Reynolds & Midway 67

We're almost there he sd, which means to make

Him supple again, wich means to flesh Him out,

Extend? perhaps Baruch would say & take

some soup or toke, for we had heard about

his fancy for a puff & liked his pipe.

It's something in this thing of one & aught,

some ancient, primal, irreducible pip

at the beginning, wich wld be a point.

But could it be that all we have is hope,

the truth of faith, the struggle for a hint

from Him, to whom we pray and raise a roof

and say it's a temple? Now, Midway ain't no saint

sd Reynolds, that's for sure, and if you want proof

just look him over, he's sick & thin & white,

and if there's any smoother, silkier calf

than his, I'm Lincoln's grandfather. That's right,

I says, & let me tell you all about it,

like Tuco, who had felt the rope pull tight,

& as for yr ass, you cld feel the devil bite it!

We're coming closer to the devil's tower

whan the 19 seventees became excited

w visions of alien & other than our

intelligence & machinery, whan dark invaders

walked our skies and workd w unseen power

& used the Force to stump the silly raiders

of Cosmos who had gone to the other side

& dumbly swung for Chaos 'gainst the Creator's

will. This Davies' 9th's no joke, than Midway sd

but hath a certain twang of Richard Strauss

leastways at's how it struck me in the head.

3.15.16

θεωρία iii.

ELOUNTU

ran wither his own heart

to which he listend led,

as one & yet a part,

apart but interbred.

& where he put his foot

was made, yet up to him,

untrammeld, absolute,

as ancient cherubim

that God Himself had made

w purpose point & skill

when also He had sd,

w joy be multiple,

& sd, let there be light—

right, wrong; black, white; day, night.

10215

θεωρία i.

AOOUN

In the begining steppt barefoot upon

the green, & was but she a lass alone

& comely, gray, of silver was the lash

& gemmd w black like beads; & in a slush

of dew & grass went wayward, where she was

w wing enclosed who watchd when over us

he made his print, & when he did she watchd

& saw the mark whereon his hand had touchd

but softly, gentle as a swish of wind.
So on she went, in summer violind,

the distance shelterd with its shimmer, brown

bay umber music blent w cinnamon,

& wither went she it is written, dark

on white, eternal emblems of her mark.

92815

Reynolds & Midway 61

Reynolds & I went walking once

over a hill & field to chance

  upon an ancient tree

so old & broad we couldn't hug,

and there we took a jolly tug

  of tasty Wild-Eye.

We didn't wipe upon a sleeve

  to dry the tacky top,

nor say a single by-your-leave

  but tippd the bottle up.

    The wind blew; our skin thro'

      was bumpd & bitter cold.

    We sippd some, & quipt some,

      like lambs slipt from the fold.

While far away the hills were green,

the trees were few & far between,

  the ground was hard & white;

and in that wide & stony field

long brown & yellow locks reveald

  two young men in plain sight.

And so he put the bottle back

  inside his padded jacket,

and we walked on. My teeth a' clack,

  each fist stufft in its pocket,

    I yelld then, "We're dead men,

      this fuckin' wind will freeze us!"

    But Reynolds laughd, his cheek chaffd,

      "Then say a prayer to Jesus!"

We made it to the winterd wood

wherein the slender birch trees stood

  whose bark was ashen, flaked;

out of the wind we stoppd again,

and, like a twain of tender men

  in whom scant conscience waked,

we opend up the Wild-Eye

  and took a second swallow,

and squinted off into the sky,

  assured a third wld follow.

    The birds yelld, for they held

      in there the honord claim.

    The sun flew; and we, too,

      returnd from whence we came.

7.29.15

Reynolds & Midway 59

O let the briddes in tha greenie bours

pip & preen and lolligagging flutter

up & over happie one another

hoppynge beakèd thro' the dais longe hrs

& hrs of ioy; than wettend in them shours

that clap & bang i' th' welkin's darklynge wether

where Artymis, that hath the sea in tether,

silver-sickled ghostly bluely lours

whan even mingles light & dark and bringeth

nighte, who w her sable coverlette,

ouer the sleepynge villages she slingeth

gently, whan that Jewès harpe doth twang

and John of Birmingham dost croonynge sing

of cockerels crying whan the sunne is sette.

