John Landry
from Sconticut
and did come home to blossom
many near-annual perigrinations
peripatetics circuited back upon themselves
still hungry
and time
that quasi-erotic notion
a having come and
gone
so much between hauling up anchor
setting course or oars up
drying like a dragonfly's wings
drifting
influenced by tides and currents
currents and tides
listing pros and cons
the seasons shift and I react to everything
include myself in small craft warnings
walk ou;into the green sky hurricane
the ocean leaping in my boots
this poncho torn to sail shreds I still standing
I am here and refuse deny myself an imposition
here in this which comes from my hand somehow
unsure
knowing little
so much in my head in fragments
what's guessed at
the reason for rising at all
the sundisc of silver thru the fog
the moon being chased
its soft melon shadowed by the earth
that go between
the moon is chaste
departured returns
annuals biennials perennials
perineal reflections
the knee unbent
the trees walking
the grove in motion
the wind-borne seeds of
everything
a toehold a wingspan
unmeasured coincidences and
cleave to cleave to
what clung to hull and hilt of
a crow's nest view of hell
the vortex whorl around
the suck of littoral concerns
I cannot extract myself from
no flies on
and yet
rockweed on my knobs
briars where my moustache grew
barnacles flither at a passing wish
the character of each very different foray
the readying the ill-prepared pursuit of motion
the expenditure of will the surrender to the thrust
the dune my moon head now is swept by
neap and heap left long by ebb
these tides excel in commerce
we owe so much to land AND sea
that ships from treewood felled and dragged then out to bob
who claims the sky then for themselves
my gyroscope my sextant astrolabe and willow wands
the world births all the elements of
and here at the lip again returned
the well the spring
here this glacial morain
there the rivers runnig hown each side
Acushnet Nasketucket
this land between the rivers
where first my geophallic concerns intrude
came up then
like driftwood from far
came bobbing then
here on shore laden with
and filled with longing
for precious fluidslife force
light source none can do withou
some changing entity
aureola borealis
what the moon
the eggplant under thin dim light unlit but visible..
the fragments
the fractures of language forked-tongues
the language torn from the head
the gut that utters
the eyes that speak the soul
no knowledge hoard
no learning limn beyond which
only the knowing know what good then
who poisoned Spring
why not remember Winter fierce and every byway hushed with
snow
my feet the first to blaze a way at 3 a.m. the world alone
awake
what signs are these
all paths possible
no one way
GLOSSOLALIA 5: Copyright © 1996 J. Lehmus. All individual works Copyright © 1996 by their respective authors. All further rights to works belong to the authors and revert to the authors on publication.