E·ratio

 

 

Issue 9 · 2007

 

from transfiction

 

 

by Bill Lavender

 

 

 

ceremonial certainty

 

 

sharp swish of a branch

& a hospital of

grammar supplies  

we receive but what we give

 

bury an urn with

not even a card

or chance to decline

a notion of sin now vanished

 

copulating beneath a full moon

those blessed structures

plot & rhyme

plant themselves with me here

 

glorious green

tamborine harmonica mandolin

spray-painted outpourings

the ground dry as wood

 

& even if it could be a harbor

let your tongue savor

the wind melting

light from an olive oil lamp

 

this is how it came about

preferring any future

love to this present

I could hardly speak

 

of day breaking for you

the eddies & curlicues

the mule-tongued flowers

the pear's red flesh

 

what chanted in darkness &

throat bracketed light

nightmare of the I

lying alone

 

what stranger

scaled the wall

as we passed in the street

light of a prison lamp

 

that bedeviled memory

at home in unhappiness

with the air of one dying

birds quietly singing

 

engraved figure guarding

the intaglio self

how sovereign was my touch

I wore your love & pity

 

 

 

 

nothing

 

 

you are the presence of

what were suburbs in 1955

white nymph anterior attention

dancing stoned

no words in you but

that rag of a boy

lying in-state

like a flower

like a golden

sleeve

 

god’s assistance

the imminent sting

it was a book

thousands of readers

changed in the continuation

 

the world is round but

what will be brought to us

can’t be remembered

an unknown source

winced when you said it

 

panting & kissing

to coax into light

that certain

desperate branding

iron hot noon

singular like your

heart with rejoicing

 

a child sleeps

in a pile of doeskin

snowman rooted

yearning to respond

 

you touched her sleeping breasts

forgot where you were

freed from beat & measure  

& for once not retiring

 

but wilting

could a dream send up

this dim imitation

 

that refreshing breeze

turns out to sea & sleeps &

what monster climbs up

inside you to die

 




E · Poetry Journal