O let us run now many marathons

and race ahead to when the letters come

in proper order and the under drum—

its pitter patter in continuance—

remains, but in a subtle variance,

as Keats sd softly: Let it vary some,

her foot be sweetly sandald, nor by thrum

of rote be measured, yet shun violence

that want of fixd attention needs must bring,

the clash and clutter of the lack of Love,

the dearth of passion, and the paucity

of pulsing blood, and that still more dread thing

that kills her, which we shall not speak here of,

but bear in mind, for our posterity.

O let us open up our throats and sing

as Vachel did who thru America's towns

like Bertram, Cino, spoken of by Pound's

poems, troubadouring, minstreling,

cried poetry and did a wonder thing

w pockets full betimes, who made his rounds

as one be-loved by God & Christ Who crowns

w laurel all who sing in gude faith. King,

O Abba, Father, in Gethsemane

whan Jesus kneeld & prayd, and whan he sd

they set Him traps, then floodgates ope in me

and come the tears, here come the tears, this head,

O Lord, too full. Our overrunning cup

we raise to Thee. For aye O lift us up!

7.15-7.16 2015

Ditto and Kiddo: A Limerick

         for Liz Walker ("Ditto on the dodo")

There once was a boy bird named Ditto

who married a girl bird named Kiddo.

Kiddo didn't know, though,

that Ditto was a dodo,

and now poor Kiddo is a widow.

7.11.15

Blue Red

                for Tad Rapid & Tirds McGee

Blood is blue inside and red

outside ∴  Blue good, red bad.

Red: Alarm. Red stands

for police & ambulance.

Blue: Mel's Passion: Think

Gesthemane, in blue: Good.

Blue link, good link;

Red link, no link ∴ 

Blue good, red bad: Red light:

Stop, but green light—

wait, no, yellow that— wait

Red cross good, right?

Yes, right, right ∴  red cross

should be blue cross? And?

Blue Cross Blue Shield !

Cross is Christ, yes, and

plus sign tilted becomes an X and

x means times, that's right, and yes,

t means Time, of course, of course

∴  plus/minus one/zero equals a little and

of course a horse

is a horse of course

and Paul saw Peter

and Peter saw Paul

and 42

means

at all

6.20.15

Reynolds & Midway 56

My odalisque be narrow, lithely gilt

at tail, but swiveld @ her centre, made

of goodly stuff, and mayhap she will tilt

just so, adornd with diamond emerald—

a prick—a sapphire black obsidian

and there, just there below meridian

beneath and to the west & east that white

enamel nub prest out against the sheath

of velvet satin olive alabaster

Rotormobile, savage, pigeon-toed

and knobby kneed, not splayd:

No waddling duck for this sick drake

of twisted form, not made for sportive trix

his spine 19° curved left for sin

@ 15, lockt in padded corsetbrace

in pimpled shame, in bumping corridors

hard plastic puppetboy, strapt in, tied up|

Thy odalisque be slender, spider-leggd,

come cherrytopt & cherrylipt and slay

us, brown black Dian Artemis O silver

horn, we watching in a thorny thicket:

Horny hunters, thou in Grecian glade

nimroddy toms, we peeping, run us thru

Thou odalisque O comely concubines

my slim & limber troupe

of cantaloupian musky melon loves

in closely clusterd groups like grapes

and bunches of well rinded fruits

of yellow, tan, or tawny

flesh O mellow meat O no !

she saw
                                

6.18.15

2 Poems About a Bird and a Fish

           For Heather

1.

There once was a bird who loved a fish.

He thought the fish was quite a dish,

but the fish was playing hard to get,

and the bird got nothing, except     wet.

2.

There once was a fish who loved a bird.

The bird thought that was quite absurd,

so she chirrupped out a reprimand.

But the little fish didn't understand.

about a month ago

Reynolds & Midway 55

     I love a kitchen boy, and William is his name. - Steeleye Span [trad.]

Endless corridors, passageways, lights,

a sense of confusion, of having been

newborn, or born again, in some new world,

to seek out, strange, dark. Scotty. Born,

Dotty. Born. Yes, I remember, Oh My

Gawd.  Laughing. Daughters of some, bright-eyed

laughing daughters. Daughters. Tricorder.

Check. Mr Checkov. Checkov, run

a full sensor scan.  Off & on. Onward

rode the seven. 7 hundred. No.

it was 6 hundred. Six hundred men! Scotty.

