As Dew On Grass Sleeves No Longer Stiffening In The Wind - Moments From The Orange World - After Reading Kenneth Patchen

.
for Bruce and Patti
happily singing in their chains by the sea...

'...do not grieve, therefore, those who are lost to you;
they were ever so to themselves...'
- Kenneth Patchen - from 'There Is One Who Watches'

I've lost my way and wait for signs.
Distant signal fires indicate 'wait here'.
No gate ahead. The iron dogs hungrily await
all who approach edges of the orange world.
Best to settle in, grin at stinking Death who is
sinking into the ground winking at me as if to say,

You will soon sink. You will soon sink.
Who do you think you are or were?
Step forward if you dare.

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Transparencies: Lovers Sing To Each, Death The Veil Between Them, After Japanese Noh Theater

.for Father William Rowell

Act 1

Each stanza is a scene or theatrical screen in which the drama is eternally unfolding...

O each eye holds a temple.
Each eye curves away from each.
Each knee contains a hidden country -

paddies are green now and ready for gleaning.

Green now and ready for gleaning,
each breath moves in rhythm.
Other's hands burn the thick rushes-

Go ghostly to ashes.

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

What Pablo Saw In His Final Dream - Una Cancion Por Pablo Neruda

for Jose - 'now he is with the Lamb'

translated from the Spanish of Raul Voz

'The fact is that until I fall asleep,
in some magnetic way I move in
the university of the waves.' - Pablo Neruda

'Power at its best is love seeking justice.' - a radical priest

When love

finally came

two birds

one near

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Dante In The Laundromat Journeys Further Into Hell Beginning With Two Lines From The Book

At some false semblance in the twilight gloom
that from this terror you may free yourself
posthaste, gracelessly cast out, the closing
hour now come, caught in 'spin cycle' after
'hard rinse, ' an entire bottle of fabric softener
cannot unstiffen mythic threads,

the ancient weaves fray,
displace, are 'undone, so many'
beneath the winnowing rotors
that beat, beat with hope,
slosh, wash all sins away.

Yet gathers the dirt,
there's more sin ahead
heady in floral scents.

After midnight, beneath
bright florescence I read
Dante, his Inferno, of Hell's

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Poem In Fragments Beginning With A Line From Berryman, Black Mouse Series Ensuing

[the poem begins with a line by John Berryman ending with the word 'honey']

Childness let's have us honey, flame intended,
names smeared on the glass, an accidental pane
times hands touching it delicate as trespass,
what is allowed lace of vision times want equals
at last a sum equals at last a remorse felt,
a memory - sunk into soft teas - steeping, turns
steaming said window said prints/views obscured
of nothing in particular or special, troubles only,
only of passing birds enamored of (their lighter
bones) or are they cloud and shadow? merely the
steep sun declining ashen into the Jersey side?

*

O come lover back the floor where we lay a'times
upon boards the cluttered clothes the depositions
times at least three and take me once again one

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Extensions of Crash - Strophes For Frieda Kahlo

As with love, also the bellows.

Strophe 1

She could not stop there,
had to flare out, dry paint,
and the dryer flesh peel down
to bone, a sexless esqueleto*,
skull no longer mustached,
a calavera**, nothing more,
curved calcium reliant forever
upon canvas, what is congealed
there to fan and burn,
a 'cauda pavonis'**.

*Skeleton
**Skull
***Pea cock's Tail (an image in alchemy)

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Bare To Such Luscence - A Catfish Mass

.
for John Berryman, his Bones, Confessed

Antiphons:

The original fault
Will not be undone by fire.
The original fault was whether wickedness
Was soluble in art. History says it is,
Jacques Maritain says it is,
Barely.

- John Berryman, from 'Sonnet ix'

Introit then Lauds:

Punctuated surprise,
hosanna of rivers

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Two Alchemical Passes for Father and Son - Turning Thighs to Diamonds

FIRST PASS - The Flying-Away Boy

Or what man is there among you, of whom if his son
shall ask bread, will he reach him a stone? - Matthew 7: 9

No blame shall stain us now, father.

Mars in you still storms the makeshift diamond.
Each base of cardboard weighted with stone
is still our house; a bat, a ball and mitt, hard rules
of the game, were meant to undo my lust for dark
heaven shunning shining girls.

The heavy ball you hit to me is never caught,
a floppy glove always falls from a hesitant hand.
I was reaching for god then - it's not your fault -
a lavender boy early befriended by crows,
already resigned to what was given and what
was to come, a softball between the eyes,

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Even Pretty Buddhas' - Han Shan of Old Speaks In a Dream

How strange is life in old age.

Overwrought by too much thinking
all is not yet lost but merely tossed,
scrambled in this ramble where etymology
is everything. And good boots.

I'm to poetry then and books a-sundry,
the old scrolls and tints an attempt to
keep a horizon, above it, not under but
the dip is soon enough. The worms can
correct my spelling and punctuation
when I go beneath the willow tips slowly
teasing the grasses into laughter.

White hair nearer now to Yellow Spring,
my humor with others is still intact.
Even alone I manage to laugh out loud,
a victory over enemies and frivolous,
ill-tempered gods, all my youth wasted

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Fragments Beginning With A Line By Berryman

for Karthik

Childness let's have us honey

flame intended

name smeared

on the glass

an accidental

pane

x hands touching it

delicate

as trespass

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!