
it could have been forgotten, these poems, this tenor,
and yet, alongside her, in each other’s arms we play,
seamless as a theater of senses, alive
as a pulse of actors within scenes of motion,
moment by spell, to climax where storms behold what gleams,
and the sun enshrines what must beam brighter,
revealed by us, together, by her, by me,
to climb stairs.
=====================
11/14/25 ... changed a prep
10/27/25 eds feels better
10/24/25 trying ...
10/23/25 lots and lots of mods ... a work of a lifetime that might never be (and yet, even if not, it is)
9/7/24 ... many mods..
Still Life Late
wafer
of pearl and eve
soon to fade
i see myself
in its dim depth
weak,
this glum gloss
which daubs my thoughts,
a nimbus of doubt,
this puddle of hope
dusky with an offer
of communion bread.
the color wanes
from such tender heat
when my thoughts
mimic wax
slow yet fluid
melted then caught
in its reflection.
=====================
10/13/25 eds
9/8/24 eds,
A Gamble
mousy,
brown against black,
scurrying on paws
once maple lobes,
wind its muscle,
decay its flesh.
mottle dripping off,
such brittle rot.
it rushes a busy tire,
eager to kiss,
earn an autograph,
or perhaps a speck of peace.
always so swift,
Fate obsessed with dice games,
rolling over and over,
bidding leaves to tumble
and resolve.
=================
This is a poem about a maple leaf fallen in autumn and whisked by wind into the road. .... Or not...
Serviceberry and Doe
a doe in the woods
shies from an effortless signpost
of thorns.
none
of the ten thousand points scrape her.
hasteless she flows,
snaps no twig.
jags of shadblow
comb her fur
in meek quiescence.
drops of sun,
sifted by noonday birches,
accentuate when she cranes
fair.
============
Quiet Bay
azure basks in a slack breeze.
it's hard to tell reflection
from lobster boat.
water scolds skipped rocks,
successive with brief mouths.
nothing is supposed to be quick.
clouds are origami.
rocks gargoyles.
the flick of an arm
unwanted flame.
=================
At the Keyboard
fingertips. bishops and rooks.
diagonal. orthogonal.
hostage to a rash hopscotch,
obsessed yet servile
over sleek prim tiles.
troublesome tiles,
tiles which somehow
invoke the odor of Darth Vader’s chest.
my eyes track mumbo jumbo.
ears dog a ridicule of clicks.
hours of this. hands twin crabs,
doing a mountebank shuffle.
fingertips--later--
fade through a falter of clog dance,
as if an Id-space-time machine ...
Z's to ampersands,
drowsy then aroused,
gleeful with adventure, fear and sex ...
commas turn into knaves
then look like semen.
hyphens become hymens
wasting their innocence ...
keystrokes melting drip by drip ...
'how long
can so many period marks last?' ...
'how deep can the sense of touch
get lost
on this topo-psycho-logical trip?'
should the hero retreat,
exhausted yet stimulated?
should the lovers flee
the multi-emotional mission
and hide in a far more simple, social
realm of chess?
===================
9/26
5/26
1/12/26 mods ... very difficult poem
10/3/24 eds.
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