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When J.S. Bach Meets Johnny Walker Black Label and other poems

When J.S. Bach Meets Johnny Walker Black Label and other poems

When J.S. Bach Meets Johnny Walker Black Label


Doyen meets his fellow; smelt gold, heard.
There are so many noble pianos in this world —
The honey in the life’s eave’s never, never cold.
I speak of the rendering judge, collaring surds –
Wing to wing, a wing to grab-around / to collect
In a net the things a net deserves.  The wreck
Of the day finds solution here; salve; music for
The neck: a different for the other, different door.

This is my Jerusalem; the day’s end.  The moan-bad day
Caught in a pool of cool drinking, the concentrate
Upon the ear, like the same had never been touched
By this wide hate, so steady, turned: a wedded couch,
Rest, a peaceful place: a reason / to be / eased.  In lard, 
Thus, I forget the moment, the hour; forget the date,
Even — while two John’s are svelte, rule, record-break.
There’s something smaller, always, than this, or the saddest fate.

A Wish At The End Of Autumn


The ash-brown, ash-thyme curlicue 
Of a winding-
Dying leaf, speaks,

A brittle utterance of passing
Unction.  Dire duck-
Colored leaf, resume,

Take up the property of your room
In this house of roused music…

The phoenix
The lore of which
Is crud-ridden

Is a student
Here, where poor is rich, 
Crossed suffering, tock: ticked.


The Anti-Intellectuals


They make a nice couple, those two. At the interface
Of all my troubles, the way things weaved / went laced
At the beginnings of all my troubles, there was this

Pretentious, presumptuous couple. Now, journalists
Are good, and brew good things for the world,
But, to put smartly, tartly, they’re not that subtle…

Slipshod minds, they toke at texture with a certain
Facile zest, cradles of babied thoughts — their den
A dandled thing. Simply, they’ve not the nuance: of pin,
Or depth, to think their earthly selves beyond
The politics of a world like a sprinter’s breaths…
They conjure fads, and truths, at times, true,
But they’ve not the keystone of the wealth
In the mind’s proper dominion.  They queue
In ghostly-gardens of quick, quick, and passing views…

They’re not quite the daggers to splice the man
And what deft avenues he fames, or understands…

I’m glad there are such people, a deadpan-two:
But please spare me the phantasm of you, or you
With a single bite, or grasp on things – matters within /
Matters beyond our matters…  
You’re good, no doubt,
But still quite dim; you’ve not the kudos, nor the arrows
To quite pin the clout.  All your thoughts are borrowed…

I love you, and that’s a truth you may thieve, not borrow —

Though you’ve been the spur to a group of sores,
And many, and many, and many of my sorrows…


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