L’esprit de l’Escalier

Stairs - 
eventual instruments 
of our declivity
for conveyance

drawing out 
validation
from body 
and will 

at each 
plane,
until 

the dangerous collapse 
  of one
 on to the other


L’esprit de l’Escalier - "stairway wit," a phrase describing the witticisms which arise after their window for delivery have expired (i.e. as you're going down a set of stairs).

May I call you, John?

Strange comfort in the idea of whores
 attendants at the great feast of needs
half naked lunch ladies, 
   breast or thigh?
their endless shifting, 
    pooled to the edges of a brushed metal tray

a whore armed with her ladle
neatly apportioning desire, ennui
distant sirens catch on her hairnet

blues shift, endless in your night
sirens punctuating the hollow clicking of thin heels.

may i?

Crossing

'Inevitable?' said the flutist,
   lips pursuing the apical G;
   a placid finish blowing swirls across the table.
We require, not pipers but a choir,
not Hamelin but Paumanok, -
Distracted, but for a moment.

I buoyantly idle
white caps,
grey gulls,
  forgetful lines
  crossing beneath the centuries idle
the ferry’s chin digging into the shoulders
of costumed crowds
            shuttled through murk, brine,
Where was your future a hundred years hence?

Mr Whitman, I’ve lost your generations of men, women, and oscillating gulls.
I’ve been to Paumanok, your mother’s home, your mall.

A round, another
round, of alms
around whom, with tasseled conscience,
formed a book, forgetful read
never to work
not a crinkle of spine
not the last crisp chapter

A rough noose
a ring, then a coat of arms
a living crowd, I was one of a crowd
in the breathless distance beneath his bridge.

--------------

Written 2011.

New poetry! How. . . odd. This is one of the first to live almost exclusively in the blogger post. I have a draft in an offline file, but it is several revisions behind. This cloud business is a little disconcerting, but highly utilitarian.

A couple of haikus

the Axe men lumber
through the primordial pine
slow to remember


screw your rhymes rob frost
paramedics couldn't find
us down that damn path

Brick

Don't let her go
   too,
crazy into the bottle

For want of silken plums
   above the dulcet Mikado
A pitcher full of craziness
   tugging ragged pleas
from a smear of scarlet knuckle
down by poor frisco.

Lost Kiss

I am to you a drop of darkness

Spreading across the holy waters
   of a glittering morning soul
How can one delay the destiny of dawn
By letting slip the translations
Of the stars in my chanced upon part
In the bejeweled constellation
   that prophesies us

I wonder of this curious thing
That lingers in the taste of a kiss

That first gingerly conceived kiss
Sweaty palmed contact of two trembling leaves
Sweetness tainted in nervousness
Glazed with the soft madness of anticipation
Like two roses touching in the breeze
Two fearful hearts starting to believe

Perhaps I seek that bold five-hundredth kiss
Seduced by sweet celebrations of champagne
And difficult to pronounce French dishes
It tastes like two warm hands
Clasped together in a certain prayer
Asking that they part as albatross wings
Beating to the rhythm of one heart

Wandering the raven nights within your hair
Cut from the canvas of elusive dreams
I am so anxious for the freedom in your eyes
Longing to quench a burning noontide life
To pencil the glory of my dawn for her. . .
She of eyes lost upon a sky of gems

To stay a prophet of forgotten suns
   wrapped pretty in crepe 
Bound in mesmerizing twists of fate
Can only keep me from giving. . .
   that fairy tale kiss
And seeing all the seasons
In the perfect creations of two lost souls.

- 1996

I don't hate this poem as much anymore. It used to be oppressive, not it's far enough away to just enjoy. Thanks to Rebecca Paisley for using this in her book.

Every last

When i learned to unplug
it was late,
   or far too early.
There was no sparseness 
left in the markings of my palm

i felt the one,
one boy sulking, stubborn upon steps
the grungy marble pride of old empire
a crumbling patina, vexed with time

i subsumed her next
one startled girl, petulant in herself 
a curtain swaying on divergent sands
with stranger fingers, careless left

we held the last
the actor, the lissome host of legion
nave without parish, 
 night without Polaris;
the abyssal yard which buried our fury.

I have to think about whether I even like this. Still, worth penning for consideration.

For context, I just finished watching Synecdoche, aka "what-can-we-do-to-Philip-Seymour-Hoffman-next!"