My father
walking away
was seen to look back at
the plum tree.
In a sudden wind
each leaf
fluttered like a flag.
To sparrows a territory
to my father a plum tree
to itself nothing.
Old wood / new leaf
the mind’s obscure conjunction
was seen to be
a mode of beauty.
Seven years’ devotion
to a liberal cause
hadn’t altered
the plum tree.
When God told Eric Eason
to go south
the plum tree made no comment.
Louise Henderson
tells the plum tree
she’s done with abstracts.
Properties of the night
include the plum tree.
The years of Dionysus
are over.
Apollo
is in the plum tree.
Dear Dad
I make no elegy
but this true record
of the plum tree.
I am
the sex that turns
your purring engine on
that makes your heavy virgin vaults
unclose.
I live
in your pocket
dreaming of/faithful to
the one and only iron wife
I fit.
So don’t
leave me behind
or lose me on the way
lest ending send you back where you
began.
Tap. Tap.
Don’t stop. Listen.
It’s yourself moving
over the white plain.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A typewriter?
A white stick?
Tap.
You’re sitting in a blue
armchair
trying to read a
poem
about poetry.
What is that girl about?
She’s down the
corridor in a
glass
staring.
the glass of your mind
the poem
won’t give itself up.
Neither will she
unless you put away the
book.
She discovers a
grey hair.
Each tick of the clock you grow
older.
The stillness
has a life of its own.
Perfect. Perfectly
still.
It’s what we think happened
before what’s happening now
and before that.
Henry Ford
said it was bunk.
Nightwake
sees my
self
not as others
make me
out
to be
but worse.
Thick-skinned
day
will say
the hell
but night
knows:
From now
do only
exactly
as you feel
in your
self
to do.
Abjure
pleasures of
praise –
blame
will look after
itself.