I saw rhyme in some fitness class

 

like a Mahfouz I'm in an alley who couldn't
     have made

more tragic nor more weightless, (end-
     stopped with

death or just plain heavy to its dull core),
      young bearded

muscle-head with his pop in hand, aural
     or his spectral girl

that me a poet had been happy to draw one
      beat nearer,

or bear like the childless guy who dust
     will die with but

as the eye is quicker than the pen, Chantal
     skipping rope and

tall fools grown slowly into big daddy gut
     so it's no surprise

that girls, stockings torn down one cute leg
     pick bad boys to wise

contra Satana



(for C.S.Lewis)


If I'll call u out, catholic-wise and I bloody well will,
  --for the fun's in doing it!--

however finicky and rickety female nerves and parts,
   and --how u say it!--love of eyes

and a thing all fun and cordially earful and ven'mous
  (and what early riser isn't!)

that it itself, and for itself, resists and then contracts
  into one stinky roman mouth-- oh!

if I bloody well like & I'll even tear a chipped fang out,
 of all prepossessing shits like u,

who lie 'cross a gap between rot & holy höhere tongues
 who spew nasal views & swallow, too--

If I'll call u out & make it likely that you intended to be
   the same ol' frumious grab and twist

of the dryest wistfullest, most pale sweet heart I e'er saw--
  then let us say, Nu te aud, nu te aud!

Idolina



At midday as approaching and finding out her place, now eloquent
  at recollecting husband torn

from our affections & helpless to return the son's knock and sensing a
  space where sons reclined,

once dead in Mary's arms-- she arrives ( pitiable death of children!)
  & as daughter by that name

 longish wisps languidly spreads over vest and pressed kerchief,
  she arrives to sing for her

(if only she can!), the only voice she'd have heard and possibly felt
  once a day, with a lonely rose

by that name that'd been reflected in gaunt cheeks the colour of
 of a delicate cool stem, torn too...


Even at midnight if I'd been there to see returning smile and heart
 as at a silent reunion, stayed

alone to see it, alone with that contrasting night indoors and out,
 even as she's arrived & I wait

 

Caro cardo: Jolene

(Jolene)

There's a moose sprawled on the highway as some spiritual food
  (pierced to its poor minnow heart)

saying no to decay, exemplarily and ordinarily, in its shy way--
  a knee bowed in asphalt, poor heart!--

with a fresh open cut in its side and looking about ready to die,
  looking skyward, 'bout ready to die

   in that white no-good body of hers

Chat vivant



is pure contrarian and whatnot: reared on waters
  & cannot be one among many

The location's between cave and a glossy coverlet
  that takes its moving shape--

sleepy and evocative master of reason and forepaw
  The chat vivant can for all that

who made, but will never go farther than, that
  yes, with sharp dark-eyed energy

and also bread and love of the encircling hand--
  can, for all that, still be one

Caro cardo:Tino







(Tino) 

Luckily the cat feted was found low in a net of weeds
   As half is mine, already,

the other's not, with a little grime on a pink dill lip:
  this cat (of all critters)

I thought, slated for love, was lost in darkening pots--
  Tino, of halts and starts &

of the tonsured neck & the throaty purr who likes to
  tear sheaves off lonely hearts

Paul as poet



"If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body" (St.Paul)
_____________________


Where this poet is certainly most knowing is a word
  that amply welcomes world

                                       to put in other ways,
  exemplarily and ordinarily
                                                             But both?

Well, the globe of the Annabelle's restorative to cats,
  and a world of kyrios it is, too

to a sweet garden-keeper- let us also praise her!-
  as opposed to belly & femur:

a thought-world of the bee, too with god's renewed sting
  and not its one dingy wing

So, to every blinking Tino a day without the poet Paul
 is just more trinket, more turd!