City Noises
City Noises
Painting by Michael Guinn
Growing ever closer, when gale wind comes, we turn as one;
our bonsai urn: two trees in-arched—where two, it now has one.
Look how subway rumbles shiver up your telephone poles;
there’s city looks for city noise: there’s this piano-jazz one.
You had your pick of birthstones: diamond pure or ruby true;
unpolished in its matrix, you, you chose the blue topaz one.
I reached my hand into your life; no, I don’t want it back.
You’re a swirl—of life and color—me, I never was one.
You always wander, Bill, searching, often in the dark,
perhaps for life, for joy, some meaning—wake up, you fool, this is one!
Between the Lines
after the painting “City Noise”
by Michael Guinn
This standing lost on Lonely Street was guaranteed—between the lines
There is someone, sometimes you’ve got to plead between the lines.
Old City’s drawn with lines and lines, they paint them on the street;
your sleight-of-hand maps something real to read between the lines.
House-poor, house-proud, pedestrian you, easy to catch out.
Who’s calling with that siren sound? There’s greed between the lines.
Love’s broadcast is continuous to cultivated ears;
and she sows roots in open hearts, who seeds between the lines.
Curved lines applied to make-up are nature on my scale;
you bend your touch to meet my taste and need between the lines.
The easiest trip for me to make is off my glib tongue’s tip;
facile silence better suits—less tweed between the lines.
Locked in likeliest lines to trip and hardest lines to see,
the while I pigeon-walk, you’ve skeleton-keyed between the lines.
They move the line twixt white and black, and call tough breaks the fix;
they thin the space from rich to poor and feed between the lines.
Old lust won’t damp a postage stamp; no HMO approves.
Fond hearts, hearts’ old acquaintances, slow-speed between the lines.
Diversity’s all colors now, that sound now all alike;
let’s harmonize two tunes voiced brass and reed between the lines.
You scarcely know I’m here, but try to see me through these lines;
I’ve tried leave some mark, if just to bleed between the lines.
After
You used to write in my chest hair, after;
you'd hammock easy in my armchair, after.
We used to think we were at play together,
not embarrassed by hearts bare, after.
We thought we'd made a baby—three hearts stopped;
we only knew we'd had a scare after.
You wanted kids so bad in those short days;
you wondered would I leave you there, after.
A careless sheet thrown over tumbling bones,
to think you thought I might not care, after.
Rope, knife, pistol, poisons and all self-harm;
we promised too much first to foreswear, after.
But I Repeat Myself
I love you. I hate you. I need you, I do, but I repeat myself.
I want you, pursue you, and cling to you, too, and so, I defeat myself.
I joke: the minute I turn my back, your green- backed eyes will wander.
I beg you be faithful and true; but really, I entreat myself.
Is any thought or act more selfish than real, true love can be?
Guiltless greed, I'd love to join in that elite myself.
A jigsaw puzzle with a hole, a four-card flush, one sock;
it's not just any piece I find that lets me complete myself.
And who are we to presume we stand above:
Voltaire said history never repeats itself; man does.
Lying Between Us
It’s only bitter love, when I complain of lying between us.
The shouting? Love. I fear it’s lost in all that’s flying between us.
We've worn out many a blind man's stick bearing around this bush;
why cry for love with all our past and future lying between us?
Most times as silent as a fish, the heart can grow quite randy;
it spawned this noisy infant, love, slipped smoothly, crying between us.
Our overtures of peace in justice’s name, began all this:
two rubbled, post-war nations, lobbing blame and denying between us.
Nothing makes a neck as stiff as love, when it grows proud;
we’d rather crash than turn, one tiny white flag belying between us.
Our heavy armor chafes us; here, lets dress each other’s wounds.
Confess, now, there is a noticeable amount of sighing between us.
There’s a meadow on a hill, where sun unloads its bullion.
We’ll never roll our rock that far up-hill, not trying between us.
Nice People
So, who hides Jews and gypsies? Strange, it never was nice people.
Put to it, would I prove a member of the mice people?
I chart my course by what I see reflected in your eyes.
