108. Crickets in the Phone

I miss you,
how I miss you.

Even when there is
dead air
I can somehow hear,
echoing in the
silence:

scratches, noises,
murmuring
bouncing within the
landline.

I can almost picture you
standing at the other end,
not knowing what to say…

I could sit for hours,
pretending to have a
mute conversation
with nothing but
trapped electrons.
But I hang up;
whether it be telemarketers
or my mother
I will not pick up again
for you.

107. Temps pour rentrer

Like a Turner portrait,
wild trees cut the soft sky
in aggressive rebellion.
The fields are aglow in the
impossible, perfect sunlight
painters only hope for,
or plagiarize.

In the middle of all of this
a green and white farm sits,
cozy and quaint, unassuming
over the twilight
shadows.

Soybean plants stretch far,
some frenzy of
golden fire.
They are glowing bright now
in the setting sun.

It is almost too perfect for a
photograph, there is a
humid mist rising from the
torrid August rains.
Everywhere, there is this
impossible sparkle, gossamer,
and I think perhaps it is all
too lovely to be real.

106. Insensatez

So soon forgotten,
nylon strings drift out the other
ear,
scarce registered
by one.

Bathed in the exotic, balmy
air,
sun-soaked and
carefree:
indeed these are sweet nothings,
measured not in single drops of
liquor caressing your
throat, rather
a forgettable nectar,
enigmatic, ephemeral.

It’s Portuguese to you,
it’s all the same lithesome
beauty that is so
foreign, so
unintelligible.

It is what tourists
accept, yet do
not seek,
experience but do not
remember.

I could not expect more:
sitting like Turandot
enshrouded by cross-hatched
palm-leaf shadows.
As one breeze carries my
voice, futile, one shadow
to the next, I am
the only constant,
alone in my
impossible artistry.



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105. A Record of Stock Characters

Everywhere I go,
there are people.
Little people, big people,
large people, small people.

I envision I am
taking them all in,
breathing their essence into my
brain,
bottling them up in
invisible, infinitely small
vials, for
reference.

I like to think that I could
pull one out, anytime:
but of course, there is the
modification, and tinkering.

It is all such strange and
interesting work.
There is just no place for them
yet, or
ever.

104. Alcina’s picnic

Crows are eating in the backyard,
congregating under the shady
trees:

Dark and plotting, hunched over in the
shadows,
whispering…

Reflecting on a former mortal
existence,
bemoaning the trappings of
enchantment.

Chatter subsides to feeding,
mechanic bobs
puncture the sheltered
earth:

Noontime ends, and all the
inmates part,
save the stragglers, digging
past the noon.

Even these few gluttonous
ones depart,
and there are only worms
and yellow butterflies,
and all the other innumerable
insects, left climbing on
the windswept
grass.

103. Pentimento

Reflections paint the night;
streetlamps are overlaid with
my tired eyes –
when had the night been so
unsure, and shifting?

Things were so simple;
there were just – images.
Light, sound, smell, touch –
left to the mind, it is a
frightening chasm, there is
so much uncertainty.

I no longer know if I am
a reporter, a portraitist;
if I am supposed to
capture these scenes, or
alter them and place
this pedestrian here, or
make it rain, or
take the moon away.

Or if I must capture the
impressions on the impressions,
and interpret them, or
manipulate them.

Things were so simple
when we could watch the world
like a work of art.
When we caught butterflies
and observed how wonderful
they were, rather than
failing, time after time,
trying to capture something
we could never
know.