* amor vincit omnia *

Blow

Skin sips at meagre sunshine as
frosty day slides slow towards night
The Questing Sniff surprises birds
who startle twice by bursting into flight
Swimming walk warms all my arms
But oh! my cheeks and oh! my nose
wind sculpts a bitten moonscape into surface of the snow.

23 January 2005

Scavenger: Ten Bites (annotated)

I
The cows are lying down:
it must be going to rain.(1)

II
Many transports stand
immobile
along the silver ribbon.
Circle to investigate. (2)

III
A tree beside the burnt-out house
has too many leaves
to be hospitable.

IV
One of ours outstretched
upside down-
a warning.
We take flight.(3)

V
Doe lies in a ditch
waiting to decay.

VI
Collective memory assures
our progeny will evermore
haunt sites of ancient carnage.(4)

VII
Smear of red decorates white on black
patch of
roadside meal.

VIII
Flap snap, flap snap
ascend to updraft and
glitter into glide.

IX
Scar tissue
around an early wound makes
this thing
too tough to eat.

X
Swans on a pond
reflect
all that we are not.
They are marked for death.(5)

(1) A nod to Stanza XII of Wallace Stevens' poem.

(2)I wonder if they wonder what we're up to. In any large traffic jam, a pack circles overhead, like...well.

(3) In Florida, where many winter, their talons and discharge were causing a lot of damage to expensive boats. A carcass in the "hanged man" position served to deter.

(4) See Hinckley, Ohio and Gettysburg, among others.

(5) In Maryland, the EPA is going to begin eliminating swans, since they have been removed from the "migratory birds" list.

7 January 2005

Caught

Dangling shiny entices
gulp, surprise! and
YANK
...thrust gasping
into drowndful air

(mirror rainbow
incandescent glitter flash
thrash in blind
ing sun)

Steely glinting
hook unheedful
waits
for dancer's death

6 January 2005 (#20)

Deteriorate

Occasionally test
whether edge has dulled
with gathered dust
or if it still
draws blood

4 February 2005 (#44)