We’ve sailed past safe; you’re not one of those cautious-advice people.
You have a braver heart than mine—let it beat for both;
we’ll never join that crowd, the peace-at-any-price people.
If character requires one live on the edge, fear not;
you’re one of those brave, always-pick-the-Edelweiss people.
The mode is mean; full half the world scores scarcely more than average.
Fools, taking heart, cry, “Onward!” Roll the dice, people.
In you, I trust; I’ll scare no pigeons off their window ledge.
There’s groups and groups; one worries me—I’ll be precise, it’s people.
Chance of Heaven
John Rawls, in “A Theory of Justice,”
recommends trying to structure society as if
one could not know what sort of person he or she would be in it.
A better world would give each soul a fairer chance of heaven;
from any perch I’d hope to see, at no great distance, heaven.
Paradise grown stuffy needs a do: switch harps out for guitars;
good odds that string quartets in studio one might enhance heaven.
Just say, I couldn’t pick my seat, I’d fluff each one up soft.
promote the poor: dub muddled middle co-existence heaven.
Set greed and talent, to one side; let wealth then look less lofty.
I’d house the homeless in broad day, who wait their manse in heaven.
Have evolution taught in church, with gender equity,
the good foot on the off-beat and step out when they dance in heaven.
Scrupled schism would divide our church on different lines:
which, L, G, B, T, unless Q, were proper stance for heaven?
The seed of life as inner-growth would germinate in pre-school;
for, after all, it’s through our children’s eyes that we glance heaven.
Police would all go heavily armed with social-work degrees;
we’d throw psychology books at those who don’t advance toward heaven.
Start rich, start poor, remember, Bill, you can not know your fate;
but those who’ve trudged behind the plow know best who’ll prance in heaven.
Flowers Quickly Fade
Though roses all are flowers, and some flowers quickly fade,
your petal-pink does not (to tweak time’s powers) quickly fade.
Black twig and winter tree teach us lean endurance;
first loves—bud-break to fruit—when winter glowers, quickly fade.
Joys passed—your heart once lifting mine—must lighten these last years;
just puddles, pleasures dropped in early showers quickly fade.
Don’t worry if there’s heaven, for what help I’ve offered you;
your quiet company makes cloud-built towers quickly fade.
If Bill would bite his pencil crosswise with his teeth, he’d smile;
one more excuse for scribbling: full hours quickly fade.
In My Mirror
Grant’s battle map of Chicamaugua folds back in my mirror:
a scratched old record plays, losing time’s track in my mirror.
An angel at my shoulder offers substance to my past;
and then lost hopes and empty wishes’ ranks pack in my mirror.
Endearing words to equities, I’d trade by mouth or hand;
now I trade wincing glances with some sad-sack in my mirror.
I wish the face I showed meant all you saw was truly there,
not—all you see is all there is; I see slack in my mirror.
Your ironic sense of humor leaks out in strange places;
my shattered self squints back around your wise-crack in my mirror.
Yes, my eyelashes, too, envy paint that backs your mirror;
it would settle for a sidelong glance, in fact—my mirror.
Like the Sun
God's truth, gal, you go down in purple glory like the sun;
golden washed in lilac paints your story like the sun.
Unmoving to the naked eye, you streak across my sky;
your motion’s grandeur clouds all sense of hurry, like the sun.
Like prying dawn's eye-blinding light, you pierce me out of sight;
and from below you brighten clouds of worry, like the sun
I could not wish my life to end without this tender scar;
here you bring something bright and burning for me, like the sun.
Our bonfire heaped with broken hearts, plays beacon to lost loves;
let youngsters learn to burn what they can't bury, like the sun.
You’d pop purple crockets on Fibonacci’s Golden Curve;
your last-cast light turns Technicolor slurry, like the sun.
You brightly fade; my grasp of you is only of a shadow.
Memory’s flashes make me squint, make history blurry, like the sun.
About our past, I’ll try for truth; I’ll never tell the future.
The light our years together shines still stirs me, like the sun.
Hindsight is my strong suit, and I see you always knew it;
they did make light, those cobbled tales I’d curry, like the sun.
