The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Will Reger
The Dash Clock
Snakes of white blossoms suppress the garden’s earth. An Etruscan lady stands vacant-gazed among them, wrapped in coils of tangerine sherbet flowers that make the gardeners drunk on the job. The Americans pull up in an oyster-colored dream of a car—the Constellation, someone called it. A long dream with bucket seats, headlights like clematis in moonlight, a moon of a clock in the dash. How American to think to put clocks in cars like that: They drive along all night, poised between wind and stars, the whole clear, cool sky pushing down into their faces. They can look at the clock and see hours have passed, but they seem hardly to have moved. The night, the wind, the stars remain the same, but they are already at the villa to pick up the Ambassador’s daughters, diaphanous gowns, floating as softly as the shadows of fish in the lily pond. They come out to the car and the Americans smile, they smile! Mardi Gras smiles as the flowers intoxicate their hearts and they roll away in their long dream. First Lines
First lines flash distantly through my head, lightning in far hills, strange animal eyes glowing in the grass, omens rising, and I am lost in their music— birdsong recitatives overheard under the trees I catch one on my pen, weave a second, third, try not to stop the bleeding that hums and spreads as music-logic, almost a taste, but more touchy-smelly, more grandiose, but clenched, more body than reason, more question for answer, more balled fist than world. Rain water: Fresh, gathering, puddling, flowing, growing, raging— First lines grow into real estate, doors and rooms, murder and war, a place for chickens out back where the youngsters dig a pit for the neighbors, and discover a new northwestern passage, where the trees are full, the hills sparkle, the blood flows thickly, a fountain of red first lines. Not Really, Not a Dog Lover, Not Quite
a sonnet She knows by whose hand come the bits of cheese,
the random strip of steak, the greasy bowl —all of that is only to ease my soul. I do not share the dog lovers’ praise. I do not like the pungency of dogs, nor the enthusiasm with which they greet, ramming their snouts between a person’s legs. Nor do I want a dog to take my seat. The ground is for the hound, I always say to her—I know she understands my point, for right away she folds up every joint just beside my chair and waits to play. Sometimes I indulge her with a chase: That patient sigh of hers is hard to face. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |