David Jackson

The Desolate Field

Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey and —
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
My head is in the air
but who am I . . . ?
— and my heart stops amazed
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.

***

To Waken an Old Lady

Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind —
But what?
On harsh weedstalks
the flock has rested —
the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty.

***

Portrait of a Lady

Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky
where Watteau hung a lady’s
slipper. Your knees
are a southern breeze — or
a gust of snow. Agh! what
sort of man was Fragonard?
— As if that answered
anything. — Ah, yes. Below
the knees, since the tune
drops that way, it is
one of those white summer days,
the tall grass of your ankles
flickers upon the shore —
Which shore? —
the sand clings to my lips —
Which shore?
Agh, petals maybe. How
should I know?
Which shore? Which shore?
— the petals from some hidden
appletree — Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.

***

Benthams’ Calculus
By Jonathan Huey

I offer a defiant variation:

“Berlin has placed mankind
under the governance of two
equally insane masters,
the criminal larva, and crocodile ecstasy,”

I endeavor to enchant your mind
with a new systematic etiquette
beyond your ethography

what does the eunuch know of pleasure?
what does the masochist not know of pain?

The collective bestial awareness
a mentality cut-off from meaning

beyond cyanide reflection
beyond temporal bone

Spasmodic writhing
pestilential influence
from Chicago to East London,
and coffers of erectile teeth,
the bankers of fantasia-

the calculative eye
a poetic flinch,

pyramid froth
of trench warfare,

incandescent gases
of Valhalla

secret society
of the common leech,

needles in
vertical position,

these variations I offer,
as a salute to creativity
beyond a bipolar understanding
of human existence,

repeating decimals
are rhino droppings
in mathematical mind,

and I am a soybean,
beyond pleasure and pain.

©2000 Jonathan Huey

***

Cafe Expression
At the table
outside the cafe
I sit by myself
wanting you
to stop and talk.
we’ll put on our shades
and share another round
watching the steam rise
from each other’s latte.
we will share some words
a few jokes
and opinions.
then you’ll leave
I’ll watch you go,
studying the delightful
way you walk.
and I will know
it’s been a good day.

© 1998 Paul Gilbert

***