Bill, get new glasses—you can’t tell her hindsight from your foresight!
Grow old, and then you’ll warm your hands at history like the sun.
Neither Me Nor You
(Paired Ghazals)
"We are made for art. "
"We are made for money."
"We are made for poetry."
"Or perhaps we are made for oblivion.”
"Now what?"
"Watch out. "
Richard Powers, “Orofeo”
Slapped together with high art, neither me nor you;
Art calls passion—passion, birth; art made you and me;
a pulse we scarcely could impart, neither me nor you.
that thing that tugged Pygmalion to his stone swayed you and me.
We neither mint nor coin and all our bets return no change;
True wealth wants a-little-more, just like you and me;
On glittering heaps, we’ve made no start, neither me nor you.
it’s in reflective eyes our glitter’s paid, you and me.
Doggerel, you three-footed hound, and a pest, you make three-legged stools of my lines;
The drape of your limbs displayed like silk is sheer as poetry;
Blessed not and cursed not, for poetry’s part, neither me nor you.
our blending shape, the best wordsmiths portrayed you and me.
Oblivion’s inverse mountain climbed, one slip and up we fall;
Oblivion’s inverse aspiration’s not what we’re suited for;
not worse for landing on our pratt, neither me nor you.
the common route, but how we march parade, you and me!
We shrug on silence as a coat—a safe and harmless garment;
The backing velvet-black sets off our night-bird melody;
of those on whom it looks quite smart, neither me nor you.
whistle-pure, two sleepy thrush with dreams displayed, you and me.
A wiser man might better warn you, what comes will be trouble;
If fools be happy, let us be, together to the end;
who’ll pick life’s knot as they depart? Neither me nor you.
though life is pieced from doomsdays, we wouldn’t trade, you and me.
Prop Up My Old Age
Love, that poet's crutch, neatly props up my old age;
yes, slim as birches swaying, women disrupt my old age
So, fire burned the wood to coals, the coals, to cold grey ash;
look, here, an ember in a paper cup is my old age.
Take my chipped coffee cup, an ashtray filled with filter-tips;
with smoke and memory, I deconstruct that construct, my old age.
Those brats that we adopted bumped our hearts—we worked it out;
I’d leave an orphan, or I’d try a pup in my old age.
China bulls in china shops risk more than they do harm;
you know, the knacker with the knack to halt such conduct’s my old age.
Judgement Day, the End of Time—they came; they’ll come again.
You learn to live with things, but not (this sucks) my old age.
With You
Name in omni adversitate fortuna infelicissimum est genius infortunii, fuse felicem.
For in every ill-turn of fortune the most un-happy sort of man is the one who has been happy.
Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae
My loss is worse than if I never had shared love with you;
My breath comes quick and short now; I always had called my breath you.
Rusted, untested, none interested, I was a lock none would pick;
obscure, secure, no threat, demure, then came that locksmith, you.
You've been my life so long, call what I have left after-life;
as you were life to me, this void you leave names my death you.
Mad as any addict for the rush, I rushed toward you;
potions, powders blown aside, I took for my meth, you.
The baby that my mother bore, you bore till he bored you;
I’d peeped in cradles till I found true Nazareth in you.
Such oaths I swear I swore, I swear by autumn turned trees red;
I swear, for help I cursed at heaven and swore at hell, both you
Bill tries to wear his way with words through brambles of his feelings.
He curses, begs till woods drop leaves; his shibboleth is you.
You Can Lie To Me
Unveil your hopes for you and me; you can lie to me.
Go on, tell me love is free; you can lie to me.
I could wish your tongue were tied, by shame or fear or hope;
but I set you no bounds, not guilty. You can lie to me.
Your promises, those phoenix eggs, long-brooded-on and precious…,
and pending availability. You can lie to me.
Searchers in the dark, for each other and ourselves,
we crave detectability. You can lie to me.
Those times my age makes me forget, please, tell me they were good;
life lived gets un-lived, q.e.d. You can lie to me.
Once poles were cold and friends were warm; see now how they’re exchanged.
For us, what future do you see? You can lie to me.