'Dark's Magpie, Me' - Alienation With Bruises & Inclement Hallelujahs Poem by Warren Falcon

'...in unplanned rehearsal,
what has become a destined association,
our mutual confession is invisibly drawn.' - Warren Falcon

'No sooner blown, but dead and gone,
Ev'n as a word that's speaking.' - Anne Bradstreet

'I am this strange thing I despise...
To become ourselves we are these wayward things...
Naked the man come forth in his mask, to be.' - John Berryman

**

Dark's magpie, me. What
say you now if say you could?


I bow to the bruise exquisite,
address the tree
full moon just passed.

What is seen/not seen
between veins of each stillness
leaf waved in suchness?

What acts or yields, what
moment-by-moment brings, awaits
revelation of foliage and
trunks?

I seek what they have never
having had it, these trees,
and these graceful young
men, masculine, easy, nose
blind, at home in their skin.

They live now and ahead
at no one but life's behest.

As for me, twice aborted laity,

God damn the West, it's deity.


I bow to the bruise exquisite,
address the tree, Meaningnest:

this purpled edge of summer
new, barrage of storms span
thee - call it Maple, call it cathected
projected me, these young men,
African students on bikes, park
themselves on benches easy
with each others' heat - maples
get peeks of their blossoms
their purple bark, they freely
piss, return relieved, shameless.
In such easiness, theirs, their
grace embodied, I feel the itch,
the drive, the hives invisible in
damp air where young men and
trees thrive. What is it there in
them that I cannot have? or seize
in some, even minor, measure?

God damn the West, its deity.

As for me awed before purple
leaf and loin, I am a pagan old.
Few were able to touch demure
me, that is, the very few, confused
as I then was for a feminine tongue.

Distant cousin,

Berryman, John,

(we're) made more close by
sorrow.

Time's a borrowed
longing, reaches us each to
each -

or yours to mine, for
nowhere now we are but
within perhaps,

I in you and
you in a, vague, yes, me,
a guess,

a venality,
vanity being a human trait, quite,
it's still a trace

to be,
to convene, congenially, I
now confess:

I preach too much.


From high horse be-
sotted try to sing
a'stammer with all of
England's Pilgrim-more
behind/beneath me/us
who would be poets

it is tone that can home
or disperse us, skin or
spooks thinner than thin,
reflections on walls or con-
fused for traffic or meteors
periferal. Didactic, pro-
lific, heiractic much, ig-
noring appendectomies,

let excursus end.

Pretend or
pray such extends
us into more than
infirm materiality
but let it rest or give,
if rest can be given,
riven from wrested
Pleiades' retread
Maidens. For now
let's, craven, en-
compassed much
verily,

God damn the West, its deity.

Come cauterize come
correct, impress of self

homo erect us bears
on what's for other fools
now to court, stalk, woo.

To palmer instead Word-
ward, on tinted oars
bend or pleining sails
snail pace as skies
turn day away from
sun toward Polaris
or Sisters Seven.

They're dead now too,
a chorus of ill sorts to
keep time out of habit
and rhyme as a kind
of home to indwell;

in no where do I


but liminal bring

them with/to you

to say

Goddamn the West, its deity.


CODA Echo-ica

'Childness let's have us honey' - John Berryman


Lets us end then

bruise exquisite

newly vernal

just passed

stillness leaf

in suchness waved


these graceful

in their skin


their skin

edge of summer

storms


span their

blossoms

purple bark

invisible in

touch demure



a feminine tongue

close by sorrow

each to each

we are but

still a trace


would be poets


skin or traffic

or meteors

infirm materiality


for other fools

on tinted oars

try to sing


to indwell

but liminal bring