Bowerbird

Warmths and dews in the updrafts
medleys of auras and sheen
little tornadoes of bully music
wrestling branches
crossed and flecked with
snowpetals,

it shall be my greatest deed
at red dawn
to underscore you thus
bobbing and piling
stone upon stone
pink upon pink.

Orgy of focus and purpose
it is fun, in the clean air
to walk about you, leaving
in the saw dust tracks
for the wind
to soothe. I

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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Dafni

tea of blue smoke, tobac, a
clean-boned man, the
wave, its guilty slope seaward
the jerky fiddlebow and a palm
leaf deftly seduced-

blow, blow little wind

-quae Cnidon
fulgentesque Cyclades et Paphon...

little wind, little wind

combed sand of burning symbol
reedy alphabet, old crow's
garment, tasseled for battle camel-
trodden seaward: io!
diva.

listen, the wind

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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Bus Poem #6

A brand new day
structured of planes
of soft, silver light

polygons

its crisp, blue band
unbroken like a shirts', a

brand new day, con-
structed of concrete and golden

polygons

a day for the sighting of land
or a bird thought extinct
precious tanager

ahead a pod of joggers
canters like dear-

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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Prose Poem V

and when she gets home they're painting the shutters green'.
'Green'?
'Yes. Green was her husband's favorite color.He preferred the shutters green. It was the sign she sought'.
'I see', said Eileen, not really thrilled by this example from literature.
'You don't believe it'?
'I have to think about it. It sounds a little hokey.
I tried to appear shocked, but I'm not very good at it.
'I know what you mean', I said simply, remembering my vow.
Eileen looked at her watch. She had a case to shoot. She dismissed me, turned and walked off down the hall, her abrupt departure both relieving and disappointing me. I, too, looked at my watch. The afternoon was early and there was still lots to do.

poem by Robert Dickerson
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Anzio

Sad port of Anzio
you sadden me
Gardens and flowers
bathed in brindisi
melancholy.

Fragola cloud
dissolving around
grotto and villa.
Stone feeding billow
lapping stone.

Sad, strange elegy
of wind and sea-spray
entangled by
gone laughter and
the lovers' cry.

Drowsy rose
abed in salt air

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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Weathergirl

Go, now, to module six.
First, the real weather. Storms, wakes,

eventual clearing, people
evidently needing different things at different times:

the cruelties-of-the-returning=dictator weather AND
the machinations-of-the-bourgeosie

weather. Wouldn't you say so, Li?
Late at night, the ping of Chekhovs' string

snapping suggests the apple is no longer saffron but blue
existing solely in its aftermath.

New alchemy of light and shadow
how shall we spend thee?

After all these years of self-decoration?
Of picking up jewels on the forest floor

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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Prose Poem lll

wore a rhapsodic expression, her body swayed to inaudible music. Then I gasped. Anyone could see the girl in the picture was surrounded by a wreathe-like aura of white light that shaped itself into what seemed very clerly to be arms and legs and the back of a head. Dutifully I read the article., leaning against the wall.
Alas, just as I thought, the girl in the photo was Eileen, at her niece's wedding in Missouri snapped by a family member, a number of years ago. The article explained how the girl in the photo danced with her father each year on his birthday. That gentleman had died of a stroke some months before the wedding at the age of ninety after a lifetime of perfect health. The wedding had been scheduled on his birthday for reasons of sentiment. The light in the photo was the ghost of her father, the article insisted, visiting from the land of Tir Na Nogh, and interrupting his rest to dance with his daughter on this special day.

poem by Robert Dickerson
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Superman Bound

It seems like a dream now-
my life above ground
flyin' around, gettin' stuff done
doin' lotsa' good
kickin' criminal butt
makin' the babes all swoon
then snatching back my smile;
plunging into the sun
to get some rest
in it's tumbling holocaust.

Watchin' the city sleep
By night, the dumb, unblinking
gargoyles my best pals.
Watchin' the cars, the
planes in the air,
the boats in the Sound;
head in the clouds
me thinkin' and thinkin'
how in the heck I got

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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A Call II

...details, inc, inc, inc, secreterces, ink, ink, ink, sweet quatros, dieci, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine. Ocho. Ochoa, neves, neves, neves, sex sank for three, two, one, fire, fire, water, water, running away, water running forever. Hiss of piss in the trolls' bowl. Baggottfaggott, baggotfaggott. Groans of sons in the crones bones. Piper, pipe us a tune, tuneful and sweet, like herring, herring, running away. Drone, drone of the moatboat. Fire, fire everywhere, eatrat, eat and a beer. Eat, overspilling and sweet, like herring, herring, running awayawa, poob, poob. A ship, a deck, a hull, a hold, a fire, fire everywhere. Don'tsmoke, don'tsmoke. Will, wool, well, wail, Ariadne's string, string running forever, ink, ink, ink, hyebye, hyebye. Oh, oh, oh, oh, that's nothing, nothing running away forever, awayawa. Zood, zood, owns, parknap, parknap, ereh, ereh, ARTIVEL, for, three, three, two, won: fire! A lion. A roar. A shriek. A chill. WILLIE-WILLIE! i

poem by Robert Dickerson
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Flu

If I could but linger all day in bed
drinking tea and medicinal whiskey
no more than is good take sudafed
and capture great sneezes in clean, white linen handkies
gorge my cold like a robin her brood
on broth stewn with bits of chicken
or curd with honey drizzle, that preferred
on shivery, brief trips to the kitchen
scratch in the tablet of the frosted pane
as my fingertip goes numb
some couplet of Ovids' or Verlaines'
that straightway dissolves and down the window runs
then climb to the parapet of my pillow again
browse travelogues and dream
of the beaches of Carossal or plage de Saline
I should be the happiest of men.

But I can't so I rise like Lazarus
reluctant to be summoned from the dead
thick with the afflictions of my flux

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poem by Robert Dickerson
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