Paul Siegell


05.27.05 – Jam on the River – Great Plaza, PA

a
                                                  mystical
                                                  sound
                                                  transfixing
tattoo:

                               sheet music—
                               the five-line staff

                                         spiraling the numinous
                                         forearm

                                         of a Memorial Day-festival
                                         attendee,

                                                   laid

                                                   like a prayerful,
                                                   black leather

                                                   strap

                                         of tefillin:

                               Jimi Hendrix’s Little Wing.


TEAM PLAYERS
                     —for MCP

what are these words, friends,
shuffling their letters, about? what star
ry-eyed sport could spell and cast them
into asterism, the unheard of listenables?
my notebook’s blanks are becoming few
er. let the nude let the bottle even milk,
let it all hours pour. let the pen drain die
scratch. the draft in the bathroom is flutter
ing the toilet paper dangling from the win
dowsill. waverly. ledge. the habits of the
horizon have my mind on a milk carton.
planet is greek for wanderer. is this wit
ness relocation? athletic letters ceaseles
sly switching teams? perhaps olympiads
leapfrogging on and off the podium of
use? and from where will the next note
book come? it’s friends not facilities,
words not worries.


FROM PENNSYLVANIA STATION

                               I.M.
                                         Io
                                         ice
                               in
                                         ire
                                         imp
                               ion
                               ink

well past when the pen cap comes off—

                     ill
                     is
                     id
           if
                     ivy
                     ilk
           irks
                     its
                               ink’s
                               ism

well past when the point is put to page:

“IS IT NOTHING TO YOU, ALL
WHO PASS BY?”
                               Lamentations 1:12
                               seen from the LIRR,

staring out, north,
just before the first stop at Woodside.


12.03.05 – Iron & Wine w/ Calexico – Electric Factory, PA
                     —for the $200 it took to get back in

girl of the keyhole, haloed
statue in the negative space:
legs bent, posed in a pull on of jeans—
how may I align with such a rare signature?

tickets at Will Call, keys
to the evening's concert, I just
locked myself out and my wallet's within—
how will we dance sans VISA and its ID?

girl I anxiously ran outside to open to (to hug),
loveliness I've been tryna fascinate since we
joined the audience of Keller Williams—do you
find such flaky folly the tiniest morsel adorable?

tickets like kiss, the truth like key, and yes!
the life-sized tattoo at Will Call identified with my
dilemma—beaming girl, enchantress of the crowd,
quietly admiring the swaying lyrical whispers, may I

crash at your place tonight?


12.29.05 – Phix – Grape Street, PA

So don’t tell me Dionysus no longer exists—

Fans with old amphitheater fins, this cover band’s
           searing the day’s enabler and catch:

Music a mouthful of black beans and blueberries—
           Dionysus is drenching the minstrels!
Notes of bananas that never last, notes the navigator knows,
           the changing nature of the fire in the microwave.

Dionysus is mist in the vineyard, is rife on the sidewalks,
           waiting to pay and get stamped by the bouncer.

This ain’t some lettuce and tomato meal. (How many times
           has such a sleep befallen?) Nor
the lost cap of a dead pen stuck within the sunlit cemetery
           of the previous century—

Id-written, wine-aligned, this
                                                                       is feeling
                                                                                 of dance
                                                                       when you know
                                                             all the words—

words familiar yet as strange as rain: Dionysus is
           listening, lets Pan stay up at least till encore
(alas, the only goof outta his crew at the bar
           who has work in the morning)—

words with excellent plans for New Year’s Eve,

words when the right music arrives,
releases you.


Paul Siegell's work has landed in the likes of 5AM, SOFTBLOW, Shampoo, Moria, will in GHOTI and the 2008 Anthology of Younger Poets. His manuscripts, jambandbootleg and Poemergency Room, are currently calling out, "Whooo's got my publisher?" while strolling a concert parking lot with their pointer fingers in the air. Meet him at Will Call, indeed. Kindly link to more of his work at ReVeLeR @ eYeLeVeL.

 
 
 
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