MY VIKING

is lovely. A painter dances. The rest of us are under
the influence of undone buttons and pink champagne
from Spain—cava they call it, and we do too.

Today we love our enemies.
Tomorrow, we devour them like pudding.

There is no emptying this vast terrain, no passing
your hand to the next one over—it's yours.
No past begins this urgently, this piss
poor, this uncontrolled and sullied.

One of us counts histories, one labels.
Our nests are pasted hastily together.

Days stand as ramparts against the bossiness
of time, its insistence that we travel
the distance between points, no standing still.
Your noose is less decoration now, more a lazy
collar, certain never to revive you.

Days stand as ramparts, insist we travel,
insist we empty, love, devour, and paste.
Days travel from point to point, they decorate
and undo, and my Viking stands by, lovely.

No past begins this urgently, this piss poor.
Once an arrow rushed a corner.
Days quit their tireless mounting
and you were sure of only one thing.

Say this is your final chapter.
Two, say it's a quiet chapter, ripe with meaning.
Prime your reader for an ending made soft,
plush, and instant.

__

COLOR OF DAYS

1.

Sails move less now. Like lambs, they're tired
          of the day, the night, the news.

We advance like sheep. We climb the hill.
We elevate, climb up and up,
          lie down in the grass to wait.

The news is always chock and dour. It towers
over us. Day colors itself like the sea
of time, quenches itself with
          one last eyeful.

The nest fast encroaches. The nest knows
secrets, knows day files, pays
          checks, day toils.

Day says, "Quench yourself." Says, "Couch it.
I know pits come in droves. I
          know chins decline and double."

There are eight cans. There's a newly paved road.
"On guard!" says day. "Lay your face in the soil.
Just admit—you live at an oblique angle
          to the world."

2.

Eight important men repose.
"No, no," say the troops.
"No, no," says shy reason.

What a dance last night:
all the many dates and bras.
Lazy Mary lost her love of days
          and the night.

She raced the lake.
The day went orange, cried,
"Art is rusting. Arouse
          yourself!"

Lazy Mary returned to her
          final resting place.
She sold the last and then sold more.

Day said, "Lake, lake, don't pant
or ply. Have a sip of yourself."

Day, day, how I loved to love you.

Day shouted out, kept shouting, "Green,
green, oh the color of days! Green knows!
          Green doubles! Green revives!"

3.

Thrill of a March day: it's all still
          new; it's incomplete.

Day and night rub off their leaves
and shake off hate. Day boils on.
          A mother unveils in the heat.

Knots of fools, soiled with tears,
sing their pale and limpid songs.
          Day knows limits, knows lent
and passion. Day, day knows reverie.

Reeds part like water while
the day regards.
          Day, day corroborates.

Day beckons and longs for.
          Day buries its head in a filthy trance.
Day, day. Day quits at last.

____

I love the sounds of languages I don't completely understand, the way meaning can be gathered or imagined from sound. These poems are part of a group of poems influenced by the sounds of French. They're centered on Lazy Mary and her relationship with days, history, the passage of time.