Gentleman Farmer I met an attractive breeze wandering along the docks
out for a stroll like a single fat comely bird
I had forgotten the broken wings of the cotton-eyed mechanic
the torn tractor pulling me off to whispering
in the whiskeyed moonlight lapping at the wife‘s unoffered bowl
the boys overheated one to a time
like some frantic Carpathian monk against a delicious river stone
beating a scratchy garment beneath several russet cats
with randomly folded ears I counted
and thirteen ants carrying toasted bread flakes
just then a brazen squall into everything risen
stitched the dense clammy air and continued slicking down
the far hills of wheat with a veil of misting cloudspit cloaked
their own golden denials my progress
in gray plaintive whimpers so soft for its haughty mate
I almost yearned I was lingering in the Two Fingers
on a Bed of Parsley when I was nearly pipped
Beauty Parlor and Observatory to a lunacy
by a dear old flock of
lady‘s nervous Pomeranians the
malarial pallor of the present tropics appearing as
light imported from the unsalted as
a teenager‘s dreams of clapped and fell because
fidelity the fat wet slap the cry in
the night was the night‘s own without incident
the goal was to arrive but there was no one there
a whole team of them and in my forward life
in my hand the cloud bleeds I am arrested then
a thick nocturnal scent before the swallows start
slipping away from the morning sewing the air back together
65