This Is No Paragraph

This

is 

no

paragraph....

this

is 

raindrops

falling

as a parachute

under

the

tree where

you sit spread

over the roots of your wondering....

(EAC June 2013)

El Cuarto Chino

On the rice paper

the flow of lowly water

ink mimicking mist.

There is no such room.

(EAC June 2013)

Why Do They Fight Leaves?

Why do they fight leaves?

They might ease slowly to soil

and be covered unknowing by snow

close in the circle of their mother.

Why do they fight the leaves?

(EAC June 2013)

Out Back (En el trasero)--To Horacio Quiroga

To Horacio Quiroga                            

Out back
the slack green table
of the grass.


On the other side
of the world is it the gift
of cats
to cloud the moonlight
with the same smoky spine?

En el trasero
la floja mesa verde
de la hierba

¿En otro lado
del mundo se les ha dado
a los gatos
anublar la luz de la luna
con la misma espina del humo?

[copyright EAC 25 May 2013]

Under The Boardwalk

Under the Boardwalk

The waves are short below,

very short

under the boardwalk.

The people are short below,

very short,

under the boardwalk.

Somewhere or other

there is air fairer than here

with fairer faces

unconcerned and uncornered

with songs sung

in some other mother tongue

with greedy tresses playing fair game

in the wind

The line is short,

very short

under the boardwalk

scrolling light and shadow

walking shore

aces over kings and queens

heart-sorrowing space

limbs lolling and rolling

along the promenade strolling

somewhere or other

air fairer than anywhere

under the boardwalk.

(copyright EAC 17 January 2013)

La Paz

La Paz

On the high Bolivian salt flats
there is tribesman who builds crystal cones
that are mountains on the dry waste.

His body is lithium
and in electric presence
are shaped the winds and waters
of the new world.

For fellow wonderworkers
whose tasks are smaller I say:
hold self as humble as that god
on the salt flats who molds the waters,
who forms the air, whose breath shapes the wind.

[EAC copyright 2011]
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Golden Age

Golden Age

It is bittersweet to mispose fried yellow
in an orb of French eyes.

It is easy to fall into fish.

It is easy to fall in a cinnamon roll.

It is not hard to be a Fibonacci series.

But most difficult is seriously to suppose sunrise
in punctuation as curtains ascend on Vienna.

She hennas hand. She hennas hair. She hennas mustache and beard.

Hearing you have life to relive you are turbulence
barreling up the East Coast threatening snow.

We are not here to commoditize nature.

We are not here to sodomize le Duc de Blangis.

We are not here to know .36 from .38.

It is easy enough to fall into hatred.

It is easy enough to forget two or three drinks bar to bar.

It is easy to sing.

[EAC copyright 2010]
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