Exit Stage Right

.

at this point,

someone always leaves

.

open the curtain

.

you closed last

.

night

Body of Summer

Notice if you will, how

The cicada has departed
Its skin and will now

Sing a song stark
Naked, carried on

The back of the wind.


NB: The title borrowed from Elytis's "Body of Summer," 1943, which begins thusly:

O body of summer, naked, burnt
Eaten away by oil and salt
Body of rock and shudder of the heart
Great ruffling wind in the osier hair
Breath of basil above the curly pubic mound
Full of stars and pine needles
Body, deep vessel of the day!

A Lunar Legacy

for the down-
trodden sluggish earth-
bound masses

that said,

his lunatic majesty left
a heavenly trail
of salubrious saliva.

Someone's Got Your Number, Dummy

Right

There where
Your noodle smarts,

Pinhead.

Stonewalled: The Poet As Culprit

--for Joe Hutchison, master sleuth

For years, I’d been trying
To trace the poem’s origins

And had come up against a blank
Wall every time: Where

Had I seen it before?

.

It must have been somewhere
In the recesses of what passes

Plausibly as my mind but the more
I looked, the less I saw

Until I saw nothing and then
I saw there was no need

Of any further investigation—
I had stolen the poem

From myself.