seeing/saying: May 2013

Thursday, May 30, 2013

A heartless young man

On the train

Left

The best novel

Back broken

In his place

A crushed orange soda

Anemic on vinyl tile

Has my sole

Sticking now

Before the doors

Gap their station

Automatic

Tom McGlynn

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

These clothes

On my back

I chose

Those that were chosen
For me are lost

When all suited

The skin required

No covering

I'd extend the sky

Over this house

If I could

Tom McGlynn

Monday, May 27, 2013

When I first smelled

Years of fallen trees

Under green ferns

16 grew older

Than the red wood

That stained my sneakers

Tom McGlynn

To take this cup

Amidst olive branches offered

Is not spirit

The betrayal was coined

By man before

The last ditch

From Devil's Den

To Danang

His blood

Was drunk

Wheatfields

And elephant grass

Have held their ground

Unable to redeploy

Rooted in their graves

Pixels now defoliate the desert

Tenting on the old campground

For crusaders without a cross

To shield their bribe

Our better angels weep

Helpless without their horns

For reveille is past

Tom McGlynn

Sunday, May 26, 2013

On West 8th St.

The ragged retail

Hangers on

Of recent vintage

And beer stale

Hunches

Late rise
Empty windowed

With cabs

And bus tours

Queuing for

Automatic tellers

Dispensing soon

The village
Green

Tom McGlynn

Your darkened face

In profile

An ornamental bracket

Is a diagon to square

As a supposition of graces

Sings in this ruined temple

Tom McGlynn

Saturday, May 25, 2013

What were you thinking

Private

Walking backwards

Won't get your

Real estate

Zigzagging traverses

Make pretty patterns

From the air

I'm all in stitches

Praying up

Your canvas

Hitting a wall

With your back to it

Warps a perfect stretcher

The boys then fell out

To see you go

A stain

Upon a limit

Tom McGlynn

Friday, May 24, 2013

In convenient time

We sit and brew

Prone by dreams

And lacking sleep

All at fingertips

Untouchable

Our children

Work harder at games

Distracted off the porch

By inn hospitality

No wasteland

Proves this economy

Faithless to gifts

And tender

Ransomed

Tom McGlynn

A warning of cumulus

Gathers my in voice

In an arcane font

A baptism owed

Before drowning

Mouth open to the sky

This porous earth

Sieves through

Evaporate

Of blood

Of dirty fingernails

Of dry tongues

Swollen with reserve

Under nimbus

Looming

Tom McGlynn

Thursday, May 23, 2013

The boy on the bank

Who dreamed a turtle

Carrying the world

In a mud pile on its back

Makes a mound

With careful baskets

Shaped like a shell

On its bank

Unmoving

Tom McGlynn

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The cymbals of the day

A fellowship

Of kindred bear

And following bees

Clang to glass

And rear views

Mirrored

To bark old trees

And honey past

These battlefields

Undressed for night

Tom McGlynn

Monday, May 20, 2013

The idea of the well

Throaty in its store

Secrets a childish laugh

Come pulled up full

Then spilled

Into a fallen mirror

Swallowed by a wish

Of all the times

I sought you here

Now remains a fountain

I do not wish to touch

For fear of going dry

But springs don't mind

Their minding

And water seeks

Its holes

Discovering

Its store

Tom McGlynn

Sunday, May 19, 2013

At the place of accord

Against the blind

I recollect a copse of trees

Your voice appealing

A wide door

A cedar creek

I heard your voice
In adolescent girls

When this was built
The sound was bent
Between the star and the bed

Tom McGlynn
copyright 2013

He's since worn

His welcome out

Now the redbird's

Weet weet weet

Is sounding anxious

In its hue

Early to spring

But late to court

Scarlet in the breeze

The male surveys

His prospect bare

Too bright to hide

An errant note

(Not green enough

To line a nest)

He fits between

These complements

Perched upon

A swaying bough

Until the redbird

Flies again

To find a wind

To carry on

His song remains

A crying game

Strategic in its

Local sound

Tom McGlynn

Should I ever reach for

That household saint

Residing in the rafter

Reclining toward forgiveness

With a fruit bouquet

Transparent

Tom McGlynn

Ain't be havin'