The stars, you're fired mister. Dilithium.

Crystals. Dilithium. Lithium. Salt.

Water. What?s. I want answers. Speculate.

Spock. Spock. Please report to the. Quarters.

My quarters, Bones. Tricorders. Zones.

Neutral. Zone. Scotty! Dammit Bones.

Lieutenant. Yeoman Rand. Who is John Galt?

Yesyes lieutenant, I sd code. 2. Arm

phasersmister. You have yr orders.

6.11.2015

Reynolds & Midway 54

     Bros before hoes. - Wise man.

I am that I am & eye yam what I yam, cried

Yahweh & Popeye when Lo & behind

us crept up beside us, she that did lob from her

guts the rotgutting catgutty strings

that, spat from her, tangled in webs of deceit

us menfolk, sickly & wan we: Waxen, pallid,

pellucid-eyed saps for the pelvicly maddening

midriff asway & aswivel. The drivel we spit

O cherry red ripe O snowy white Phyllis O

Chloris, Corinna & Daphne. Daft we

dribble in dulcet & docile deblitity,

prostrate & vexed with a witch's hex, he

sd, as he gasped his last breath, sexy,

& forkt o'er the fee. Fie! Fuck her fertility.

6.5.2015

Limericks for a Few Friends & Fambly on National Limerick Day

There once was a lady named Heather,

Who liked going out in bad weather.

She danced as it rained

And never complained,

And then flew away like a feather.**

*

There once was a lady named Lorie,

whose life had a lot of backstory:

She'd model and hang

with some rockers who sang

of their days of hootch-induced glory.

*

There once was a lady named Jenny

Who went to the bank for a twenty

But it seemed that the teller

was an obstinate feller

And refused to give Jenny any.

*

There once was a girl named Tamara

who stole the gurl Billiam's tiara

to show she was queen

of the hospital scene

(in Havasu, not Guadalajara).

*

There once was a chimp named Unky

who was a spectacular monkey,

and his Uncle William

(a.k.a Billiam)

was a diehard Jethro Tull junkie.

*

There once was a boy named Jordan

who was really quite handsome, accordin'

to some; and he drew

lots of pictures, and knew

his Karate. So Don't piss off Jordan!

*

There once was a young man named Tirds

who had a great talent with words

that he got from his father

and also his mother

who both were poetry nerds.

^ for my eldest, Jared, who writes villanelles and groks Opeth lyrics. He calls himself Tirds McGee.

*

There once was a Mama named Kim

who always went out on a limb

for her babies. Her love was

as pure as that dove was

that Noah saw flying to him.

Most written on National Limerick Day, 3.12.15

**Co-authored by Heather Seip.

Devotional ii

It is concluded. Exuent.

    He there alone,
    His finest Son

in that intolerable restraint.

Still in the mind the flags of pain

    flap red, and beat.
    It is complete.

Now comes the thunder, and the rain.

12.24.14

The Fat Lady Sings

When compasses are all aligned

    and needles point to truest north

    we'll celebrate the coming forth

of man's recalibrated mind

and hold our hands and dance with glee

    upon the grave that is the world

    and see the flags of peace unfurled

across the heavens' canopy

in melted colour, vivid, flapping,

    thwicking thwacking in the wind

    and cry with faces drawn and thinned

from lack of sleep and endless clapping—

and when the bells ring in the new

    and ring the old convictions out

    we'll beat the square pegs in a rout

to clear the field for me and you

to build our global village up

    and raise our kids to think like us,

    without the politics and fuss,

and with our overrunning cup

of happiness and health we'll raise

    a toast for uniformity

    and comfortable conformity,

all clean and pressed for salad days,

like tender fishes in a tin,

    we'll thank the godless heavens for

    the loss of poverty and war

and for the blissful state we're in

until the twinkling stars above

    the cattletrucks have waned away

    and all the cows are home to stay

stuffed full of joy and peace and love.

