http://occulter.booklikes.com/     

for my sisters

      Theresa,  Christine,  and Barbara
      who quietly amaze

THE SCYTHE

Poet Henry Kanabus (photo by Mike Tappin)





The wind accounted for all
it had shattered
                            (night-dancing
in lace prints of bone)

We confuse its wisdom
with the anger of cats  .  both

lay large upon the wheat

We realize the urgency and notify
the heliotrope

                          It is waving its arms
in a thousand different parodies.

TRUNCATED TIME

And with that you hold
your diamond

ring to his lap
and part your hair

in perfect
hemispheres of black

loosing the sails
that could be the wings

your child remembers
when speaking of lamps.

VIOLET OPTICS

For weeks I have not seen you

                  (wonder if still I love you)

In a younger day
the darkening sky
       stirred my sensibilities
       like Gothic architecture

Now I question
the merits of courtesy

brood over
           constricting possibilities

I have spoken to the chair
It disagrees.

THE HOMUNCULUS SCORNED

Is it because you loved
the broken horse  .  the flying
horse that carried

          (far from you, baby)

your turgid eye
your reckless waist

Wondrously you recalled
the sapience on his shoulder
and his great beard growing

as the moon survived
the winged eclipse

.

A figure in the sand
                          at a distance

difficult to accept

As a child you regained
your sight and saw

everything.

NIGHTSCAPE

Faltering in this season
of reluctant gloves

an apostle of the grain belt
has secured four notes
of suicide

from your porcelain pocket
and will not relent

.

He has brought you
silver in a cyclone truck

and has painted
the wings of his falcon
a dark red

Gasoline cats attack
the dressmaker's fortress

eager to ascend.