NOT FAR FROM THE RIVER

Twelve below; the sidewalk

Rang as I walked on it.

I wore a three piece suit

Made of brown corduroy

Which had fooled no one.

Because I was cold,

Because I was unemployed,

I was eating ice cream.

This made sense at the time.

FLOWERED CUP

The wide, shallow cup believes itself

To be immeasurably old.

The flowers running around it

Are from a place that isn’t here.

Its handle remembers gold paint

Drink from it quickly; only sentiment

Keep its atoms from flying apart.

HARMONIZING

Far away, long ago,
You are singing so I
Here, now, sing too.

AUK

Turns out the bird is what matters
You take a Noah -- pretty good seaman,
Family man, likes his alcohol --
And he sends out, say, an auk.
Auks are all gamblers at heart so
He'll bring back a deck of cards
Or maybe some loaded dice.
Next thing, he owns the Ark
Noah has to start pawning animals
Planning to redeem the zebras
And wapitis and elands and aardvarks
Once his luck comes back. Captain Auk
Steers the boat on and on.
Dry land? What use is dry land to him?

ARK

When Noah sent out a raven
He expected it to return so
When a dove came back he knew
Something was wrong. Plainly
Another ark was out there
One whose captain liked doves
Which Noah had deliberately
Left off his boat. Years later
The raven hosted the two Noahs
In a dream from which all three
Woke no longer certain
Which of them he was. The trouble
With doves? They never
Have such dreams and always
Know exactly who they're not.

EULALIE

If you must write about her
Prepare; reinforce your punctuation
With heavy-gauge copper rivets;
Make your lines drag; hidden caesuras
May slow her down. Like enough
The morning will find Eulalie Echo

Sitting amidst flindered words
A few inches above the ground.

NOTE

The fickle pensioners of Morpheus
Have their bars in the lower world
Which we call home. Dangerous once
They do little harm now. Brigid --
Saint, goddess and, most importantly,
Bartender -- occasionally does a miracle
And they sleep without dreaming

That once they were faithful.