Giving Darkness In Giverny

.
Monet might have seen,

giving darkness in Giverny,
defiant to the last optics fired out inevitably,

nerve light made the more dipped,
smeared on clutched pallet bent to his gaping will

struggling to 'ope' eyes,
wider see.

Was failing him the light.

Closing-in world reduced to all horizon.

Tints, brushes, memory
frames these final pieces
canvased, inwardly conformed,
recalled light more light than all raw day.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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In Excelsis Deo - A Surrealist Carol For Madrigal Choir To Be Sung While Bathing 2

.
Later revision

Hair of soap
and head of tears
Rinse mine eyes
of Christmas stars

O Bells, the Bells sear me.

Rinse mine eyes
of Christmas stars
Water me hot
and redly rare

O Fey, the Fey stars blear me.

Water me hot
and redly rare
Scald me pinkly

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Ars Poetica Redux

Dying trees fall easily.
Poems, too, as they should.
Dead wood rots from which
One good poem may grow,
The better to hear in the higher
Branches, the creaking lower limbs.

Sequestering lovers late afternoon
Whisper. One is carving the bark,
A crude heart with names within.

Now unread, unspoken but for the overgrown
Path, a bark-less scar now where was the heart,
Without thought, without desire, write only this,

'How arms entwine, how branches break'.

poem by Warren Falcon
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What the Orphan Knows About Light

.
for Anna Kamienska**

'I don't believe in the other world
...But I don't believe in this one either
unless it's pierced by light.' - A. Kamienska

Hidden behind a star
the ash sings without self-pity -

stake your claim in Beauty.

Flame-near dreams
are of Far.

Jab the mausoleum
majesty of State
in the eye.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Tio Tangles For Love

the love-mad one
in piss pants
sways embraced of
the Woman Tree
reunites vistas
seen above
tearing opposites
of the seen world
mean in over
extended glory

coagulates
the promised
black boots
of State

Unpersuaded he

in primordial arms
innocent

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poem by Warren Falcon
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What Remains, Remains

Stricken with 'arrhythmia',
or so my doctor do say, which is
the name of an ancient queen, Ethiopian,
first century, leading caravansary into
dunes and what remains undisclosed
beyond weighted horizon,
to Her I yield my heart no
matter its many loans overdue.

Here is my trifle then in
earnest, a release.

Call in the priest
whose ancient hand's
most unsteady,
a lifetime of withholding.

I remain for the moment free.

Between St. Marks and the horizon my fingers still work.

poem by Warren Falcon
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Marcabre Dance For A Dead Mouse, After Robert Burns and Theodore Roethke

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O little mouse, why dost thou cry
While merry stars laugh in the sky? - Sarojini Naidu

Wee brisket.
Gray fodder.
Thou art today tossed down
fat with grain.
Teeth sing to poison,
paws dance behind walls
taunting cat's tongue and
my impatient demand
'gainst thy nightly
gnaw gnaw
gnawing

Now brace for leaves.
Tossed from back porch to woods
Thy ballet's done, bitter fey.

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Alchemical Passes For Father and Son - Turning Thighs to Diamonds - Third Pass

THIRD PASS

Wild strawberries,
all authority and
accidental grace,
you reveal too much,
dew wet, still sticky
to the touch.

Opening sourness
deserves a frown.
Sweetness slowly
yields surprise for
what always unites -

untended desire
gone to wildness
brought low
beneath branches,

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Black Mouse Surveys A Village

...a
broken
gate.

One blind dog sleeps
curled.

Indifferent before all machinery
it moves only, curiously,
before burros gray,
their large eyes wet, shining;

the cooler shade and fields of hay
hang upon
the long lashes.

A redundant whip in a whipped boy's hand
loudly cracks.

Sway backs are unburdened by little cries

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poem by Warren Falcon
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Cracked Song For Dirty Boots

for Nimal Dunuhinga

This tree

grows still

a child's mind

a bedroom window

This house

this window

gone but for

frames crater

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poem by Warren Falcon
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