another poem in progress...

Sonata


Of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, mouth an open grave that swallows
sulfurous dew a woman’s cinnamon-drenched
hair memories of orange groves, pears,
uncertain voices and childish cries, longing
lost under the sun, gravel under foot;
there is no end, o child, o dayspring, judge
of rites and festivals, for our lady hawks
onions by the road, yet o it’s a broad and lovely
road, as broad as pasture overgrown with
nettles, palms, rattlesnakes; look, along
the broad disheveled road at night a burning
cross, a liturgy to a cloaked and boring god;

of the spewing forth of words there is no
end, book after book devoured, tossed
aside while all was green under the sun
of summer after stripping off that cincture, burning
that alb, to skip along free of vestments, water
from a cracking font, to stand no longer
in the fire under the sun, o trial, o burden hard
to bear, at war with my tongue and with my
hands, for all is now and ever shall be,
shall be, as the shattered ‘I’, limestone,
fossil foraminifera, splintered
driftwood on the shore all swirl under the sun
and mock our present; still we remember,
through the ache of parting spouses in a marriage
bed, fire flashing off each face like hard struck
flint, that garden of time wherein we sleep
together:  may we not yet break from nostalgia;

so of the spewing forth of words there is no
end – mouth’s an open grave which swallows
all, tongue’s a weapon of destruction,
but o my heart remember, let the waterfall
with trumpet blast not catch you fast asleep
under the sun–