What Happened Later at the Camellia Grill

She wore tight black wool
High red heels
Long red wool scarf
With tassles on the ends.

He wore houndstooth
Black shoes pointed toes
Rimless spectacles
White beret of wool.

Coffee and coffee
Cupaftercup swizzle sticks
Crippled dropped into plastic ashtray.
He wondered how he could possibly
Wash dishes.
After grasping really grasping
Merleau-Ponty Eisenstein Kant Camus,
How could he possibly change his oil filter.

She wondered if she would ride the
Streetcar Home
If he used Ivory Lemon Joy or Dawn,
Then hummed and clicked her heels.

Nathan Hills and I attended many art gallery shows and openings in New Orleans; generally, we ended the evenings at the Camellia Grill.

Hey, Rockin' Dopsie

In July, when it is 98 degrees
And the iced tea only helps when it is
Poured down over your belly,
And the TropicalTan outscents the mimosa,
When skin is everywhere and muscles
Shine like lightbulbs,
And Dale's eyes get no rest
From hundreds of pairs of thighs
In shorts,
And the hottest color is white,
Lawnloungers for miles around click
Clack at the hands of skin-tone-conscious folk.

At night, when it is 93 degrees
And the Dixie must be swallowed fast
On the front porch
And my eyes get no rest from
Dale's pillar highs
And the hottest color is skin,
We dance the cane-syrup shuffle.

Winter Cross

Across the yard the white narcissus grow,
Sending up an envied light.
You up north in perfect-for-you-snow
Should know by now that spring was never
Right recollecting dead ideals.

Expectant eyes pray on autumn seeds sown,
Midwest lips bite thoughts of blight,
Cracking hands scatter crows to balking flight,
Heaters guard orchards in the southern zone.

The narcissus is no infidel
Deceiving her season. She breaks no seals
By bending to her villanelle.

You sit on spring as nature's throne,
Crush blooms born of winter's stone.

Right Conduct

A mockingbird sings from a seven-voiced tree,
In measures of rain to deaf buttercups,
Pale in the palest of dawn's canopy.

She in her nightdress whitens the coffee
Black from a pot pours into a cup.
A mockingbird sings from a seven-voiced tree.

Sealed tight within your skin's mockery
Nimble you down worn back steps,
Pale in the palest of dawn's canopy.

I will sail this body home to the sea,
Bathe it with sponges, prop its feet up;
A mockingbird sings from a seven-voiced tree.

I sleep selfish in this wrapping peace,
Winds in the hall blow memory shut,
Pale in the palest of dawn's canopy.

Night is too dark for dark's amnesty,
Too dark to conceal cracks in a cup, yet
A mockingbird sings in a seven-voiced tree,
Pale in the palest of dawn's canopy.

213 St. Thomas

Arnold from around the corner
Jogs his body down the street,
Sinews pulling, muscles straining,
Sweating glamorously;
Determined eyes plot each lunge forward;
He looks down at his chest
Releases his arm just long enough
To smear some sweat over it,
As if for lubrication.
The girl on the porch wonders if
His skin will pop.


Seraphia

For Elaine
Clarissa waits in bed
for me--
beneath the covers
her pages
stiff with The Eighteenth Century.
I make
mousakka and eat
too much and
watch
the Disney Channel.
Then pots, bowls, pans,
measuring cups,
measuring spoons
to wash and curse.
Clarissa waits--
her improbable life
neat in small print.

Written in spring 1987. She was reading Richardson's novel, Clarissa; I was reading it in a graduate seminar.

Elaine/Four
Thunder shakes sleep from your eyes, child.
Lightning quickens fear on your tongue.
The meager comfort of my hand
Calms you back to dreams, love.

Night and storm have spawned an ogre.
Heavy-footed, with gales for breath,
The monster lurks. His thumb flicks off,
Then on, the flashlight aimed at you.

Half on to death now, I read rain,
Life,--breathe welcome and bless the night.
You, still held by birth, see fire, gulp
Chaos. On the wind, you, child, hear death.

Elaine/Seven
Lost child. You can not take my hand.
I lie in darkness counting cries as
One nightmare grows into another--
Alone you wrestle the angel. I know
Childhood is not innocence from
Pain. Your eyes close you into self,
Breaking the circle of my arms.
I wonder now, is love enough.

Elaine/Ten
You are so beautiful,
satanding tall, burning
darkly.
You body
balances. Soon
breasts will bloom,
curves shape
you into woman. A child,
you wait goodnight
in long white gown and bare feet.
Black hair falls
over half the face
you lean toward mine. You smile. The smile is
Eve's.
I kiss your round cool cheeck. Oh,
it will be long years
before we meet
as we part now,
Mother and child. Good night.
You turn,
pause.
Now I lift my hand.
My love,
farewell.

GBW

For Elaine, from Willy B. and me
A rose, as other sprouting things,
doth recede at times and doth return--
from warm to cold; from cold to warm.

While worms, dark, bristling hairs rare seen,
lost in ravenous one thought winds,
bound to undetermined ways,
feed once, then are gone
to death and
or distance.

TO A LOVER IN HISTORY
What Greek and Roman mix we have.
What mix the Greeks and Romans had.
What swapped distinctions.
What confusions as to the fore.
What wars of thought.
What thought of war.

The Greeks, thought for thought, often fought
as Helen could from grave attest.
The Romans, more bound to war, had
at the core, brains,
as their long lines show.

And now, in front of history book,
on couch,
there is some talk of here and there--
this blond greek, Apollo,
and that dark Mars.

The gods are oft ill repeated here--
the mind's constant history look
beyond the helpless bound-up books
for the ideals told by seers.

All the vagaries of body and mind,
constantly manifesting in men,
confuse us as to where and when
and what we look to find;

this young "greek" comes from Texas,
this other "godling" from the town you know,
I remember the alamo, he the places you'd go,
and no gods' mountains for either of us.

Of these many only-Apollos I'll have none:
I have hands--
I have fought with dogs and won--
I have screamed the body's rage--
I have this centered pound of pounding bloodmeat
and know the age it tells.

And Mars, repeated Mars,
caller back of three-year war, semblance,
often sits at desk with pages
in hall with others with other books
can call from the words
the long caress of thought.

But we, and all the gods we are,
(there are more gods than Apollo-Mars),
we, whatever the side from which we're seen,
are, as the gods, of one
and all
and difficult to glean.

So take us for the gods you know
or have known,
close your eyes to see,
regard these almost islands
in europe's seas,
and floating,
as with swans,
feel which tide warmly flows
and towards those mountains go.