MICK KENNEDY

Terre Haute

 Pangea or cliché?
 Window down, my 
 hair is jazzed, 
 and there's a poem
 
 in my glovebox
 that I've got to find: reaching
 past the yellowed registration,
 wavering in the splendid-
 
 petrified-peppermint-asphalt
 heat of white-hyphened I-70 all 
 the way to st-louie. A few receipts 
 from that Oasis of belladonna ... 
 
 sacrifice a few Pollies  
 for the good of the spleen.
 I'm spent--
 dashed all my time 
 
 on reciprocal allotments.
 A white-gold Celtic band, press some 
 fresh flowers under your skin and miss 
 the grin of warm despair;  
 
 we should charge those eveningthings
 to the sunset, pollen pleasant, 
 but we nap and nudge what's next
 into the glimmer of an hour.
 
 "Silver sometimes seeds discontent," 
 said she who once perched here. 
 When will the stay in me cement? 
 O O O O the whine of the tires,
 
 II
 
 I should've taken old 46
 that weaves through our mother's lovelies, 
 those speckled corridors wreathed in everdreams,
 we're all waiting on some wind,  
  
 and blackbirds sitting backward on telephone wires:
 here, the puck resides, so turn into the skid 
 and trick things out; a smeared grocery list?
 Mother's innards, so bewitched, can only give...
 
 The masquerade of signs,
 a small adjustment to the rearview
 mirror, roll down the window to listen
 to the roar, and we chased down 
 
 the street by rain
 would fire the furnace
 at midnight and bugle blow
 our own planets and stars
 
 that we could use for a game 
 of marbles in the elm's shade; 
 and the old man with the prettiest
 gems might show if he wants to-
 
 but  you saintly thorn, yourself pricked,
 snapped and pushed the arrows on through.
 A short smile. Pop a match, light the nest,
 I'll  watch as the flames limp
 
 up on twigs and leaves, spitting their own new 
 suns (it's a drag the wait for a rhyme)
 that fall to the ground, and the headline 
 from the daily blackens to blackbird blue. 
 
 III
  
 Such a savage cut in my only rainbow:
 dreary desk, the mess to make a match 
 that's made to mess. You pelican, posted from 
 Florida flame, as he looses the dogs
 
 to run while stabling the horses
  and  whose been finger-painting
 the sky again? Swirling tumultuous 
 Homeric hues? In fervent embrace, 
 
 I fret over idols that ride night's drape,
 that crazy eternal chase, 
 such a strain but for the arias of the stars.
 And the last map extracted
 
 from the hold; could this be 
 the end of the line? Once 
 more into the autumn machine, a few pieces 
 of beach glass spill on the floor board, 
  
 and, this morning, nightcrawlers spoke in frozen 
 phrases, stuck in asphalt parking-lot spaces,
 traces of some ancient tongue,
 while above, geese struggle to divine 
 
 some symbol. I fell over the curb, bloodied me 
 knee; to the chase then: poet or merely marionette?
 But for the armada of cirrus longships, I repent,
 and slave to soften stiffening words.
 
 Stir, yes sir, stir the pot. Each of us a Rome.
 Head for the hilltop for that one smooth stone, 
 but mind the jagged edges; they'll slice ya clean open. 
 Simmering. . . lastly.
  
 IV
 
 I stop for a field of peacocks, climb 
 the wild strawberry-choked fence
 to walk among them. Some set there to loathe,
 others to love, and still others busy with
 
 being peacocks. Their cry fractures the scene,
 and they fan out mean iridescent plumes,
 and me? I leap into one of the thousand eyes
 to excavate their sinews and pools 
 
 of marrow and shards of artifacts, 
 each a different way of being--time, 
 arranged in eights: must I wither from the weight 
 of all the yesterdays?
 
 Empty Coke can and a stale cigarette 
 I'll smoke & smoke, try to reside on some 
 thin cloud, be an architect of alone, wait at the loom
 with my foot on the treadle, whittle away 
 
 at strange bones, draw on habits 
 of irrelevant blooms and gray skies, 
 index gaudy moods, think thick and proud, 
 is that why Henry dove off the bridge? lassoed 
 
 some words that made him flinch 
 and rode them hard and away? Then,
 you appear in the clearing,   
 succulent translucent skin, wearing
 
 an envying dress spread upon a moss-laden
 stone, the sun drunk in the filling branches, your
 head tilted . . .  there, hands cupping your favorite
 verse, like this, and I listen.
 
 No one: god.

copyright MICK KENNEDY