Crazy tripping

Cain't no one

Hand me over

Thumb eyed

Hitched up

Hiking booty strapped

And homeless

With a drinking gourd

And a halo shouldered

Before the flood

Cried a river

Too long

Ain't be trippin'

Cain't no one

Hand me over

The bend is broke

For knuckleheads

Now we fastly making way

Tom McGlynn

Saturday, May 18, 2013

No carbon sinks at present build

Nowhere surveyed chthonic chains

Inchoate are the reams distilled
Ear quiet points, shouting planes

Tom McGlynn

This shack once housed

A reckoned weight

A gentry whip

A ginning clack

A big house and

A slave- bricked stair

Its barn’s become a planter's dream

Virginia creeper’s tendrils cling

Daughters of a bitter root

Filling up the windows

Pain

The plumb and level

Don’t pertain

This shack once housed

A reckoned weight

Cotton for lead

Bound for wound

But now a ghost

Of innocence

Weightless rocks

Its guilty crib

Tom McGlynn

Thursday, May 16, 2013

A side walking sun

Hard against

The stern of day

Glares upon Main

Wanting businessmen

Dinners and parasols

Not that any

Would notice

Unneeded shoe repairs

And barely standing nightclubs

Leaning on happy hours

Tom McGlynn

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Willows high- waisted

Draped and eddied

Pole the brown

Erupting river

Choked width

Cottonwood

Outbound to the Gulf

Or beached before

All muddy

Stuck

In a state

That carries too

Its slippery name

Drawled around

A flowing seam

Fingering

A sweaty fan

Laid upon

Its reverent lap

Abiding

Tom McGlynn

Monday, May 13, 2013

The banks knelt down

And underneath

A woman

Of a river

Bermed and sluiced

For the moment held

Then barrely making way

Sticks in locks

And flashing brown

Sunlight wrung

A flooding smile

Tom McGlynn

Sunday, May 12, 2013

The air is thick

And work to breathe

Inside of arms

Remembered

Suited so

A heart could sleeve

A big hand

And a goodbye coat

Bunched around

Its pumping

Tom McGlynn

Saturday, May 11, 2013

At the place

Where it happened

A tear down

Was in order

To deconstruct

The lesson

Never learnt

But not forgotten

Wide forever

Open

Tom McGlynn

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Of accord

Unknown

No bound

Shifting in

The evening rain

The slot

To drain

The overflow

Is wider than

The spilling

Drink

Upon the

Counter primitive

Below the creeky

Stair

Tom McGlynn

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Against the blind

Is stole a look

Try to read

This open book

Cast upon

A wavy see

Singing foam

For you and me

Singing foam

And dashing rocks

Pressed against

These fathomed locks

Known to map

And sounding lead

A muffled bell

Inside my head

A muffled bell

Done tole its tale

Bounding books

And grabbing rail

Bulked ahead

In leaky churn

Against the blind

The sighted learn

Tom McGlynn

Monday, May 6, 2013

I recollect a copse of trees

Too far across a field of wheat

A gentle slope concealed the rest

From my bloody angle

Tom McGlynn

Sunday, May 5, 2013

Your voice appealing

Your voice appealing
Your mother's conditional love

Like a baby switched

Was heard

From here

And just there

But never

In between

A shortness of lungs

Steals a pouring breath

Never filling syllables

Trying to catch

A withdrawn word

Is a childish game

Tom McGlynn

Saturday, May 4, 2013

A wide door

Joined once on purpose

For love of art and industry

Lets in the cold

In this ersatz office

The gourds hung

Out doors

To lure the homing swallows

Knock empty in the wind

This ware house

Of objects tendered

Sits traded by its makers

Still before the till

Tom McGlynn

Thursday, May 2, 2013

A cedar creek

In the Shenandoah

Ran red and then amber

Toward the Chesapeake

Tom McGlynn