<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Night was Vanta-black as Manischewitz voluptuous purple\u2014
\nserving as minor-fine, adolescent contraband\u2014
\nsqualled and squandered,
\nthundered and bolted\u2014
\nunbottling two thirsts, our throats;
\nwhile her hair was gold varnished platinum
\ndue to the streetlamp gleam wafting across the harbour strand
\nto where we were stranded on a blanket,
\nour morals tarnished by a tape player crooning
\nSpringsteen\u2019s sultry, \u201cNew York City Serenade\u201d;
\nand her hair\u2014each gold-silver strand\u2014
\nglinted like the stars tinting the beach sand,
\nwhere our marooned selves edged
\nlonesome toward pseudo-marital Coupling\u2014
\nthe sabotage of morals for the sake of warmth\u2014
\neach of us conducting a marronage
\nthat\u2019d allow each pelvis to rampage, savage,
\nnot-at-all under-age
\nas we\u2019d discover is true for all lovers\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The incoming tide was a bassoon\u2014
\nsounding our bass needs:
\nTo moan, to groan\u2014
\nlike forlorn foghorns,
\nwarning us,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo longer lie alone!
\nGo on! Go on!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Verses Adapted from Sor Juana de la Cruz<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon Lisa\u2019s silk, white-gowned front,
\nLove has scrawled a protruding line\u2014
\nA love ballad saga pregnant
\nWith Virginity\u2019s curved decline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her tan recedes as her wardrobe
\nExpands with ivory this and that
\nTo dress with white the half a globe
\nWhose state belies her virgin stat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Without protection is her state\u2014
\nA certain condition a man
\nPrevents if he be celibate,
\nPolicing lusts before they spawn.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, white is Lisa\u2019s Purity\u2014
\nAn alabaster Camouflage\u2014
\nA tale that ends with Security:
\nThe newborn\u2019s a virgin Mirage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That devil plays incognito
\nwho drafts a fiendish poem\u2014
\nquatrains inked blackest negro,
\nto craft Hell as \u201cHome, Sweet Home\u201d;
\nso indelibly indigo,
\nlaughably hyperbolic, diabolical chrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Arrogantly seductive?
\nDefence against the lewd
\nsuggestion\u2019s unproductive,
\ncos \u201cpretentious\u201d is the \u201cprude.\u201d
\nThe Clamour hammering ears is conductive
\nto l\u2019amour wherein four thighs get glued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So cunning\u2019s the quartet
\ncoupled in unscrupulous Glee\u2014
\nof fucking none forget\u2014
\nSucculence tucked twixt each knee
\nfeminine, where the jocund male may jet
\ncream conducting Fecundity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What is the Attraction
\nthat pulls the sexes to join
\nbeyond any Distraction,
\nto grind groin into groin?
\nIt must be Satisfaction
\nof Sin\u2019s debts via each newborn\u2019s coin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Attracted to a pencil\u2014
\n(as I\u2019m separated
\nfrom ink\u2019s utensil)\u2014
\nI\u2019ll see this page placated<\/p>\n\n\n\n
by grisaille strokes and streaks
\neven if \u201cgross Disgrace\u201d
\nmay seem my lead-shade peaks,
\ncurves, and furrows that place<\/p>\n\n\n\n
dull letters ambitiously\u2014
\nat appreciable Risk\u2014
\non sheets where, religiously,
\nlyrics fade to feints arabesque.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This writing lands feathery
\non vellum that\u2019s arid.
\nInk is tough, leathery,
\nbut pencil\u2019d script falls flaccid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And yet I must protest\u2014
\nin black words\u2014holocausts,
\nsplitting wide each struck breast,
\nturning lovers into ghosts\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
shades shorn of all lustre\u2014
\nturned fog-dull or cloudy ash,
\nwhose brightness is now bluster\u2014
\nlike lightning\u2019s gloom-struck flash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purest love needs ink?
