R/e/v/e/r/d/i/e

To My Wife

Tue, 28 May 2013 17:57:52 -0400

If you’re interested in reading a hypertext I wrote and designed …
(follow the narrative by clicking “older” at the bottom of the page)

-polis

Tue, 20 Nov 2012 14:52:56 -0500

cumulose

cloud-city 

fair,

oh city where

fog drowns the sunlit air

a tone, bronze bell song

 gold, where sky peals light

to metal-gilt sun

And old,

our careless minds 

sing cobalt unity 

to endless

silver

skyline

My Palm; Laden with Night

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 00:41:50 -0400

Umber to black, ebon-black

shadows that cannot stir,

that cannot creep out from

under the cool and heavy dark,

dark of memory, of memory

when leg, oh shift-shattered

leg breaks fall to cold, bleary

floor, hard fall, broken

remains, cold stair

winding down to depths

below

Till present still, dark still

and night preserves englassed

with sucrose clouds heavy

on sky’s edge, pale gray

and violet blur at far’s reach, far

faded (mild air, warm nothing) with

groan of sky

Cat paw and tail, hiss of night

nagging with glow-burn in hand

smell specks drifting down in gray

ashen heaps, I hold:

nothing (cold meaningless)

nothing (sky)

nothing (cat)

nothing paper rolled

nothing

Else I hold naught, in hand

up stair, wood stair, cool

cement-dust floor to stair,

up stair, slow-pad,

lift, kitty litter in palms

of my feet, blackened pads,

I pause-

-still (night reeks)

and open heavy-creak door

I miss you/It's been a few hours

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 03:53:48 -0400

I miss you in a certain way, so that I

just want to press my body into yours enfold

myself into you, around you, touch your palms,

the pads of your fingers to mine, just hold you to me

embrace you until I grow weak because your warmth

is something I need, something I think about al-

ways, until the next time I can be with you, next

to you, with your head your hair your legs

next to me, that is all I want, and until then

I can think of nothing else, and this chest this

body is filled with longing, a kind of sick empti-

ness, and I just sit here, pining, pining, until

I can again press my lips to yours, rapt in

your saccharine presence

A Past Unpassing

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:47:25 -0400

I stop to wonder how,

long ago, long in the past of my life

you held me beneath you, beneath

the fermented scent of asphalt

and soured lunch, with bees

in annular motion drinking

of sweat and sugar granules

then passing on, on to feed

again, far away from this place,

from the skin and paste and melted

fabric of pavement

I looked up so fondly into

the sun, tried to hold my eyes

to the purpose, to stare straight

through the webs and cloth

that wrap around the solar frame-

but I turn, vision branded

with a knowledge of where

I was to belong

For months I cried to my

room, to my mattress, to photos

of yearbooks past, torn and glor-

ified, bless’d and libel’d by my

tempest heart

Even now, so many moons

past and vanish’d, I still see thee,

oh voluminous annuli, oh rubicund

mantle spread pale and white

and comely, blushing down, down

to my gloomy pith

"Arrive thou vernal equinox"

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:53:54 -0400

I met her fallow in the Spring

when sunlight nibbled trees,

to bring

their buds to fuller

blooming - - sky

and wind, thee

wise, unending, sand

and sun, thou

sprawl’d, unflinching - - thus

my heart, flecked

with sepal, sap and honey

throb on, throb song

of Winter’s cold, fey sun and stone

that brightens now

to snowdrop yawn

A Winter's Bone:

