How to describe a hayfield without sneezing?
Or portray the sunlight slanting through the barn
as more than dust motes aswarm?
Even the cat running the fence above the flowers
caused him significant problems.
Rilke’s allergy dominated his senses,
if not his poetry. Seldom discussed are his
"Ode to a Sodden Handkerchief" or
"Your Lips Are as Red as My Eyes, My Love."
And no one seems to care about his letters
to a young allergist, suffering though they may be.
Another season come and gone
without a hit, without a run,
without a homer o’er the fence
imagined once by circumstance.
No uniform in sunset glow.
No leaping catch, no hurried throw.
No home run trot, no pickoff toss.
Time got the win. Age took the loss.
You’ll have to go on inner wind
to get to the heart of the cartoon monkey.
To see the numbers dashed and sinned.
The alphabet, your average junkie.
And down the stairs of other worlds.
And up into the light of silence.
There’s your shadow, locked and curled.
Clouds are tame. Sun is violence.
You’ll have to go on slow rewind
to get to the vein of the masters passed.
On line, the winters, grey and blind.
Long falls of marching underclassed.
And down the pipe of lifelike smoke.
And up the stream of bloody sorrow.
Cartoon monkey beats the joke.
Turns into a man tomorrow.
It belonged to a little old lady.
That hole is just a decoration.
It’s supposed to smoke like that.
The shedding is part of its charm.
The wobble will self correct in time.
This is the original paint.
That smell only happens on hot days.
The nicks can be fixed really easy.
It never came with that part.
Only the surface is cracked.
It was serviced regularly.
Those stains are a part of the pattern.
That sound goes away when it warms up.
I wouldn’t sell it if I weren’t moving.
A wallet lost in Buffalo
was found in Montreal.
A couple in the Grande Hotel
espied it in the hall.
No money left inside it,
and no credit cards as well,
but photos there
that would be missed.
That was not hard to tell.
A small boy with a missing tooth;
a girl with bright red hair.
A woman who could be a wife;
a smiling elder pair.
They mailed it back to Buffalo,
an address found within.
"We’re sorry for your loss," they wrote.
"Take comfort in your kin."
To tattle tale on spies is most unwise.
They’ll boil you in contempt and baste with lies.
Though vigilance defines a freedom lover,
they’ll put you in the ground and call it cover.
Their evil is religious in its purity.
They face a task prodigious: your security.
Whatever seems suspicious in your eyes
can be corrected by a drop of spies.
