Copperopolis
(1717 / 1804)
mountains of the moon
lunar landscapes
lunatic fringes
mercury madness
running through brains
scabs picked
wounds running raw
skin blotched red
eyes blurred
twitching
wait a hundred years
grass might grow back
earth might give flowers
bay waters might flow free
my grandfather coughs
his lungs up
bit by bit
he’ll never again know
the scent of flowers
taste oysters from the bay
smell sea-fresh air
Waste Knot
(6th Century BC)
finger-nails crack
red sealing wax
liberating gathering
knotted parcel string
broken finger nails
hard scarlet chips
blood flash-frozen
beaded on blade
underground
clawing for clues
damp walled
this cave-walk
distant the exit
thread leading out
reef knots slip knots
sheep-shanks bowlines
bowlines-on-the-bight
tight he tied them
used them
to measure distance
to distance him from doom
behind him
the bull head
boisterous
bellowing him on
Dark Night
(1577-1579 AD)
candlelight
stole the moon’s halo
moth sputtering to its death
this owl high-flying
a cat tears out
mouthfuls of hair
swallows
spits out a hairball
swallows
steal it for a nest
dish and spoon
dance
cats and dogs
rain golden
milky the way
earth’s
thirst is quenched
blind hands
deaf fingers
no longer deft
voices breaking
waves
an unstrung
guitar of sound
fire will one day
come to claim us all
Eight Deer
(1113 AD)
eight deer visit
my garden each night
they raid my feeders
capture my birdseed
lusting for gold
anything to keep out
this winter cold
raccoons
leave claw-marks
grubbing for grubs
dug up like donuts
circled on my lawn
who captures whom
when the full moon
descends from the sky
walks among men
making them mad
death by snow plow
snow-melt and crows
Eight Deer emerges
his sacrificed body
preserved on this page
and in salt snow
May Second
(1808 AD)
bottle tops unscrewed
tighter than the tightest
oyster refusing to open
even at knife-point
plastic this many layered
onion-skin’s pliant defiance
waging its guerrilla war
against arthritic fingers
words tongue-twisted
damning dark mouths
white picket fences
midnight the faces
lightning the teeth
felonious figures
grimy with grimaces
Mother Hubbard’s
cupboard empty hearts
robin redbreasts
battering heads wings
against stony cobbles
this city this square
Zeitgeist
(18th-19th Centuries AD)
another song
sung in or out of tune
time passes by
in or out of step
an absent mind
stuck far away
a person who’s
no longer there
time splitting
a fragmented hair
people who
no longer care
enough no more
time’s spirits aren’t
as visible now
as they were before
Autograph
(1603 AD)
it spews out words
bones to hungry
academic dogs
gnawed the word-knot
grammar’s gristle
doubly chewed
then eschewed
wet concrete sets
where the statute’s
clay feet whisper
damp follies
to waiting bergères
prance advance
macabre the dance
ink its acid burning
fragile the page
held to the light
pin-holes where stars
peep through thin paper
more fragile than
parchment
parched for knowledge
crisp pages crumble
under the fumble
thumbed
by dumb hands
lusting eagerly
for wisdom drawn
from bone-dry dust
Polyphemus
(1613 AD)
Davey-lamped
one-eyed king
caged in his cavern
a songbird
dispels shadows
lights up his life
pit pines creak
can’t strike a match
walking by touch
lungs black and scarred
following the seam
back to iron cages
singing dark hymns
hoping to surface
to walk in sunlight
a jail cell
these bars’ lifelong
death sentence
below the pit-ponies
frantic and anxious
the pit’s pet canary
dead on his perch
Ghosts
(1431-1463 AD)
galley dance
grisly ghouls
skeletons blowing
white in the wind
rangle jangle tangle
bones like trombones
air-hole pierced
the high thigh
pipe of flute
crows for cronies
jolly roger flag
flapped by black
wing strokes
who-hoo the owl’s
night time chant
will seek mercy
grant forgiveness
wind drops
sighs its secret
bodies tap dancing
their swan song
souls aloft
winging away
on shifting air
no longer care
Geld-[de(a)d]
who burnt the cakes
played on his harp
plotted their downfall
under white cliffs
far from the beaches
terra firma forbidden them
no more a foothold
rocks in striped sails
dragon ships sinking
feeble the swimmers
down through dark water
helped by hard iron
chain mail and axes
seeking the bottom
acting as anchors
gone now those actors
lost now their legacies
rogermoorepoet 