Friday Follies 8 MAY 15

One of the things I did during April was revisit some older poems that I wasn't happy with. There were a couple that I really thought improved and these are two of them. 

Ode To Full Lips

(for Miss Prissy)

Horizontal half-moons

silken as cinematic whispers,

last night heard my tongue

pray for that sacred space

between you.

We worship

your red's exquisite sheen

for how easily it exceeds

the Two of Heart's glossy finish.

You know it aint good sense

that makes us imagine

your fat bottom gleaming.

Months ago,

I dreamt you as sliced halves

of fruit beneath glass,

above teeth white

as an apple's bare flesh.

But now I'm shoplifting Chapstick,

brushing rich gloss

across a canvas

stretched like skinny jeans

after a midnight binge,

bewitched by what

surrounds your mouth's

satin machine.

You've been chapped

by cold, salt and sunlight.

But a single flick

from the scarlet felt

of a wandering tongue,

can supple all again.

And when are our

busses scheduled?

I want to ride

your double-decked

lushness deep into

the tunnel of your doubt,

then string bright sighs

along its dark ceiling.

You need no MAC,

Max Factor, or Clinique.

Peck. Peck. Peck.

Now that I've kissed

the blues for you,

come close

and hum

your cinnamon song. 

THE COLTRANE IN YOU
( for Terrance )

Wonders
if riffs you only dream
redeem what
you can't seem to play,
even if every note
could be token.
Fears even if
those notes were to reign,
some umbrellas might
remain unopened.
Supposes what
Faith means
is melody
forever moistening
a mouthpiece,
filling even the fifths
in the next bar.
What you pray
and couldn’t pray for
rooted in the same
earthy chord,
always entwining.
Say the embouchure
of Desire beckons
from a double bed
in a bitter suite
you seem to enter
on a hemp rope
of incense smoke
you barely remember,
in a lavish hotel
where you can never
check Inn.
Doesn't every
untangling tongue
wish to probe
the pouty mouth
of Imagination?
But what notes
the cursive smoke
now rites,
blew all ayes.
Say a naked triad
tempts the rhythm.
An organ swells.
The key motif is
all things in modulation,
let us therefore
praise the pious piano,
then change the lock,
to change the key.
What is this Acknowledgement
but a mere opening riff
curling like
the mysteries of
a quarter moon?

The audience phases,
fully dressed, observant
of the sabbath of Resolution
through half-full glasses.
A brass scepter,
your sax sanctifies
the fingered strings
of the upright bass
as unholy sticks cross,
but the cymbals
have the sound of cymbals
that are unseen.
Still the audience
witnesses and testifies.
You squeak,
and they find
in chorus-like fashion
along the back wall
a groove in unison,
E pluribus unum.
Filling all four chambers,
exposed brick walls
the color of kaolin,
the definition of diastole.
Smoke rises
in systolic Pursuance
of forms, spilled
spirits pooling
in mirrors.
A surprised door opens
and eyes widen.
Psalm, says the sax,
because the chairs
are full of ears
opened earnestly,
craving serenity.
Nimbus, nimbus
says the notation:
but can even
the nimblest fingers find
that cumulus chord?
Notes float
and conflate with
what was whispered
and almost wholly writ:
no redemption
but these digressions
on the downbeat
raining, raining . . .

And until next we meet, may all your potatoes be sweet (and dusted with cinnamon.)