where we go (sonnet redoubled)

i.

 

Let's let loose and ride the carousel

of bright bells knocking air and circumstance—

another verse, this river of belief

over creeping things, over fowl of breeze.

 

Your face in the window—my anchorage,

ear to the ground, fists pressed against my lips.

Lest the wild things leave the looking glass,

make me plead--sing it for me baby, please,

 

I'd drive out west if you should say the word

to lie with you in fields of celandine.

On picnic made an ancient sylvan bower

beneath my hair, give in to vertigo.

 

With Luna's phases: maiden, mother, crone,

I have your ear, mon petit Van Gogh.

 

ii.

 

Black dirt rows divide the fava beans.

June sun shines between pillars of rock.

Here are shades and lights laying lines between

your idea and my plan for love. Talks

into Monday and moonstones, nights forsworn

to raspberries or our idea of them--

their red juice mingles with the French horn

of the Stones—you can't always get—hmm.

My shoes have their hollows at your feet.

Oranges there are bigger than here.

Hear the songs of my parakeet

because she is the charioteer

that brings you closer and rings a bell.

Let's let loose and ride the carousel!

 

iii.

 

She lived in a house with a red front door

and had a smile white like summer lightning.

A dinner out was at the dime store

scrambled eggs and a song on a heart string

 

played on the jukebox with a pinkish prayer.

Madelaine sunbathed riverside, singing

names of her childhood friends while elsewhere

she heard birds sign and fishes jumping.

 

A flowing river, chocolate voice on fire—

without lights all is dark as she waits,

counting syllables in the sweet briar.

A deep breath she draws and hesitates.

 

All her life is a rose, a winking glance

to bright bells knocking air and circumstance.

 

iv.

 

The season's lemon leaves fall on the lawn,

muting the sound of foot steps. Fogs slip fey,

slides us along the road to Babylon.

We might awake in deserts or Marseilles,

on backs of Indian elephants with bells

around their necks—songs mixing in the rain.

I chose an ostrich on the carousel;

you stayed at home and wove a grosgrain

ribbon through your beard. Pancakes & coffee

steamed the kitchen, filled the trees with wind.

Shoo-ee, on wings of bumblebees we flee!

Nevermind untraveled roads, streams that bend

between your path and my oak leaves. Weave

another verse, this river of belief.

 

v.

 

Such self-indulgent writes, am I in love

with worlds of my creation? Or is love

my bread crumb trail to feed life's hungry dove?

 

Conceit within these lines—that I know what

it is to lie in dirt, that I paint what

will come to pass of blossom, fruit and nut.

 

I've lost my voice, lost what I saw in water,

the false patience of one long underwater

for mediocrity and unseen slaughter.

 

My pockets are full of arguing bones

of ancestors--a mother's pleading bones—

I find excuses in their warring tones.

 

I claim dominion over the fish of seas,

over creeping things, over fowl of breeze.

 

vi.

 

My sweet, your feet are gleaming like fishes;

your blessed hands hold echoes of cathedrals.

I need you here when every other language

floods the fires I've built. All night the raining

 

and half-speaks of Zephyrus mask the rhythms

of my lines. Nothing ventured, nothing gained—

between the rumpled sheets, you speak this adage.

Dawn nears and the pull of the moon is waning

 

for the catching of the morning—daisy

days are all they are and all they need be.

The poet is in love? I whisper wishes

to buttered toast, into new pages, feigning

 

brilliance in my verses. Above the dishes

your face in the window—my anchorage.

 

vii.

 

High times this evening, dollar paints and wine.

Tattoo my coat of arms upon your breast;

expose this sparing spot for our house guest.

Lay fruits de mer on ice—tongues touch the brine—

shrimp sit in crystal. Play the concubine.

Our summer house, he saw how you sundressed

the slip of strap let down (for him?) Celeste,

he seeks you now in grape, the muscadine,

 

and loses you beneath the shadowed things

that darken streets and strains of mandolin.

He'll miss the idle way you tip your hips,

the way you never think to hide your wings

or how you curl up nights, wait to begin,

ear to the ground, fist pressed against your lips.

 

viii.

I've kept your chair open on the front proch,

tipped over in the rain to keep it dry

where Grateful Dead burns by mosquito torch,

a blue-green fire kindled to keep me high.

On these nights alight, dancing on the bar

hips slung, shirt riding up, belly moving

to the Doors, Garcia like bumper cars

with the prying neighbors disapproving.

