The Nightingales Of Platres 1
How they looked I haven't a clue and never will
so don't ask, I never saw them:
though it would seem
they all lived together in a wood atop a hill
for more or less forever
back to where one traced the liens of their song-
and slept rather drowsily, all day long
wing holstering bill
dreaming the dreams that nightingales daydream;
But by night came clamorously alive, cadenzas
floating across the chasms of the dark to the Helvetia's
high-swept window
far above the car park far below,
more, itself, than a little ways away
and alot like Juliet's, I'd bet; from where you heard them sing
and spied along the mountainside
moonlit tributaries gleam, winnowing
the wetlands from the dried.
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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What Soon Became Clear
Rumor came over the hills
like springtime, scattering shadow
and suddenly people knew
(odd amalgam of relief and regret)
Orestes was back! Oh!
There had been sightings here and there:
under the clematis-clad stoa,
a subtle finger of recognition, uplifted,
pleasant enough but dismissive-not friendly,
as much a waiver as a wave;
leaving the temple, a cool nod to an old friend
in passing, but he didn't stop, she complained,
to chat as he ought, being gone so long.
It was him, alright, but changed.
He no longer clowned in the agora with his friends,
drunk on privilege, pleased to be
a showy prince of the blood who shopped.
It was different, now, he seemed not to hear, when you said
'Hi, how's it going, man, do you remember when....'
He didn't seem to hear, but walked
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Bible Burning IV
'Once they get your deposit, there's no end of their 'little charges'. Pretty soon you're twenty-thousand in hock. And still no divorce.
He stirred the embers with a stick and began to feed the flames with the Gideons as if they were lobsters at a clam-bake. Then he lit a cigarette. His face was deeply scarred. He was missing two fingers of his right hand, which he used, anyway.
'No wonder', I thought. 'But the poor bibles. All that gold leaf'.
'Would you like to burn one', he said suddenly.
'Absolutely not'!
'Ah c'mon'.
'Well, maybe just one', I returned. Anything to be agreeable.
I picked up a Gideons' and laid it carefully on, thinking of my 'friends' and prepared to jump back. I must admit, nothing happened, though I won't say it felt good.
I sighed and looked around. Times Square had never looked more beautiful. There was nothing I could do to convince him of the depth of his depravity. So I took out my cell-phone, which has a hidden camera, and took a picture. Then I radioed my driver. Headquarters would get a full report.
poem by Morgan Michaels
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A Jeremiad
As the swimmer propelled himself through the watery furrows
His arms thrashing admirably to clear a path
His legs churning admirably to push and be pulled
Into the vaccuum created by his sweeping arms
The cameras followed his course from every conceivable angle
Even-yes, even from below, leaving nothing to the imagination
The TV viewer being denied not a single drop
Not a single breath or gasp for air:
Such coverage is, indeed, admirable-
Nothing is left to the dull imagination:
To the dull imagination, thrashing away behind closed lids.
Nothing at all.
Soon, when there has long been nothing to imagine
When image replaces imagination, entirely,
When 'news' replaces reason entirely
When imagination is replaced entirely by technology
And reality by its virtual version
Imagination will prove an unnecessary, even risky, commodity
Soon the imagination will prove an encumbrance
And be forbidden completely by people with cameras and badges.
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Love Poem Without Commas
Like twin ghazal of origin co-eval
each a brandish bound and confessional
falling satellite-like through the seven rings
of very little I quit balking to recall
futility of anything's everything:
the this-new-old-world-agricultural
all-clinging mache of meaning
dependable and workable
until until until
crossing the rainbow-constellation of you
then with a secret smile
space lit all its candles occultly colorful
as old crystal prompting an indefinite while.
Now I'm a cat up the tree of your good will
firemen circle the base-breath-taking some;
soon they'll try to fetch me. What a pill!
Over there's a truck red as the sun
I watch all through my diamond slits-
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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Sleep III
What shall I tell you about my lover Sleep?
Sometimes at night, the tent of darkness will shift.
She has left me, where has she gone?
Straining to penetrate the dark like Atlas
I see her towering above me. Along the range
Of her shoulders she bears the wheel of the sky
Slowly, it turns to an enchanting music.
Gorgeous lights are bonded to it, somehow.
Not surprisingly it trembles and steadies itself.
There is a light rain of dew
And a brief rain of stars.
She shakes from her brows rich drops of sweat
Which launch a strange wobbling race
Through intervening Space, their volumes
But not their masses changing until each
Distended, expanding, splashes
With a half-annihilating plash
On my face, say, or throat. If
My eyes can get used to the light
And are not obscured by cloud, they seek her face,
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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The Seagull 2
laughed outloud at the way
the alarmingly large bird (two feet) ,
stopping short of our penumbra, studied us
from out one viridian eye with hope,
and alternately, from the other, with suspicion.
Strange. And still it came.
What did it see in us? We'd no wings,
popcorn, french-fries, doritos, the usual enticements-
so maybe it was just people-watching.
At any rate, looking it full in the current eye,
I shrugged, brushed myself off, stood stiffly up. It
squealed, wheeled, aimed itself at the harbor,
hopped a few steps, lifted its wings,
wobbled into the gray
uttering cries of defiance and alarm
and planed off over the vans, over the roofs
and canopies, green, tan and bone;
over the dozing heads of the would-be passengers,
bent over their timetables,
disappearing into the shimmer
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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A True Story ll
'-So one night she was coming home from a party, interrupted Giorgio,
but she had to go through a big forest or something.
Up ahead she saw a bonfire burning
There was the little man, dancing around the flames!
pretty weird, huh? '
'I've heard worse. And then...? '
'Dancing and singing his name, see? '
'So she learned his name? '
'Yep. And, boy, was he mad!
He had to do all her work without getting paid.
It was like getting married.'
'Do you remember his name? ' I asked,
hoping to test Giorgio's short-term memory.
'Of course.'
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The Wet Monkey ll
wearing not a stitch and peered over the palm trees
at the gray sky lit pink by the coming-up sun,
as the birds chattered indifferently. The green walls
of Casa Verde stood on the edge of a rain forest
dark at that hour but livened here and there,
sometime by a orange-yellow flash,
a jungle bird whose name escapes me now
capering the treetops.
The pool dreamed-an aquamarine in a tile bezel
azure water slapping its sides
turbulence with no clear source.
Something told me there was no time to waste;
Wrapping myself in the sheet, I raced downstairs
into the yard, over the wet grass
and through the picket gate to the pool's edge
where the cause of the noise became clear.
An intrepid monkey-foolish and young-hoping to cop a drink
had tumbled into the spill
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To The Muse; An Old-Fashioned Poem 1
Swans were passing-foolish I
burned to fly and with them soar-
beat my limbs till they were sore
but rose no closer to the sky.
Harkening to their fading choir
Hope quick Anger turned into-
still to the horizon flew
those gorgeous minions of desire;
till they passed beyond my ken:
then did I, on either hand
curse the heavens, curse the land
wept and wailed the lot of men
Who fall behind their striving hearts
and tumble to the dust, alas,
the body's fabric at the last
dissolved, to prove his mortal parts.
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poem by Morgan Michaels
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