Raymond Farr
The Water’s Loquacious Edge
A mile off
I can see the sulfur piles
Hart Crane lamented
Once like clouds
Holes the silver trees
Of his eyes could
Climb into—the flammable
Question marks
Of his eyes digging at
The water’s loquacious edge—
A house sinking broadside
Mid-afternoon
One edge slower
Windows like a shambles
Of impatience
The perfect
Romance of a view
With Nothingness
…iron horse, etc
& like heresy in a field
Of cheesy frontier metaphors
I move around town
Squirting milk from a shotgun
—an iron horse, etc
& someone says “Pause here…
& I’ll cut you!” & we live & die
On a street with seven STOP signs
& I’m sitting up all night
In a chair full of rat babies
& according to Cy Twombly
The dog’s made of coffee
Left over from lunch today
& I’m singing the song of
A wavelength that can
Never be measured
A Fiddle Too Large for a Rooster
& dragging
A fiddle
Too large
For a rooster
To hold
Quietly
Against
The red
Horizon
Of its cheek
The egg plant
Of Social
Darwinism
Is all over
The 2
Feathery
Faces
Of the metaphor
The broken
Mirror
Of my life
Has become
& I’m all like
Music
Limned
In the ice house
Of a once
Grand
Civilization—
NOT!
The Naked Woman of a Hillside
Raymond Farr is author of Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths 2011), & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012), sic transit—“g” (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012, 2016), Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav (Blue & Yellow Dog 2015). Raymond is editor of Blue & Yellow Dog, now archived at http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com & publisher/editor of a new poetry blog The Helios Mss at theheliosmss.blogspot.com.
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The Water’s Loquacious Edge
A mile off
I can see the sulfur piles
Hart Crane lamented
Once like clouds
Holes the silver trees
Of his eyes could
Climb into—the flammable
Question marks
Of his eyes digging at
The water’s loquacious edge—
A house sinking broadside
Mid-afternoon
One edge slower
Windows like a shambles
Of impatience
The perfect
Romance of a view
With Nothingness
& like heresy in a field
Of cheesy frontier metaphors
I move around town
Squirting milk from a shotgun
—an iron horse, etc
& someone says “Pause here…
& I’ll cut you!” & we live & die
On a street with seven STOP signs
& I’m sitting up all night
In a chair full of rat babies
& according to Cy Twombly
The dog’s made of coffee
Left over from lunch today
& I’m singing the song of
A wavelength that can
Never be measured
A Fiddle Too Large for a Rooster
& dragging
A fiddle
Too large
For a rooster
To hold
Quietly
Against
The red
Horizon
Of its cheek
The egg plant
Of Social
Darwinism
Is all over
The 2
Feathery
Faces
Of the metaphor
The broken
Mirror
Of my life
Has become
& I’m all like
Music
Limned
In the ice house
Of a once
Grand
Civilization—
NOT!
The Naked Woman of a Hillside
We are reminded That we live in a park As in a memory— Telephone poles of the world Jutting out imaginary maps— & the milt Of a steel mill 4 miles on The bay’s other side… Let’s just say we live On a street twining Down the naked Woman of a hillside Let’s just say The bridge these clouds All walk on, is built Out of sentences The One-armed Girl & the “Missing Hand” Job I was promised a glimpse of pure morning But running away wasn’t something I was offered— Not even a rhetorical gesture! & so I shuffled the facts alertly in the quarantined light & swallowed the dark throat of this mad mental health dude & grinned like I was getting even There were voices in my head cheering me on I told them a one-armed girl gave me a “missing hand” job once So they held me for observation on a psyche admit 24 hours— Untreatable silent men wishing a black disease on me It was like one of these Nut jobs had scratched How impossible a winter daffodil! On the common room wall in what looks like my hand writing & now I can’t get Elvis Costello mumbling the lyrics to All This Useless Beauty out of my head
Raymond Farr is author of Ecstatic/.of facts (Otoliths 2011), & Writing What For? across the Mourning Sky (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012), sic transit—“g” (Blue & Yellow Dog 2012, 2016), Poetry in the Age of Zero Grav (Blue & Yellow Dog 2015). Raymond is editor of Blue & Yellow Dog, now archived at http://blueyellowdog.weebly.com & publisher/editor of a new poetry blog The Helios Mss at theheliosmss.blogspot.com.
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