Great Gifts Cannot Be Given Consciously

 

Your hair a fainting tree

inlaid with blue veronica

 

ruling a nympharmaceia

in the butter dream of Spring, we kiss

 

yellow badge melting in the inner lid

formed from a fallen insect wing.

 

But the laurels and the humble pine

in loathsome fellets of hot sprung glances

 

so we practice the edges:

trees in a forest thinking of trees

 

& the tindering mist, the patron�s small torch

& the 3 frightened guards to paint them red.

 

Where the dog�s green shadow falls

upon the passing diamond

 

Piranesi measures the shadow

in an embrace which smears, slightly milky to the ear

 

cigarette indistinguishable from the pruner

against the hedges of mesmeric tapping out hallooos�.

 

Yet nature is our collaborative divagation

found in a clearing, late in the war, still breathing.

 

Still rumors evolve from the pretty dresses

of the leaves violated by their own forest

 

then lulled into the nympharmaecia

as I long for the white arm of sleep

 

to build a nest within, to bore within

the heart-cartilage blaze of your limbs

 

diamonds which can only snake away

to the police X-ray and/or Andromeda

 

and so we practice the edges:

trees in a forest thinking of trees.

 

 

from If Not Fully Lit � Lift Latch

 � Dale Houstman

 

 

 

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