12.16.14 

Smoggy w/ a Chance of Fiery Death

My teeth are swords! My claws are spears! My wings are a hurricane!

the moon in the sky is an eye in a river it sees sliding

by or a skunk in the trunk of a cinnamon tree

he sd, we can't stop here, who's stopping ? Never

tell a tale that it's over or make it so tall that it shivers

and makes of itself an emblem of dynamization

in closed-eyed visions of ere and then and when

when timeternity's chains wheels seeds and gears

grind in black opaque revolve and winds wind revolving

the sky in the river a wing or a tail or a claw or an eye

by its shine and colour you see it's a thing for scrying

he sd, who are you, why are you here and you were trying

to hide but you couldn't because of the bolt of the fire

that from him showed him in all of his decadent glory

who taloned and vast laid waste, breathing, flying

10.19.14

Reynolds and Midway 50

     To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had of late begun to pamper. To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and forever, despised and friendless. - Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

   O Jubilee, O Jubilee at last,

says Reynolds, laughing, raising his corded arms

as he goes dancing o'er the limen fast,

   shaking his booty. Midway's softer charms

are flattened in the captain's chair, his silky

satin smoothness squashed. Dante alarms

   him, yet he reads with zest, his milky

skin aprickle as the hairs stand up,

those few that sprout upon his erstwhile bulky

   thighs and calves. With mustard in a cup,

and garlic-tincted pretzels, he continues,

dipping each, with relish. Ransom's grub

   occurs to him and floods his withering sinews—

or, more correctly, his dendrites and neurons—

then sup, then sop. Most literary venues

   revere the master. Upper echelons

convinced Midway that to ignore the poet

for much longer would be the direst of sins,

   which brings us neatly to—I didn't know it

when we started out, you must believe me,

and still I think that Christ the Lord will show it

   at some point hence, unless my wits deceive me—

the topic of sin. As creatures, we are broken,

divided, Janus-faced, since Adam and Eve. Me-

   thinks, he says, to coin a rhyming token,

and there again, también a wee puníto,

that Genesis unto the world hath spoken

   truly and with might, that Adamito

lent his ear to a conning sibillance,

and tainted us; but Eve, remember, she too

   bent an ear, and lost our innocence.

We're in this lot together, sinners and salt

of the earth, and no man hath sole governance

   of body and mind. And yes, who is John Galt?

Good question that, for none of us are he,

and Adam's fault is everybody's fault,

   and no one's, in continuum, for we

are you are me and we are birds of a feather,

until that Kingdom come, triumphantly,

   when Christ returns and we all come together.         †

7.24.14

Reynolds and Midway 49

         This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are    commingled out of good and evil... - Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

   When Midway finally arrived at fifty

he stood astonished in his shoes, and he wondered.

When he was young, imprisoned in the safety

   of innocent bravado, he had pondered

mortality and black Oblivion—

wherein the absence of his heart's beat thundered

   flatlined, static, eon after eon,

in his ear-conchs—when in a dream he saw,

in a white field with nothing else, a lion;

   but what that vision meant he could not know.

At four or five such things are mysteries,

brief gifts from One whose work inspires awe

   and seemly gratitude. Life's vagaries

would grip him then and shape his forward path

with fresh amazements and a slew of crises.

   At some point Midway lost his native faith,

the clumsy grace with which he walked with God

in childish make-believe, when every breath

   was taken like a vision of a road

that rises on a graded plain between

two mesas where one day two men will ride

   up and through, mysteriously entering in

to legend, when the wind begins to howl

and someone sees them coming through the spin

   of dust, his own eyes peering through a cowl,

his belly gnawing, and his hand like leather,

reaching suddenly to sound a bell

   that brings the brave men of the town together

in loaded conclave: Ears prick, weapons cock,

and wives bolt doors, draw blinds, as if bad weather

   were on the way. Now in a tower a clock-

hand clicks, and with three more the hour

will strike, and madness overtake a flock

   of well-dressed mannequins and evil lour

like clouds, then blood will spill and whores bare skin,

their mouths agape for kisses, loosened hair

   flying like Salome's, corrupt with sin,

who, with sweet swivels of the pelvic carriage,

hypnotize their prey and lick them clean,

   and cast a wicked crooked hex on marriage,

that ancient rite more honored in the breach

than in the observance—but, lest we disparage

   the hen and spare the cock: Both sexes itch,

and rarely only given the lucky seven,

but from the first and ever after, each

   the other's too-familiar. Odd and even,

good and evil, dwell in everyone

and lust is ever present, never driven

   far from faith, and no-one is alone.

7.21.14