Saturday, May 21, 2016

Notes for a poem set in Gostrey Meadow

I tease one of my wife's long blonde hairs from my urethra.
Litotes, they are not scarce, but abound in the owls' nests.
Outside of my tradition, in the caesura era,
I mistook a woman's forearms for elongated breasts,
And the sleeves at her elbows for a neckline, as she sat
On the opposite bank; but I observed discreetly, while
Crossing the bridge to get to these public toilets, how that
Upper section of flesh was hesitantly prehensile,
That she was simply resting elbows on her knees, chin on her
Hands. Not wishing to objectify her, or yield ribald
To postmodernism, this, in the caesura era,
Was how it was; fishermen fished, though nothing nibbled
Once my kids started throwing a ball into the water;
As I left, my dog, shaking, was making my family
Wet on the far bank, while the woman's husband and daughter
Played nearby, and she sat with her palms, soon patently,
Holding her head; and at this threshold, a rainbow
Manifested in droplets ejected from my dog's fur.
I extricate my wife's hair, wonder what I might yet know,
Living among the ivied fork, adumbration of her
In the owls' nests; with this sensation, inaudible squeak
Of unravelling ixtle twine, something cloaked astray
In prestidigitation makes this cubicle space streak
In penumbra. I leave, running back to the River Wey,
And in a specular scene, from which, as I draw nearer,
I see my family are missing, the woman is still there,
And I feel that she wants to say, “The caesura era
Is over,” but is too reserved or dumbfounded to swear
To it. But I sense that all digital data is lost.
Untwined from the line of poets, but for hard copy notes
And marginalia hastily handwritten and tossed
On the sill or secreted presciently in my coat’s
Pocket, I am dumb, or dictate in darkness, half awake
In reverie, so history finds me incoherent.
Dye of my work would not to posterity's textiles take,
But beggar archives by a binary, non-adherent.