Ed Baker


from As I Re:Call

# 1.

I met a Chinese girl forty-five years ago today was on a Greek island
she was barely nineteen She was so cute that the men and the boys
in town lusted after her all that she had to do when she wanted any-
thing was to walk her walk up to the Square and in her walking and in
her smiling and In her charming ways she got everything that she
desired now in this old hermit's mind she resides Under this tattered
wool blanket in his memories   What is keeping him warm is mystery a
daily diet of figs and prunes keeping him regular

in a too-busy-mind
she yet walks through
over and over again

# 2.

Dawn is here and this morning's
minion
Birds a-flutter squirrel eating her
fig tree fecundated pollen through
the roof piss-ants feasting on these
crumbs old man spending time sit-
ting alone seventy-two years with all
of this watching weeds growing
seducing himself with memories of long ago
...just an happy horny old bonze thinking

today I will see her again

# 3.

counts his every syllable his every other word
where each precisely falls upon and leaves
the page  : his friends roam in and out of
his vision   settle into their own concerns
larger gaps to go into and the silences
little more and nothing less than any other's
clouds in thinking   right here on their own
terms   these   mornings


# 4.

old man with long beard continues his
just sitting in the here   such-as-it-is
activity opens yet another love poem
see's from this distance her stepping
out of that ball-and-claw bathtub tawny
body bubbles glisten she turns his way
slip is into this erotic reflection   can see
clearly of then and when they   touched

---

from G OO DNIGHT…



REGARDING WHAT

given what manifests

it
is clear who

does what to whom

is
silence between
give and take more
than
can be
said

Not Knowing Why...Then Goes

into this heat and sacred moment he hears her plainly say: "Do what you want with me."

Want demands other posturing
Now demands silence play is with mind reply is not an understanding of why
set is into his rocks apart from
matters and survival

"no one said it would be easy"

words image

possibility in
her


UNTITLED

ample thighs reveal is also among scrawny day lilies her swing moves heads to eyes eyes to see head hair deliberately flung let out into the open

she

finding that and this and there

nothing solid
to stand on

one foot in mud

stand up straight

tilt head

shake balance

blue sky

reach for

open mouth

only word clearing the bite of

want

here even see

beyond anger feelings

cut¬through steamy
rise
and

sunlit legs

gone

a woman with
long fingers, hands, hair
vine round loss for one word

out
of her mouth her tongue goes into

pull is

between sheets beside the blue pillow

tawny girl a wo man is with

bright is in
I m age i nation

language tells what is meant

he unbuttons summer dress

the one with the
yellow flowers



 
 
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