Lining the Horizon With Soft Animals



Published in MiPOesias

The sky is pressed
starling.  Egg drop soup drapes

the fox maple.  
The familial gaga,

the nonce-saga
is that great (cubed)

grandpa Seward lugged
that tree's sapling

in an ale satchel
from the Isle of Sheppey

to plant in our ha-ha,
here in America

near Niagara Falls.  
I use the night

vision goggles
to trace fruit bats

hanging from our
sour cherry's branches.  

Those hunky-dorys
are sized like fists.  

They are night's nuncios
and shaped like nun buoys.  

They are ninja
winging nunchuks,

keen to use Eskrima
flail techniques

like Bruce Lee
to get what they want,

like Dante
wielding terza rima

to get what they need-
fresh flies and stale dope.

I use the periscope,
attached to the roof

of our farmhouse
to spy on a pair of ghost

lambs-whose wool is best
for flying carpets,

or so the lineal tale goes.  
Sheppey is a word

rived from ancient Saxon
from Sceapige, meaning:

isle of sheep.  I've not been
over there, over there, just under

here where our orchard
of Northern Spy is lined

with flak catchers
like punky heather, like

farkleberries and barbed wire
to fend off

subfusc burrowers like
leopard moths and Leopard Tanks.  

As a lad, I recall, as a kid
we put out to lake

in our midget subs
to assail Toronto.

I can still smell Argo-
nauts burning at the breach.

That was then, that was
when the skies

were not strontium all day.
Saxon is: software, heavy

metal, a math professor
in Cambridge, England;

Saxon is a website
for German smokers,

a video game with laser-
slashing samurai,

the electronic Beowulf
project; Saxon is: an actor  

who appeared in 80 films
including Nightmare

on Elm Street, The Appaloosa,  
and Enter the Dragon

and a mutual fund
that is the model of strength

and transparency; Saxon
is Cnut, emperor of the North,

a fencing club
in West London, a kinder-

garten teacher from Perth,
a town in Wisconsin,

a uniform manufacturer.
Saxon is a lonely trapper

in Knutte, Alaska.
My ground-penetrating

sonar picks-up
a warren of lop-ears.

The robot says the snow owl
in the barn loft

is clean as a silhouette,
as a dalliance,

a wet dustbin, tongue
done with mopping for food.  

The owl opines:
the robot is lost

to interference.
The family twine

is empty-I got no pants
drying on that breeze.

Is it time for me to go home?
Claim what's mine?

America needs 40 winks
with a wet noodle.  Yes

this Yank will lade his quilt
with stars and roses,

with a Jacob's ladder
and cock-a-doodle-can-do

and let's not forget
my material-Hellfire

laser designated missiles
and ammo

for my articulating
weapons pylon.

And of course, a handful
of modest nukes.

I'll sail across the Atlantic-
back to my Sheppey.

Thu ure faether, the eart
on heavenum, sy thin

nama holygod.
The sky is pressed starling.

last updated Friday, August 04, 2006 @ 11:44 AM