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 17:04:59 -0400

What is bone

when sullen pallets of ice & salt

slick-load the trucks, passing on

through red lights and wood-post

fence lines? Me, I think the news-

paper is full of it, so full, so saturated

it tears where my fingers pinch it

to my palm, and out the balcony,

over smoke-strung rooftops, over

the grays and blues of the city lies

a man, an essence, a land of wind

and ice-crusted ponds, shacks of

winter, bone-white doors tinged

rusty with the salt and snow of

winter, of calloused hands

of ages past, ages present

bowing under the formula, oh form

-forbidden trace in the arm

my son, our sun (oh light, oh Son,

forgive me, reveal not my sins,

God! my arms) as the cold blisters, pales

lifeless on our faces, raises limp arms

limp lines to the quivering sky. To

Winter, we cry aloud, indiscern

-able we cry that bone cracks

under the weight, recovers not

its shattered self, heals not

to its quondam shape

—-

Alas, afar, away

in the sky, a wintrous bone

floats sickly cloud

to drift, to sigh,

to stay

Mire/Reverie

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 17:21:28 -0400

It’s a dark cloying feeling, a clasped hand

in wet, sticky darkness feeling, one

that spins itself around you, binds

you with dull gray threads, binds you

so deep into the feeling that you cannot

twist, perceive the dull glimmer from

beneath a doorway, a bulbed-lightscape

just beyond reach, sight; the wet filters

in, clogs the brain with murky squares

of lead, fills the cavity with test-screen

monotone and motivation dies, the clay

seeps in, the skin curdles as blood leaks

out, and your two eyes, blunted moons,

wane with amnesic cloud, pall that drapes

long, low to feed moist loam fingers

An idea

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 20:03:41 -0400

Everyday, I

have a new thought:

Wouldn’t it be great if I ___?

It would be great, wouldn’t it

if only I could remember that idea

such is life, I guess, so will I

ever be doomed to live the ideal in moments,

in passing glories, glimpses of the future, of success

Oh, lord what a joke, that my greatest gift, oh mind, daily

pinwheels its thoughts to the sky, to die and float away as mist to the day

Botanical Garden

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 01:51:00 -0400

Mnemosyne, son

of mine, son

of shivered glass and wine-

crystals in the shade of fog and branch,

arboretum where I lay under the sky,

under the sigh of dawning moon, of tree-

strung globes of light, light that carries my

sleep and city feet past dark and twisting arbors

of trees and vines unseen in the shadows of night-

fall

There, midst unsettled murmurs, hand-couples

and wandering children (where are they going?

where am I going?) -I try to follow the sallow

strains of music, of plucked and echoed notes

tangling through the forgotten, nay, ne’er

discovered leaves of a Chinese garden

Ham & Cheese

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 23:20:00 -0400

I might have called my grandma for the last time today

she sounded weak, as expected

a tense whisper broken, croaked

orders from a long-buried walkie-talkie

Dad, do you remember those

summer days in her house,

your house, the house where

we climbed old evergreens

got sap and needles stuck into

the grooves of our palms

leaned down close, so close

to the rich soil, smelling

the green, tomato green

and creeping squash vines …

I remember we always asked

for ham & cheese sandwiches

just plain store ham

american cheese

and buttered white bread

but somehow the memory is so good

so full and enticing

that I imagine her life like that, like

a grilled ham & cheese sandwich

-grandma, there were parts that were

so good, parts

that melted in our mouth

like butter and toast

the apple and pear trees, I remember

rich cheese, and the old clothes-line

those strings that stretch from mouth

to bitter sandwich

but now grandma, now

you’re down to the crust, all

you have is a little burnt crust

and crumbs - - these

but fading morsels

of memories, long past,

long buried and grown

tall with the shoots

of those vivid green

tomato plants

White-pine slats, wood hewn thick to cover the frame, the...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 22:23:00 -0500

White-pine slats, wood hewn thick

to cover the frame, the back-bent

skeleton of home, of wood-smoke

fire, of kettle-black morning when

in the cold, the fog, the prairie grass

at our ankles, our legs chafed, evoke

sulfur-flash smell photo bulb and

tripod photo-leg of lambent sepia

When there were words there was light, and the light from them...

Sun, 04 Mar 2012 00:12:00 -0500

When there were words

there was light, and the

light from them grew

and burned into the walls

a smoke-memory, a shad-

owed trick of the eye, that

this skin, scarred as it is

is beautiful, shivering and

cannot ever forget the touch

of your fingers, your skin