\nWell, I pencil sharp Truth,
\nlest Love be lost at brink,
\nwhere ink fades fast to Ruth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Either as angel or as vampire,
\nthe poet procures wings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How else to enable
\nthe fellowship of flighty horses?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To spur on the animal\u2019s
\nunfinished evolution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be workhorse, then warhorse,
\nthen Pegasus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTrancelating\u201d the Verses of Agnes Fong (Lucero)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Love\u2019s muscle? The heart:
\nPure conglomerations of stone\u2014
\nso many minerals pulverized,
\nmarbled,
\ninto a volcanically forged mass\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or is that muscle my manhood\u2014
\nlivid\u2014
\nliver-coloured as the heart\u2014
\nor the shade of once-fresh-fallen leaves
\ngone gangrene\u2014
\nsecretly black where earth
\nhas bitten?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No matter how iron-like is my manhood\u2014
\nthat spade\u2014
\nit is decapitated giddily
\nwhen Coitus-justified
\n(so snugly, smugly fit for that endeavour),
\nso my vocabulary degenerates
\nto grunts and moans,
\nso unlike the swishy speechlessness
\nof Ralph Gustafson whisking the leaves
\nfrom his North Hatley (QC) porch,
\nyet ogling the azure beauty
\nof his Betty\u2019s eyes\u2014
\nan inheritance from the Alhambra\u2019s grottos\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They say that orgasm is kin
\nto abrogated Death\u2014
\nor to Death, abrogating;
\nthat we thus disembark\u2014
\neven as we park\u2014
\nin the midst of a maelstrom
\nthat liquidates language\u2014
\nso that we\u2019re swallowed up in that storm\u2014
\nsunk down fathomlessly,
\nif not abysmally\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Still, I wager that my body\u2019s not merely
\na meaty penitentiary,
\nnor any woman a widow
\n(perfumed merchandise),
\nso long as the marbled heart
\nnever dilutes its magma,
\nnor my iron-hard manhood
\never delete its molten core,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
and never morgued is our nakedness
\n(always plain is our nakedness)\u2014
\nour eyes open, our mouths ajar\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n
even as Gustafson clears away the dreary leaves
\nbesetting his porch,
\nthen fires off words hitting paper
\nas jetting, jetty lava,
\nso Betty strips off widows\u2019 weeds
\nto lounge\u2014
\nsuch virgin, GILF snow,
\nin her husband\u2019s epithalamium\u2014
\nherself eternally beautiful,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
so my eyes peel away,
\ntearing\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[23 novembre mmxxi]<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like a tiger\u2019s avocado eyes\u2014
\nlike the penumbra of a lime\u2014
\nlike the sombrero of an olive\u2014
\nlike a cigarillo gone gangrene\u2014
\nlike stippled drops of absinthe
\n(that character a bar counter)\u2014
\nlike Othello, green-eyed demon
\nfacing off against green-sleeved Mona\u2014
\nlike the Quietude depicted by Van Gogh\u2014
\nlike the trembling balance of green grapes
\ngone Native in retsina
\nor in vinho verde.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
[22 \/ 1 \/ 22]
\nApr\u00e8s Dennis Hunkler and Gregory Stasiak:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The volcanic gutsiness of the horse forcing hooves to bear your eyes along this line
\ncollapses your suspended Belief,
\nand the torment of stopping short
\nshivers your eyeballs\u2014
\nin elegant Turbulence:
\nthe partition between you and the stallion
\nis quicksand…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Difficult brightness is that page Gregory and Dennis shadow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Riders on the Storm,” not at all cunctatorial,
\nin their Canuck tweed,
\nthey tease eye and ear
\nlike a tsetse fly,
\nas their black words
\nget whited out\u2014
\njust as lightning
\nobscures storm clouds via resonant brilliance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 16, 1977 (Viewed from April 16, 2022) Night was Vanta-black as Manischewitz voluptuous purple\u2014 serving as minor-fine, adolescent contraband\u2014 squalled and squandered, thundered and bolted\u2014 unbottling two thirsts, our throats; while her hair was gold varnished platinum due to the streetlamp gleam wafting across the harbour strand to where we were stranded on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4669"}],"version-history":[{"count":48,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5533,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4669\/revisions\/5533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mtls.ca\/issue28\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}