Counterfeit Poems is a free collection of poetry composed in an impressionistic style that is long out of fashion.
THE WORD –
Before we knew the thing we called Ourselves – “Mind”
formless and without consequence – There came the
language of magical persona.
Where in the center of it the eye marked all about and
called it by name. Likened sensation w/ broken branches –
the finger of God reaching straight down into the roots of
the clouds / their warm & swelling walls – to split the Word
from its diaphanous wings.
Now – w/ soles blackened / the garden bare and washing
amongst the shards and ruins of mountains from the high
meridian – the 4 pm sun breaks the high-water mark of the
doorway and the quick clamor of black-eyed children
flicker across the scattered walls like colliding rivers in the
white day.
– They dread not this nothingness of Time.
– They are symbols suggesting light / the delicate rime in
the hard centers of our bodies.
They whisper to the silent earth: I am flowing.
To the flashing waters say: I am.
SON OF PAIN –
In the body of a child: the plains of China / the dream
One from the number of One
as in the grammar of the leopard’s ellipsical coat…
Stars ascend / descend – You are a fish in the ocean /
a prose in work. Wealth / amusement and harmony crank
at the wheels of invention that swim fat as Buddhas
in china-blue eyes.
Moving now through leaves of grass – Your lips part /
empirical and oblivious – smote w/ heron blood…
A vestige of ancient mystery, walking as though clarity
could just pour forth uninterrupted
HAMADRYAD –
With her calyx spread – sky-clad / wind-slick
before me:
like the lithe silver of young eucalyptus...
She has revealed herself upon this narrow bed.
How slim her sinews –
nude in the slow thought of eventide.
How fresh the scent / the salve
violet and peppermint
beneath these perennial star’s night wood.