Tell it slant--till it kind

O Surprise!

Never believed I would chase a peacock,

—Of all things—loud harbinger strutting stock

Beyond cages crowning ancient greening arches

Disdainer of dragon’s defeat under peeling larches.

Pour this oil, mercy kind, draped in tears—he cries

From his ‘galaxy of gazing, haloed suns’—O surprise!

[...]                       7/25/12

3 Caráfes Poured                    

    And in the sun all morning binds the sheaves,

   Then here, at noon, comes back his stores to use;   

    Here will I sit and wait,

  While to my ear from uplands far away

   The bleating of the folded flocks is borne,

   With distant cries of reapers… Matthew Arnold, The Scholar-Gipsy

                                               “Now Lamb’s Dog was ‘Dash’.”

‘ Before the summer's leaf and its repose

                 Mowers will pile the white-gold hay in windrows.’   ~Helen Pinkerton

In the case typograph I’v search’d the——dash

From silly-lily to—shuts the Door—caráfes

Poured, riddle- bitten rocks—of unbidden stokes

At the veritable canon core lie broken brochs.

I’ve known—Choose One—absurd limitation,

Peevish quaint disguises of manikin imitation.

Billowed sparklings of bioluminescent flash

Glowing, rowing, unfurling peak-ed silver’d—crash.

‘Conspiracy of doves’— ‘ungathered thews’—

Clayed jouissance—memic evolve —Sad ruse

Scarce accounting chaos shadings dark hair-lined

Chechaquo—chidden froze-frail—spring silverseam fined.

Delicacies rapt, sharp-crackle-frost firebolt

Rose crystal crimson jagging amber-snapped jolt

Charring searing bearing bubbled foaming cottle

Hidden fiercings—chained- chance- clashes—dottle.

Tell it slant—till it kind—donning sparsing threads

Mouldering misty-rambling brambled beds—

Shook shucks—Alpine breezes—tassle- braided knots

‘Gathered’-round —moonmarks— Carr-fenned lots.

Aid the prickers’ bow—avoid snags—-e’er with wind

Sheaving selving inward—outward—willow-limned

Standard time flag straight—stickle-fit—snath swathes

Bearings moorings loosings ——tying knotted cloths.

Vitruvian in anthropometic time—of late

Orientation of snaths and grips to blades-gold weight

Forged sheathing scythe-breathing steps-in rhyme

Swathes—hubs—rickles—placks—riving time.

           

Talk of This—Hint of That—ponder—finely graced

Frankly scrutinized——routine in room faced;

Rose- steeped—uplike—an immense granite cliff

Abolished embellishment—Time’s—mischief.                     ~7/1/2012