Imagination

The morning. The flower. The clouds.
Hand on railing, flesh. On flesh.
A drapery of skin, then river.
And flight. Soaring flight.

Into the weakness of words and vision.
The erupting peneplain of perception.
And small tracks across memory.
A place on park bench.

Trees which speak in foreign.
The office tower bowing. To concrete.
Cool concrete. And a hint of roses.
A pinch of quarrel.

An answer of writers' consensus.
The murder of crow carries.
Aloft. The precision of doors.
Open, close, open, open, close.

A code. And nothing sustains.
Means. Because dissonance exists.
A hair falling across a sentence.
A perception dissolving.

And rain falls forever. On beliefs.

Image #005

mendicant in the strip mall,
by the bike rack, with a dog,
carrying three plastic
grocery bags, dressed in ripped
pants, ripped jacket,
on Sunday, at closing,
people a blur of activity,
hardly recognized you — truth,
isn't it, you strange kid.

Image #004

know time the moment when
(latch sound)
the moment is, know time,
latched against when
the moment is
time (know) the moment
listing with meaning,
know latched moments
listed when the moment
was time picture perfect,
a perfect picture of time

Image #003

The grackles have returned to strut
the back yard lawn, to chide me
for my presence there, I sawing industriously
at the limbs of the Cortland tree

until it is down and wood-burning stove sized
on thawing ground. One launching pad as they glide
into the cedars with food for the nests
is now gone. Tomorrow, I begin on the Red Delicious,

a larger mass, with more intricate limbs
and memories. It's age, you know, this desire
to level the topography around until
only a peneplain of effort remains;

and what needs to be accomplished mimics
transcendental meditation; nothing to stir
the heart. The side yard pine tree is safe
for now, haven for robins, harsh xenophobics,

who last summer swarmed a wayward grackle. I don't
need this war zone, which is something the chipmunks
digging under the back deck should understand.
There is a place for wildlife and for man.

Image #002

between (here and/and there
and the conceptions memory stores
in the front corridors of stories)
here and on St Lucia, Soufriere,
Soufriere, saxophone in St Louis
cemetery number one, Lofoten
leaking clouds out of north Atlantic
ocean (here and/and) at
the bus stop where I wait,
where I wait, where I remember
where I was and having been there,
between, untouched and touched,
between understanding and a brush stroke
in any colour of lady-slipper,
there should be understanding
and conclusion, resolution, but
there isn't/there is
just wind, an alley, an open
window, a cat, street signs
covered with graffiti, twelve
commandments stapled to a telephone post,
a photo album of pictures taken
while trying to misunderstand.