Plated Upon Another Day
Palmettos panting in the frosty glade
Easter eggs lying where they were laid, and the sun
Going up and mollifying the earth like
A stone
The pantries being raided while the heroes are
Un home
And the bold earth is lying with the yard
The dogs are basking in the perfumes of the spirits
Acquainted with the tulips
It seems as if each four legged creature is in love,
And it is not hard to find them out
In the open
Believing that they are free to leap through the keyholes
Into their latchkey homes
While the sugar canes burn across the canal
And the lions wait yawning their yellows across the
Concrete, like eggs running waiting for their
Breakfast to be plated upon another day
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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In Vermilion Accolades
If the night is freckled with ixora, then I will make a wish,
While the children are like kites waiting in their doorsteps of sky
For their fathers who come flying in,
Hoofed and in chariots of airplanes; and I have been down so long:
I have cut my fingers to feed the minnows in the canal,
While their homeopathic silver ness has gone on to feed even
Bigger things:
And it is nice to lie here in the fat oxygen in a house painted with the
Soft colors of a seashell
And do things for Alma, even while new souls are getting ready to
Graduate again from high school-
To get up and stretch their legs and go a little further down their
Ways,
While the emerald waters rush in vermilion accolades.
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Each of The Peninsulas
Wearing a baseball cap to
Disguise identity,
You stood barefoot
In the shade
Cast from the nude
Lamps of the
Trailerpark;
But you grew up and
Were blessed with all the
Amphibians
That crowded the stadium
And sang through the
Rains
That united the cats,
Collecting them in the cinderblocks
With the moths
Where we perennially
Sold Christmas trees
With the Mexicans- your
Uncle amongst them-
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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Daydream of Drool
Her water colored bicycle has many dreams
Of pin-ball, and ping pong, and pool;
I used to sit across class from her and pretend
That I could know her in a swimming-pool
Of flushed and bright eyes,
The marriage vows we could say underwater
As the daylight swam around like a coy otter,
The elusively effluvious life, the hunger of
A birthmark; Oh, what a fool. For instead,
I would just slip out of class and tight-rope
The canal, swing in the park, the elliptical stretch
Of a canary on a string- She rode away to marry
Better things, the bell on her handlebars a-jingle,
and I was left alone in my classroom, scribbling
The homework of pastel numbers, my cheek
Bejeweled by a daydream of drool.
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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In The Beating Shade
Saying the séance to the séance
Says with all of the will of a marionette
Propped as a doll
Against the sea—she will come and she
Will lull,
And the moon will pull her up against
The sky scrapers for a better view—
If it is his wish—
A silver knight will see her there—
A silver fish in a silver dish—
And the airplanes spinning around her,
Silver-winged mobile in the swelter
Of the paraffin sun—
And she will slink and pray and hold her
Head between her hands
And think about all of the time that
She lost-
Or she will yawn, and there will be no more
Time for the narcolepsies of such pretty things:
And she will cast off all of her beauties
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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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The Otters And Their Mermaids
Bride and groom matchsticks—
Burning by striking until there are little brush fires
Underneath the mobiles of penny-ante mountains—
And they name them,
As they turn around blazing for a life time—
The very exact things that fill up trailer parks and
Apartment buildings and, sometimes, teepees—
While the beautiful airplanes whisper above them—
Offering things to the moonless atmosphere—
Until the people go out shopping again,
Amassing in the hazards of their amusements,
Bivouacking in the coliseums that fold up eagerly filled
With pledges—
And the blue collared antelope dream of the otters
And their mermaids, until the day disappears underneath
A swing set taller than all of the world.
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Into A Different Color
I smell
Soda pop and dirt, and this is how I
Even struck out
On an empty lot, pop-empty:
Moving down from the south,
Almost drenched by the sea:
Look at my new house following her through
The shadows,
Like an empty shell wishing it had some
Amphibian meat in it to do the crawl;
And bleached tables smell like math,
And the reason why the sky is blue is because
It was wounded long ago when the older
Gods were killed,
And she took over and played soccer after
School,
And kissed the boys who didn’t know how
To play any instruments:
They were too proud and
Beefy,
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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Verdant Though Killjoy Stars
So this is how the world works: bodies so brown and beautiful
Going about and fawning,
Making the world more beautiful, and you must have seen them
Diving through the red clays of the university,
Looking for something good, and calling out the names of the
Girls they knew for them to come to them,
And I don’t know what else there was,
But failure in the places in which the dreams of the captains and pilots
Rust,
And after she is done working with me, she drives on home and removes
Her semblances of candor,
And she rests next to her husband as stranger to her as is a spaceman:
Alma rests with her husband,
And they seem now to me as if resting in the greenest fields of the
Verdant though killjoy stars.
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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The Fits of Weather
Sunlight on a snake in between the
Rabbits and the caesuras:
And it seems that she has the sunlight in her eyes,
Like the birthday candles of good luck,
While the airplanes curl and caracole:
And Sharon never looked so beautiful, even though
Now I hardly have to think of her,
Because I have different pains that are more impending,
And I house I come home to be alone in,
While my pets move in the north, waiting for me with
More faith that I will ever have:
And the snake looks away to other pornographies
Waiting for little boys in the abandoned cars of their
Drunken fathers:
And he goes to her, and they curl around for awhile,
Dancing,
While I wait for the fits of weather that I am sure are
Just around the bend.
poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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Pretending That It Never Was
You can go with me now
And I can lift you high above your yard:
I can carry you high above the astringencies,
Even if it is only that
I am not drunk: I am not far from Mexico,
And the purple dreams are
Purple
And getting deeper, and the time spreads out
And remembers the few times that you made
Love to me,
And after the minnows have followed:
And the blue gills,
And the mermaids: then it is time to go,
And there is no time for remembering your
Kisses:
While everything that happened to us
Has come up to the surface,
While the fire burns around the silhouettes of
The pretty windmill:
While fire just burns over the slow avenues
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poem by Bret R. Crabrooke
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