The Mind’s Eye (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 22 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      The Mind’s Eye   Poured into America Through parting industrial fog of moist Over fen of broken fill still an alternative To the unwelcome choice For second rankers rags Clothe well enough and rainbows of all stripes Enchant condemn the love of color if you must Polluted strata layered between spheres Wash […]

The Cat Sprang Up (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 12 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      The Cat Sprang Up   Since largely we are not little match girls And because the habit of sneaking asks of us That any wisp of fellow-feeling Be snuffed and whisked aside in the cup and ball game The atom shot from the huddled mass to huddle in a doorway would gather […]

A Little Joy (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 11 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      A Little Joy   The young gather near old Timeworn The age of him lies like a bundle Poor yellow tom The stink of an open toilet and the menace of a grinning man He knows they’re like that A little joy in the killing The back steps concrete crumbling This fault […]

The Immortal Lake (part two)

Posted by ractrose on 10 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      The Immortal Lake (part two)   Gleam of omen on the flat tar lake at sunset An ice-white sunset without a cloud That throws the shore’s reflections black And cold, the sparking furnace of earth’s end Rippled by the same thin wind Juxtaposed and never joined, the craft Emerges from the brown […]

Fair Enough (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 8 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      Fair Enough   Having a penetrating sort of vision That pierces fuselage Pares the sea-floor to viscerate the hull Of the queen of Atlantis’s barge And pixelates figures of varying density And having no soundtrack flings of panic Or pain vaporing implosive motions Perturbate the heated air around Their persons like tiny […]

The Hillside (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 7 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      The Hillside   Reprieve conserves tomorrow’s backwards step Names you neither queen, nor good nor evil Reprieve as a dogging mirror cold on counsel Reminding you there’ll be no answer No pattern but the sky Giggles your new-poured coffee Or the rain, just as the drops cease falling And the tipster turns […]

Demimonde (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 6 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      Demimonde   Starting fresh a heart for bold endeavor The probing intellect makes like an inspector For as the renovators have the door ajar The walls pulled down floes of plaster Pushed by traversing traffic to shore Up against sawbucks chunks of gear Where cords lie plugged together The tiles hexagonal shorn […]

Time and Place (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 5 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      Time and Place   Cheating to elude the advertising Where grains of revenue pour in theory As the ant lion makes an hourglass of its victim’s Struggle, so ant resisting capture gravitates Pitwards the half-dome lengthening time As the Romans measured summer hours Sunny ones, as the public gardens Godwotting avowal in […]

Killing Frost (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 2 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      Killing Frost   Morning on the inside is only glass and curtains A saint might have heard voices He fingers the fly in the ointment and fills a pot With liver-colored beans no stench Like the burning of chili powder and this punishing cheap food And wariness too fine to read He […]

For the Gullible (poem)

Posted by ractrose on 1 Jun 2022 in Art, Poems

      For the Gullible   Is there nothing on earth, not entertainingly atwist No limit to the pride…your little marvels tucked In caches Rose-colored glasses awfully passé What will you spend your money on, now you have so much There are no paper fortunes left   A vast amount of daylight goes to […]