Fugacity 05
Online Poetry Anthology

To a Daughter Long Away

Show me your face and I will still my gaze To loiter on your creased and polished cheeks, Discerning in the integumental maze The novel testament of days and weeks.

Tell me the sum (but not the unvarnished whole!) To ease a father’s ears into the seams Of self-made conduits swelling the role You’ve chosen in your lapidary schemes –

Dazzling, delightful, sometimes flashed with pain That can be borne by no-one but your being, Like consummate joy subservient to no reign But yours alone, no vision but your seeing.

Then will I breathe and as my breath ascends Toward the place above make my amends.

February 2005

Why Poetry (Egads!)

I write some –
Or, more accurately, I try –
Because
Just because
(My answer to the ‘Why?’ --
What kind of question is that anyway?)

I know it’s not supposed to rhyme
(Too pre-postmodern for our post-postmodern time) Unless you’re strumming a guitar Or hip-hop happy slapping down a rap And then a chap With a pipe Will type: FAKE

Or you just can’t seem to SHAKE
A bunch of sonnets from inside your head – You know, the ones you’ve said Over and over to yourself to keep the dead Saltpeter light of television out -- The way a dog flings wetness from his snout

It makes you itch, good poetry that is,
And rub yourself and look real close
And feel a lot more crazy-free
Squirming and scratching and slipping into beat

And get this: the only way to to stop
Is to become a flea