Stage Coaches, Hands No Longer - How It Is How I Am Otherly Conformed

...because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying? - Pablo Nerud

You ask out of the blue: How are you?

(You want to test the waters first)

My answer: I thirst

Going into the wild west, I am

I am stage coaches

Hands no longer in my lap or yours

In a country of glow worms there are

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poem by Warren Falcon
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The Icarus Of Housewives, Circa 1981

From ashtrays he rises
when birds in backyards
have been fed their seed,
a dove amid the starlings.
In smoke filled stupor we stare.

Icarus climbs our stairs,
waves his muscled arms
in doorways mimicking
the starlings in stocking feet.
He feels his way blindly
down hallways, a whirlwind
of feathers trailing behind.

And one day like any other day,
bedroom windows open,
he is gone into the sun to
make his movements golden,
to steel his flight a monument
of silver in the sky over Cleveland,

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poem by Warren Falcon
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On Our Broken Boat The Harsh Light Will Not Break

.
'Others the same - others who look back on me because I look’d forward to them, What is it then between us? ...What is the count of the scores or hundreds of years between us? ' - Walt Whitman

On our broken boat the harsh light will not break.
We see our day clearly as we can.
Tell the night, now it's here to stay, that

once I glanced the sleeping youth, legs against the wall,
felt a pall descend upon us here,
this boat lancing the bay waters darkly.

Some to books then, the priest to his sad, effeminate stare.
I can no longer envy those of the black cloth
so bend and tie the shoe.
We shod our feet against what long loss of motion,
eyes downcast or boldly returning the stare?

Beneath each eye there's some familiar look we refuse.
We map our way to sleep in the palms of shy or frightened hands.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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How Do You Make the Gorilla Com on Pocket God? - A Found Poem

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Light the torches using lightning,
place one islander on that central beacon

(he'll stick there spread eagle) .

Then, place one islander on
the drums on the right side,
and one on the crank on the left.

Their eyes will glow red.

Make sure it is night time,
then in a circular motion with
your finger, make the possessed
little dude on the left turn the crank,
spreading the hapless guy in the middle out

... but JUST until the little lights on
the bottom of the altar turn on...

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Nicht-Gesicht/Not Face by Rainer Maria Rilke

From the German, translated by Priscilla Washburn Shaw:

Face, my face: whose are you; for what things are you face? How can you be face for such insides, whose something is beginning continually rolled together with dissolving? Has the forest a face? Does not the mountain basalt stand facelessly there? Does the sea not raise itself without face, up from the ocean-floor; is not the sky reflected within, without forehead, without mouth, without chin?

Do not animals come to us sometimes as if they were pleading: take my face. Their face is too heavy for them and because of it they hold their tiny little soul too far into life. And we, animals of the soul, confused by everything in us, not yet ready for nothing; we grazing souls: do we not implore the Allotter by night to grant us the not-face which belongs with our darkness-

poem by Warren Falcon
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The Cracked Cup, Somewhat Shakespherical

for Michael Malek
'where'ere he be, his love for 'the Bard' '

Could I but hold within in spite of crack
the strength of flavors, send vapors up
for sweet orders at once telling of earth, of loam, of comet;

In my form, though cracked, could I but
mold this world unfurling before me its
viscous flag, whirl it round, a jelling wind in love with sorrow;

Could I but borrow this shape though
marred and gather all morrows to me,
their bitter drafts drink down to make
merry marrow sink stars to knees,

Heaven's burning flashing mystery full;

could I but crack the Vault above, vanish, soiled,

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poem by Warren Falcon
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In Excelsis Deo - Variations Of A Surrealist Carol For Madrigal Choir To Be Sung While Bathing

1

Hair of soap and head of tears
rinse mine eyes of Christmas stars
O bells, the bells sear me

Wash my hair of splendid fears
water me hot and redly rare
O trumps, the trumpets blear me

Scars heal me up to here
scald me pinkly if you dare
O gay, the gay sleds slay me

Is that flesh floating on the surface me
who swims or sinks fraternally?

I know a strange me
with soap for eyes
and suds for see

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Black Mouse Makes The World

Black mouse makes
the world

without frames

reaching through
shows empty hands
to each and the sky

confusing sky for
hands clinched in
tight yellow too much

feeling nothing green
is about to happen
or teach

clouds

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Leave Taking, After Matsuo Basho, Circa 1978

'There is a blessed fidelity in things.
Graceless things grow lovely with good uses.' - John Tarrant

Expecting more rain.
Not yet light though 6 a.m.-
night still over the barn.

From the porch, high wind.
The moon, a corner of it,
rides comfortably in clouds.

Clouds moving over mountains,
their night work -
some rain in the buckets.

Bestowing order,

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Archeology - What The Stele Says 'Upon Taking A Much Younger Lover

That this old ground yields to plow stuns.

What begins to be, earth swell, breaks
root-room open to blood means.

Old skeins tear upon what is new terrain,
hunger worn, long appended. There is
no blame for pain is the blessing.

All hurt now stings twilight quaked into being.
Your breath falls upon me now, taut, sinew,
bruising hand, purple inside flares warrior nerves
to unknotting surprise.

I am uncovered, thin, bared upon thinner sheets the man-
ripped to many images, torn into, landscaped to former curves.
No longer do I grieve enclosure, touching only myself,
delivered from layers.

Magpie dances.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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