My poems are never tired
of these long walks in words
that take the turn to the park
to the Northern lights
railed-in trees ice-sky
filtered with pink filaments
a punk snow dazed bleak pink
and creams that are fished out
twig-branch framed
of the lake’s ice bucket
dark sounds of a saga passing
black lace with blue behind
a tablecloth out of nature
brain torches yelling out
flames and screams
the painter Bruce Pattison wears
a brown coat half a collar over a
sweater into tree-clouds
into invisible day-stars
poems are invisible day-stars
lain on the edge of the path
whitened leaves want to see them
they rise upon a garden
to low or no-bird dusking
seasonal waving of the clarity
of perfect transition
there can be no going no death
the Northern lights are that pure
so seeing they are god’s eyes god’s eyes
destinies perfect-shaped white
and we come to the transfiguration
Marilyn Monroe high in her moon
absorbing all earth-ice
or a football-like moon kicked
sailing between tree-posts
berries expanding through cell walls
blood blown on snow cakes
above a yellow and white Virgin
of the Lighthouse fishes for texts
to tie together in a non-fade
to a white thought in a white shade...
Bruce at twilight did we look up
and see a man who climbed into a tree
and know him Zachary...
what supper can we have after Lake Park
but two sentences of scripture
on plates of grass and
leaves in the lighting-up apartment.
James Liddy (1934-2008), Irishman, memoirist, bohemian, gossip, professor, poet extraordinaire.