My hot pepper garden and tomoatoes,

baby spinach for our greens tomorrow—

I just might harvest the gold potatoes

for breakfast (yours/mine) rather than borrow

a lawn mower, cutting clover and grass,

lest wild things leave the looking glass.

 

ix.

 

The phone jingle-jangles. Slow as molasses,

I yawn, uh huh? Pennsylvania 6-5000,

and bring the world in focus with rim glasses,

swim out of sleep like a lethargic hausen.

But it's his voice, that smooth chocolate slide

of trombone asking, do you have the time?

So I creep down from the classier side

in my Imperial Sedan and I'm

ticking, hot as radioisotopes,

my legs parting like the V of Churchill's

two fingers in a melt-down wet with hopes,

thinking of his nuclear reactor skills—

Leapin Liz! No heart, but that tin-man's squeeze

makes me plead, swing it for me baby, please.

 

x.

 

One day you just don't feed the goldfish, cruise

past work and never hit the brake, away

from zinfandel and wet heat, sunset hues

that burn vermillion in the rearview. Play

the words you spin for me into asphalt

expressways, test them on your lips before

you press poems complete to mine. Assault

my reason with your tongue—I've left the door

wide open. Tease me, take me, bring us home.

Shared breath and sweat in shaded hollows, pools

of promise into pleasure fill the tome

of verse with sighs and merging molecules.

One day perhaps I just don't feed the bird

and drive out west if you should say the word.

 

xi.

 

In reverie a summer dance revue,

black wings on water, blue-steel needles dove

and spun a complex mid-air rendezvous.

 

I watched for hours as light trails interwove

the muted laughter of my children and

your poems in the murmur of the stream

 

with castanets, a drunken sarabande.

A Moorish fire and grace was brought by dream

and I could move my hips for you in ways

 

self-conscious thought does not allow. Songs wild

and plaintive, lyrics made to paraphrase

in tongue along your body's span, beguiled

 

and stole you from pacific waves and wine

to lie with me in fields of celandine.

 

xii.

 

I frame our picnic on a linen square

so crisp and white on lawn by river's slope,

beneath the willow branch, its swing of rope.

My hands cup dry red wine for us to share;

the tang of grape to taste of skin compare.

Restraints release, on zephyr mild elope,

soon twilight paints the shadows mauve and taupe.

You light a blaze, its lambent flames a dare

 

to leap skyclad across the Beltane fire.

We welcome days grown long, our Maypole dance

begun as soft wet ribbons wrap desire.

Release on linen crushed in evening hour,

to celebrate, your fertile seed decants

on picnic made an ancient sylvan bower.

 

xiii.

 

The stars tonight, an anchor holding me

to light and sleeping eyes—on insect's song

the night air floats the distant salt of sea.

a lilt, your verse I've lived all summer long.

 

Place your nomadic hands on rivers of

my mornings. Cup the bee's vibrations, blooms

of rabid roses. Wait on winter love

for mourning doves to fill the timeless rooms

 

with embers burning at our feet. Ice-cold

the tongue of dew, the meteors of days

that drop between the lines. Stories untold

I'll slip to you on wind-swept holidays.

 

Lie so under the sky my mouth lie so

beneath my hair, give in to vertigo.

 

xiv.

 

Diana's vigil, a meniscus moon

she pins on smoky skies to hold the night

together. Wind unwraps a gauze cocoon.

Cerise-tipped breasts, ivory in demi-light,

 

delight his eyes. The silhouettes of day,

begun á deux with fruit in crescent bowl,

slide into evening. He is held in sway

by luscious Anjou curve of hips. Clouds roll

 

as Hecate's crown displays a cat's eye star

to mesmerize. He traces the faint line

cupping her womb, a silver sickle scar

of birth and moon, before they intertwine.

 

She captivates him with each facet shown

of Luna's phases: maiden, mother, crone.

 

xv.

 

On this rosy day I am Guinevere,

lost in your gray gaze of isinglass.

Over my left shoulder, a bandoleer

of daisies woven with lemongrass.

 

Give me the crushed grape of your lips,

the silence of red dirt under your feet

and my skirt—the wind an errant whip

driving us to hide in empty streets

 

where the weather is unseasonable

and your dreams nail my hands to the clouds.

No birds nests here unreasonable

and even in lowest evergreens bowed,

 

you live both here and there, aloft and low.

I have your ear, mon petit Van Gogh.