FIVE POEMS

Seeing How It Is

Last clay gain.
Over and above the solid flat squares
Erupted now from not enough footsteps to keep them down,
Or perhaps from too many footsteps which made them finally
Heave in pain, too old now, too thin,
The walk does not lead to the house anymore.

Nor do the trees lining the street lead anymore to the sky,
Gone to the belly of a blight which sucked them dry
Leaving them skeletons pointing away at nothing.
Only telephone wires droop through their hair now
Hidden voices clattering back and forth
To empty ears.

Not that there was anything new to be learned.
Everyone knew all there was to know there
Including that I had returned for a final glimpse
Before the old street went under.
They also knew that I had changed
Anyone could see that, the internal changes.

What they did not know was that I had come to see for myself.


Shell

Slick trees step into shell skies
Last long dance down
Steep holes appear
Lost suns pecking out

I walk among blocks of rain
Taking my place.



Only the End Again

Mechanical cattle rattle and maul
Yellow cylinders from their sockets
All the last cob walls worn
Fall the fields flat to
Becalmed seas of weeds
Reflecting now the sickle sky
The sun in its circle
The bubble gone dry

Soon down fences of winter
Wind will wind deep steps of
Snow blown slick amid the
Steady stare of full-blown moon
And naked trees crystalline wave
To signal surrender to sky's cave
Cold
Answering again as death

Bereft
My eyes slide wearily in their holes
The dull fall of failing brow
The ache of hard air in my hair
While all the while I ponder
The Imponderable
Knowing what I know
Having been shown.



Within the Confines

I gaze into a ponderable pond
Pondering the movement of thoughts within
Schools of thought huddled around a central thought

Whose sudden shiny darting causes all to dart after,
Thinking the central thought is onto something

Until they all reach the same conclusion,
As far as they can go
Within the confines.


The Up Downing

From the hub of a heavy gum plunging skyward
Spoke branches circle and poke
Leaflessly to the rim
Of my vision.
Peering up
I search the turning debris
Of knees and elbowed limbs.
Push-pulling
My leathery head topples to the ground
Bursting into feathery seed.