GHOSTS
I do not have a presence and she tells me she is a ghost.
Substance has that kind of weight.
You talk to the streams radiating from the edge of the river
as if each one were a snake that fat
and walk into an outer universe
to draw the night with color,
quick and simple,
exactly like life and everything else in this world.
drums beat cool
clear weathered
freshly watered
partly cloudy
wooden drums
deep water drums
hard shelled and
thick skinned
spirit drums
spirit drums
spirit drums
& children rush
from their homes
women leap across
dancing fields
men prance and jump
within reach of the
sky
the wind a nice
touch
& the drums
cool
hard boiled
one hand to another
GEOMETRY AND ITS PLACE IN A POEM
—after
a first line by Richard Hugo
Day is a woman in love and night
a plate holding her world, small and confined
to a few rooms in a cramped two flat.
She tastes like Venus and her smell
wrought with failure and grease holds up the walls.
Afternoon comes on with strawberry visions,
Venn diagrams, raspberries, huckleberries,
blueberries, pie, everything circumvent,
vanilla with cream and very berry mousse.
~Michael Brownstein
