The Rondeau Is a Thing of Five

The woodspurge hath a cup of three (Dante Gabriel Rossetti)

The rondeau is a thing of five,
but also of two and three.
The haiku is of three.

          Chaucer’s rondeau's about staying alive
          through winter, whose weeds will be

The rondeau is a thing of five,
but also of two and three.

          o'ershaken by bright Phoebus on high,
          St. Valentine. The small birds find their joy,
          become the two becomes three.

The rondeau is a thing of five,
but also of two and three.
The haiku is of three.

Rondeau

What to you seems reason for uncertainty

to me may seem a firmly grasped handshake.—
Goodbye, goodbye. We our departure take.

          Look, you sad skeptic, you can plainly see,
          it ain’t exactly easy shake-and-bake.

What to you seems reason for certainty
to me may seem a well-executed head-fake.

          I’m simply appealing to your charity
          in a playful spirit of give-and-take—
          when we ourselves might our quietus make...

What to others may seem reason for uncertainty
to you and me seems a dearly clasped handshake.—
Goodbye, goodbye. We our departure take.

Drugging the Pateroller

I don’t identify as a white man.

Yes, I’m among the privileged.
Try to pin me if you can—

my identity slick as a corn can—
I tried to run, but I got bridged.
But I can always pass for a white man.

I've tried the grits, give me the ham!
The powder on my nose is smudged.
Feed me! I know you can!

Hiding here behind my fan
(other improprieties have been alleged,
such as pretending not to be a man).

My forebears from a northern land,
but the boundaries have become all fudged,
so try to catch me if you can!

Going right from the frying pan
into the fire with the plans I’ve fledged,
but the police always know I’m a white man.
They don’t try to shoot me, but they can.

The Shard of Wood

One of a box of objects. Reddish, striated. Size of a very small bird. Thought it was a piece of petrified wood, but when I picked it up it had no weight. And brittle—broke into three pieces the moment I touched it, pulverized at the cleavages. Seems to be the dried-up pulp of an insect-damaged tree—there ARE tiny holes in it. But it mainly reminds me of a plump lizard or a tiny toy papoose—but only by sight, because now I’m afraid to touch it, afraid I’ll break it even worse. Like the clovers pressed in my late friend Ellen’s copy of Woody Guthrie, a Life—broken just by looking.

Can I speak to the object, let the object speak? How can I address you, disintegrating, crumbling wood chip, not really knowing what you are, less where you’re from? What will you say in return? You speak. You say: I am a piece of the vasculature that pumped a million gallons up a hundred-foot conifer. A shard of redwood, I am. It doesn’t matter how the life I was part of ended—which it hasn’t. Don’t grieve if you destroy my tiny trace!

Terra d'Ombra

To gain heaven, you can’t renounce umber—

umber, red-poop color of mud,
color of heartaches without number.

For Hieronymus Bosch, debauchery was umber,
salvation some blessedness cleansed of blood.
To gain heaven, he renounced umber.

And think of poor Jeanne Hébuterne,
mistress of Modigliani—that clod—
suiciding to be rid of her heartaches without number,

eyes blank midst hair of auburn—
both she and her lover now under the sod.
Has she gained heaven by renouncing umber?

Yes, we will all slumber
with our mothers in the world before the flood,
beyond the pale of heartaches without number;

but from somewhere outside the painting the light of an invisible candle
glimmers on us like a light of God—
reflected through the power of umber,
the blessed power of heartaches without number.

you

The poem is about the present moment.

Hmm... I don’t mind if I do.
But to place my stuff, I’ll need an agent.

I experienced a particularly radiant
moment yesterday, thinking of you—
a moment

of tenderness, glimpsing a yarn bracelet
in the grass, wet with dew.
But I was supposed to call my agent

to arrange submissions and readings I’m too ardent
to pay adequate attention to.
The poem is about the present moment,

the eternal now—remembered only as a recent
event. The bird flew.
That was what I needed to tell my agent.

A deer walked by my stand, but I was too impatient
to wait, and now I've got no clue
what tune to hum about the present moment.
All I know is: got to fire my agent!

Yarn Bracelets

Two yarn bracelets by
the sidewalk. Unicorn-mane
colors, white and blue.
Spun with a drop spindle?  Each 
wound with a pink thread.

______

First draft

two yarn bracelets beside the sidewalk

abandoned by some child
wispy unicorn-mane colors
each with one purple and one white strand
spun with a pink thread