Two unrelated poems (Jim Krull)

Gather behind some Philosophers

            to defend yourself

If guilty is part of

            the metaphysical regimen

He had "moved to a level"

           (To among the best)

That is all that can be said

            of Earth's religion.

                               112310

            First Love Poem

I am sitting in the square

Of a great English leader and heir

To ruling, his globen arrow

Masses the continent's sorrow.

Here is my bird, my bush and faun

Having prayer near my lawn,

Red night oh quickly be done

So tomorrow soon will bring

The next beaten tone

Precisely you song (or whisp'ring).

                             (from "Old Poems")

Yuki

Yuki

I only eat and drink domino's pizza and diet coke

and only communicate through advertisements

yours and mine on a dilapidated television

I tap into the waters

crystal clear, waters

like a John Denver song

mixed with angel's toe nails

people say that one third of the population is gay

I am like a fluffy pillow

we have our hearts on our faces

I like candy

I like it

I like it

I like it

I like it too much

-Mark Ge

Dove (Eliot Cardinaux)

Road from my pen,
it's a road nonetheless,
night on the inside
catching birds.

Warm-lit rooms,
the sounds of cars,
I tell myself, "stop,
and go further from the road."

There's a garden.
And an Olive tree from Syria,
where a dove has learned to fly each day 
from the wounds love left in the land.

Fly dove, from this stone building.

Fly to my sleeping love like two moons in a water jar.
Carry your message toward two prayers without reason,
and the flames in your body to no destination
so an angel's psalm can continue in the oranges on the table.

Hold his embroidery to the light
when two churches spend their nights far above the cemetery,
and fly to the sun, dove, scattering leaves
about you like the ashes of three shepherds.

And descend on extended wings, dove of america,
dove of Wallace Stevens, poet who died peacefully.

                        November 24^th-December 1^st, '10

IV, From "Animal Dreams" (2010) - (Sean Ali)

IV

And sulfur rose
             from the sacrifice
             smoldering slowly
             and split his skull
                            twice
              with madness
                                                And clay pots
                                                        house the tears
                                                        of our forgotten dead
                                                Whose ghosts sway
                                                         with the shadows
                                                                       of all objects
                                                                                             Shadows
                                                                                                in endless prostration
                                                                                                    to god
                                                                                                      who created them
And blood has stained
                  the grassy blades
And now the deer
                  do not eat of it
Nor do cattle graze
                                                  And running streams
                                                              cannot cleanse the earth
                                                   Fish jump not from
                                                               these streams
                                                                                              Birds bathe not
                                                                                                     in our fountains
                                                                                              For no bird bathes
                                                                                                         on surface
                                                                                                              of dry stone
And there the flame
                 will flicker
                         for a while
Fighting the steady wind
                                                  And the old women
                                                                will wail
                                                                        with grief
                                                  To the night
                                                                polluted with history
                                                   Beat their chests
                                                                and fall silent
                                                                                                And the silence
                                                                                                     will be sanctuary
                                                                                                             to the echo

Another body,
              bloated with ambition
has turned up dead
              in the morning frost
The stars’ iridescence
                 will burn you red
                                                      And your lips
                                                              will dry and crack
                                                      Your eyes bleary
                                                               and stinging
                                                       Your lungs coarse
                                                                and rasping
                                                                                        Claim defeat
                                                                                           with tragedy and reserve
                                                                                        Claim your final breath
                                                                                                            with serenity
And the night
              will blaze
Thunder
The rent earth
The soil baked
              with summer
                      locust heat
                                                     And fire burns in Babylon
                                                     Fire burns in Jerusalem 
                                                     Fire burns in Alexandria
                                                     And fire burns in Jericho
                                                     Burns in Constantinople
                                                                In Athens,
                                                                In Rome.
                                                                                          We reach for the sun
                                                                                          And you split the earth
                                                                                          We clamor to heaven
                                                                                          While you close the gate

Midnight Mass 1970 - (Kate Hayes Fleming)‏

Tonight we'll go to Midnight Mass together

Ed and I

And feel the strangeness of being alone

With each other where other years

We filled a row with little people.

Tonight, Jim, 12, will be there

On the altar bearing a torch and robed in white and red

With cheeks well-scrubbed to match

And Ed's eyes will shine with pride at his son

The modern Shepherd welcoming the Christ Child at Midnight.

The girls have grown

And other voices catch their ears.

Mary shares her heart in another part of town

At Mass with Michael

And her star shines more brightly than before.

Mary Kate, the minstrel, offers music as her gift

At another Mass to welcome Christ today.

Scattered, yes, but together still

We lift our hearts

And our hearts soar

For this is Christmas Eve, and together,

Tho apart,

We have come to adore.

(K.H. Fleming is my grandmother (b. 1925);

 Ed Fleming is my grandfather;

 Jim Fleming my uncle;

 Mary Kate my mother;

 Mary my aunt.)

Jim Krull 

Winter Apparition (Sean Ali)

Winter Apparition

Winter creep slowly in
While I clean the specks off my tattered longing
Memory looks upon me with a suggestive grin
While the road grows thick with midnight’s fogging
A sudden thunderclap cracks the ice
And life starts up its swarm once more
And words spoken once, concise
Float on the breath of the dead troubadour

I - From "Animal Dreams" (2010) - Sean Ali

                                    I

Wilted Rose,

withered hand

Whither it goes

in shifting sand

To shape the form

in castles and storms

Tassel and cape

on wrangling worms

In sand a-shift

the withering hand

is lost,

adrift.

The wilted rose

is shedding a tear

 for the living who knows

the end is near

Whither it goes?

This soul of mine

On rivers it flows

And oceans of wine

For the form and the shape

budding breast,

budding nape

For the form and the shape

growing vine,

bursting grape

O, where do you take

this soul of mine?

Whither away

this vanishing line?

A Blason, a Blasoner, a Pastoral, and an Alba (Jim Krull)

Blason

The rounder sits in the foreground

to the mountain, and two others

are her friends.

None of the three compare 

to the two churches,

And the main flow

stop at the sound of her voice.

Blasoner

       They are blue-green

              but bright. In these

              I cannot fully tell;

              They may be 

       A light brown or gray.

Pastoral

Sheep; lay in the field, I will be gone

   for only a moment to you. Perhaps some 

   may realize among the more thought-filled

   that I have gone.

(Dialogues of the remaining)

By morning I had found you,

found the lost one, was it the first

that had been lost?

The harmattan sails and sets sails;

not all of the teeth eat in to the sand,

run for whichever can become into shelter.

              Not a tune for death,

              Or the hearing of a crime;

              The only trial

              is with "clov'n heel". 

Alba

For the dead can never wake, to leave 

Wait, what can they leave of wooden plank

And what may remain of hand or rib bone

Allow a keaper dominion over

Dust and small particles that slip the sieve

Not for the sleep that we miss

For continuing our actions and these

Lead the day awfully.

If the day goes, and we, too far

Apart cannot by grace above

Come at night by the poor guard's love,

Wait the afternoon patiently

       for dusk to give an only star.

                                          

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