Monthly Archives: June 2012

You told me the scoop
in the side of my ass
was the mark of Jacob
wrestling with the angel.

I’m still wrestling.

–Burl Whitman

Writhing in their pubic ferocity,
felled by the harnessed ox,
raised up in fluted bully columns,
capped with an architrave of lewd dentist’s wives,
their stout pendentive breasts saluting the day,
sloe-eyed buildings emerge from the mossy head
of the unbelieving forest.

Though brave Reed ran with the Bolshies,
bawling his warnings to the storied Ivy Ferret men,
he lies buried in the onion-domed East.

On platforms of corrupted (yet heartfelt) constabulary (office -shells)
from awe-ful church benches
swathed in chorale garland,
groaning under organ chords of fellated splendor,
fleets of drunken sailors in pallor gay assail the Sunday socials,
mounting mayors daughters / delights while the great bell burns
and the bougainvillea bouquets
the peavey-eyed boots and
the hatchet plane faces of the tramps and loggers,
hauling their stickered catch from the unblinking river.

We annunciate the power of work!
Let us raise a new Xanadu in this valley called wilampt (spill water)
Where the Calapuya lived for 8000 years,
Gone like ghosts of the American dis-ease.

Let us stand up a world’s fair of barkentine castles and electrified gossamer.

Let us leave no leviathan black cottonwood unstumped!

Where the memaloose rest easy
and salmon big as ostriches offer their backs as a sacred bridge,
let us bring in the healing balm of enterprise!

Magdalenas of roses now enwreath the growing throng-parade of marching believers.

Holy the firm!
Breathe it in and hold fast!

A mayor’s earnest hand extends from his ribald royal coach,
his pubescent paramour subdued / sublimed,
palpitating the masses.

I turn my collar to the castigating westerly wind, step off the curb and fall into line humming,
catapulting arrogant engines of the air
to lift up the weary workers.

Exurban children unborn howl their joy,
heaping incendiary blessings / warnings on the unposed, the unknighted,
the misbegotten, the saintly poor.

Join us!
Join us in our revelry / rivening!

For an hour, I slip my bonds,
dancing with the cloistered, drunken (engorged) townsmen,
winding in a brawling second line down Broadway, zagging through town
in a starlit parade of pig-nosed fowl and feathered serpents large as whore houses,
lumbering towards the stars,
clearing / shearing the treetops,
calling out our clan names in the dun colored din,
we eventually find our deliverance
in the hardy-livered saloons
by the surly river
and the teeming head cheese marinade of butcher’s row.

–Burl Whitman

Inherit my smile, my thundering joy
A tone ring of banjo, a remnant of sin,
That you may sing like a blues woman.

We are not what we imagined,
Penny whistle marks
On southering gales
Hoping for remnants of joy.

You with almond eyes of heaven
Listening like the biblical Mary
To what leans in from far Cassiopeia,
Taking a pounding in the waves,
Are meant for greatness of heart
Like the woman who gave you to me.

Sorrow’s boat is narrower than yours.
The shadows in your room
Hold only shoes.

Find in the river delta
what was left for you
By the mother you never knew,
For all our love flows through you
Lying rough and real against your collarbone.

Eat this bread, take this cup,
For all that is real,
for all that we knew
The playground swing
and the climbing tree you hid in
Is where the real you came out
To say hello to the world.

I didn’t do dick today.
No, that isn’t true.
I drank a Dr. Pepper. Diet.
I rode the elevator at work.

I walked on a marble floor
avoiding stepping on any cracks.
My mother is elderly but doing fine.
Thank you very much.

I assented to being spied on
while using my computer at work
to read about how kangaroos
have three ovaries.
Fuck ‘em if they can’t take a joke
Is what I say.

From the conference room
on the 15th floor I looked down on
the tall trees in the boulevard median below.
They looked like the model train world my dad built out of green canvas when I was a kid.

Later, I rode my motorcycle home
swerving around the manhole covers
watching the clouds
pulling their sky wagons
up the long valley
towards the mountains.

–Burl Whitman

Every muscle tells me
Trying to be young again
Is a fool’s errand
Still sleep is an ibuprofen away
And tomorrow is another day.

I stand under the pull up bar
And my shoulder wonders what I am thinking
My coach urges me on
No excuses, it’s all good.

Rain today.
Headache when I got to work.
Then I saw a peregrine falcon
Circling outside the widow
Of my office tower window

And I am 19 again
In the north cascade mountains
With alpine rivulets for lullabies
Deep moss for my pillow
The stone frescos of giants to climb
And all the time
in the world
To grow old.

Park your old brown Audi
upriver, past the quarry.

Go down the steep bank.
near where the deer has lain

and warm stones bank the river–
I will meet you there.

By the hungry hawk’s lunch counter
and the salmonworks,

where my truck’s candle wires
dazzle the may fly,

where clothing is forgiven
and sunwet skin unfolds,

where the glabrous night knows
what our hearts cannot.

Go.
I will meet you there.

–Burl Whitman

In the half light,
the determined gate
of a seahorse.

Death in bright sequins
rides a pale horse,
hoping I’ll notice.

Rider, pass by.

–Burl Whitman

Need anything
money can buy?

Forget it.

The Beatles song
did not say

when I’m ninety four.
What now?

–Burl Whitman

Is there something
on your heart, son?

Words like velvet
and old brandy

from the comforter
of dying soldiers.

sweet
bird / lady
thank you
for wearing
your red feathers
so high on the
throat / rump.

After years of wandering the battle fields,
I have found some old landmarks at last.

I found a standing stone by the Abiqua river, bankfull by wild sorrel,
surrounded by the shouts of summer’s children

and another in the study
where your father finally fell,
tired beyond tears.

There is the low stone wall that held the skirmish line
next to the all knowing funeral home

and the little house
where the daylight raid

on the family heart
left hands and eyes burning.

There is the swamp
where a child was lost

and the sinkhole
where the regimental underbelly

was prey for a well respected jackal
and blood cinema played in the dreams of deer.

Your soldiers have served you well.
Your borders held.

Alas, my beloved,
after all those campaign years

of field exercises and rolling
deuce and a halfs at dawn,

your enemies,
long dead under sod,

are still counting their loot
in the boat house by the river

until you rise up by the watch fires
of your circling camps

and ram a pitchfork through them
with your own moist eyes.

–Burl Whitman