5/20
under the
honeycomb horns I turn
onto dark street.
I am a thief here, I glide
under a madrigal of stars.
my pupils are wide with the inky black,
birds of light escape
from warm windows
and dip their beaks down to drink.
a golden water skimmer
crosses the sky
and tonight,
all the problems
have an Answer
in something crystal
I cradle what I find out
a lamp burns across the street,
moths in trance like falling leaves
they circle every reminder
we are here
only for awhile
the small-town cop
bleeds red down the stretch
the colors of the cruiser
are ghastly
wine shudders
in the face of the damned
my throat is cozy
a far figure
stands on their porch
in the dim aura
of street lamps -
honey heads emerge
5/12
as the room narrows
I meet the window
head on.
its frame is made of
oaken martyrs,
glass tucked
into shoulder blades
through which
the lacewing holds.
I’d rather
holler than
breach
the film.
there’s someone
in the grass
licking the blades,
shady patches amok,
Pan’s frontal lobe.
a rod of cool steel
emerges
from the dirt
glittering crush
New England potatoes bubbling
like suds. the grass bound Syrinx gasps,
relaxes and then, with an elated smile
turns to the window
and pulls me through.
5/7
the street lamps on the bridge
are brooding as I zippppppp
past one flutters and somewhere
below a reflection spasms
and a child notices
a faint beacon between the lips
of rivermouth. the town is quiet
minus the roads, I too contribute
to the cyclic buzzing of engines
doppler through the evening.
I leave the place
built upon the steep
shrine of rock
above blackwater.
a fox reminds me
why I am here
now
as does
the moon,
dollop of orange
cream on the bluest screen,
born large in my eye before it takes
its more tenuous tone, long O manifold
chanting into space.
5/6
the wax spills
on a page
I saw sitting on its knees
waiting for a sign.
something
like sugarplums
or a grove of dogwood
please,
I pour love into the forest
of terror, trumpets sound
in the distance like wood
squealing in a fire
such a far-out noise, drum
skin, get it off of us
please
we’ve been vandals in the glades,
merchants of an ethereal trade
were ready
to see our songs
brought to life through a silver horn.
may they walk
upon the breath
of Evening’s beguiling daughter
of Dawn’s pious son
they go flying into everything
as does the shrapnel.
5/4
The Red One: "Oh, I know, you mean life.
I know this phrase. I too live
and don't let my hair turn white over it.
Life doesn't require any seriousness.
On the contrary, it's better to dance through life."
- Carl Jung, The Red Book
said the horseman
who rose out of the ether. choose
a fissure and slip through the cracks
spring beauties stray
as do the trout lilies
and Dutchman’s breeches. carry
them into the great canyon
or the Sylvian smile
spread behind the temples
like the remains of Jung
today, I picked yellow
and purple violets and
tried to dance
as I crept into a melancholy dell
between two ridges
of grey matter
5/3
beneath the bone
are the bellies[1]. on the hard days
I soak the
piles of
blackened dishes,
or oily rags, with wormwood elixir or shade
procured from a night at the base of the Alpi.
either way, everything
is a little better. some days
the bark[2] closes in
on a golden apple bobbing,
honeyed gleam.
in the caverns, you can hear
it’s brilliant song. each pod[3]
a room-
its own acoustics,
finest tuning
take me to the Island
of Real and draw dotted lines
on my skull.
[1] ventricles
[2] cortex
[3] lobe
4/30
out there, beyond the house, my eyes
are toasted chestnuts. as they toast
I am wanting
to sit
inside their roundness. the slightest muscles
pull my eyelids into my skull and their woody forms
are nurtured by jasper. I see the grass but through
a blue film. no one was watching
at all. dead grass was silver, water-like,
veins of Mercury. A watering can was on its side,
afloat on its back, like the body
I had before I was. in the corner
of the garden shed
a starling has placed
a junco’s corpse
in the doorway
like a dark ritual. it returns
to find the little mouths.
4/27
the orchard stood
before us, as did
ribbon, wide smile
rain pierced by sunlight
bled every color
on the dormant trees
I think we took
the right turn
I think this
was some sort of psychic
palace and before long,
quiet
a door is painted yellow,
a barn green,
a fence orange
and also
a sign
with a message
written in chalk
telling us to be
on our way,
carry our laughter
in us like pink stones
tumbling along
the shores of cream,
stepping out
and onto the rocks
over the river
4/19
what would we find
in the black orchard
of star light but fruit
that looked riper than ever.
on the road to a bottle
of cheap wine, the April night
carved goblets for the nectar
we’d deify,
in our hearts,
before dawn
Poetry by Winter LeBlanc 