Pecan, You Are

Pecan, You Are
dgw 9-17-13

Pecan, you are a family thing,
Dropping as his arms upswing,
That somber tree as broad as China,
Of Johnston, South Carolina,
In my Grandmom's garden growing.

A broomstick fastened to a spring
Or coil helps our harvesting:
Gleaning and the pink verbena.
Pecan, you are.

Though one sad day the state will wring
Our garden from our gardening,
As was Granddad by angina,
I'll protect from Proserpina
You, grooved pecan, my signet ring.
Pecan, you are.

Conspicuous

Conspicuous
Rondeau
dgw 9-7-13

Conspicuous means to be seen,
But it feels like it ought to mean
Something other, something sneaky,
Something punctual and leaky,
Such as a copper submarine

Or a steam-powered guillotine,
Imperfectly assembled, keen
In some ways, in others creaky.
Conspicuous.

The word, I sanction, shares a gene
With conspiracy and piscine
And incongruous. Dashiki
Floats serenely on Kon-Tiki?
The shirt's wearer is never seen.
Conspicuous.

To Jail We Go

To Jail We Go

Rondeau

DGW 9-6-13

To jail we go, arraigned by me.

Go my words, particularly,

Or to be even more precise,

Goes my power of speech, a vice

When left alone, to custody.

Wait--thinking is accessory,

And to thought, perception is key:

Open and close the cell door thrice!

To jail we go.

I perceive mechanically,

But God knowingly machines the

Earth.  And he makes the Earth entice!

So remand God.  And grab the dice:

We'll be four at Pictionary.

To jail we go.   

Well Built, This House

Well Built, This House

8-25-13

DGW

Well built, this house antebellum. 

Garden paths of oyster shell, dumb 

Cypress columns, a belvedere?

William B. Gould's plaster still there, 

Rain cowering in the well. Plumb  

And level all. Yet the fell sum,

The cost, the smell of the vellum 

Ledger, the leer of the cashier. 

Well built, this house.

William B. Gould, he could spell some,

But he didn't write "farewell!" Come

The morning, he'd rowed past Cape Fear.

If that suggests there's rot somewhere,

Owner's gone, and none to tell him. 

Well built, this house.

My Daughter I

My Daughter I 
Rondeau
8-3-13
dgw

My daughter I made wear a dress,
Egg-yolk yellow with white straps. Yes,
She did not readily consent.
But a treaty came, as in Ghent,
After a little bit of mess.

Yet though the envoys stopped their chess,
And as at New Orleans, I guess,
Some arguments remained unspent. 
My daughter I.

Thus many a lively address
Was launched after the court's recess.
For my foe--the other event
made Andrew Jackson president--
I foresee worldly success.
My daughter I.

My Bamboo Grove

My Bamboo Grove
Rondeau
7-25-13
dgw

My bamboo grove grovels in rains
And snows, and blocks the passing lanes.
His leaf retains the water like
A kind of airborne lake or dyke.
It binds him as would silver chains.

Friend to the necks of watchful cranes,
And the rich man's walking canes,
And the clay warrior's looming pike,
And placard staves when workers strike,
My grove stands tall, when wet refrains.
My bamboo grove.

But with the dew or fog he strains
To lift his burden from the drains,
And, like the fender of a bike,
He bends. He loves his yoke, unlike
Most, so infrequently complains.
My bamboo grove.

Monotony

Monotony

Rondeau

7-19-13

dgw

Monotony is a parade

Of same.  A low-grade masquerade

Of masks with no specific heat.

Subject, verb of being, repeat,

I parse, and pull the window shade.

Why so much share in the charade?

Why cloned columns in colonnade?

Why press all pedals into peat?

Monotony.

Deep down, of course mélanges pervade.

Could you name just one Everglade?

If you could, it would be discrete,

Not "ever." Elided, incomplete,

Ungrammatical, unafraid.

Monotony.

Hanukiah on Field Azure

Hanukiah on Field Azure

Rondeau

12-25-08

dgw

Hanukiah on field azure.

Gold windows wink, a shamash sure,

As sky sprouts red, then bluest felt.

And in the East, like scattered gelt,

A tenement of lamps endure.

What mean these lights and why occur?

From what whale the oil procure?

What gilded Tarot is here dealt?

Hanukiah.

These candles must a thing make pure,

Some colorless contagion cure,

Some goodness from some bad ore smelt.

If to one star three wise men knelt,

How many more do nine lights lure?

Hanukiah.

The Bus Expressed

The Bus Expressed
Rondeau
7/15/13
dgw

The bus expressed at unmarked time.
Unexpected, but still true: I'm
Often walking along the route,
And I'm reasonably acute.
Sometimes surprise is a minor crime.

Imagine in a calm a chime.
Or if suddenly sang a mime
In a clear voice, or a mute.
The bus expressed.

And if they sang of truth sublime
That stung, tart and quick, like key lime,
Or like the famous windowed lute,
Which, if you heard, your hopes made moot?
Such was the gist of the driver's rhyme.
The bus expressed.

Lonely Plate

Lonely Plate
Rondeau 7/4/13

dgw

Lonely plate on plate conveyor,

Tunnels through a metal lair,

To re-emerge, I've come to think,

In a tall, bright room with a sink,

Raised by a guy with a sprayer.

From the booths a young soothsayer

Foretells Nothing past the lair:

"All cups go clink! Over the brink!"

Lonely plate.

But I am a little grayer,

And so closer to the play, or

At least I see the stage.  I wink

At the sprayer; he takes a drink

And turns back to the conveyor.

Lonely plate.

Exploding Us

Exploding Us
Rondeau
7-3-2013
dgw

Exploding us I praise and curse.
Bullet-born, by bombs laid in the hearse.
With rockets mark our holy days,
Every last guy a Fawkes ablaze,
And every friend also a nurse.

Healing phrases are rendered terse;
Diplomacy is even worse:
Faint hope of truces or of stays.
Exploding us.

I call on Love's gigantic purse
To open and to reimburse
The hurt with balm of calmer ways
Like those of Rutherford B. Hayes
Who, post-war, penned a peaceful verse.
Exploding us.

These People Do

These People Do

Rondeau

6-29-13

dgw

These people do not need more law.

More things of which to be in awe:

That is my prescription. Describe 

An indescribable. Proscribe

Proscription, if at all. Law, shmaw.

Signs that say no stick in my craw

Like a too-big pinch of old chaw

Suppressing expression and vibe.

These people do.

To a wise, gentle hand, or paw

Of mother cat, or Robert Shaw

In Jaws, I might subscribe,

To guide the youthful of the tribe.

At laws more martial I guffaw.

These people do.

Let's Separate

Let's Separate

Rondeau

6-29-13

dgw

Let's separate and recombine

Some things. Corning beef, tub of brine.

Cards intertwined with shuffling hands.

The wine-red glass and ocean sands.

Rubbery  peel and clementine.

Cubicle and the concubine.

The sign and conquered Constantine.

The 

die thrown and the way it lands.

Let's separate.

Lines dotted, dashed, and serpentine.

Thoughts bellicose and anodyne.

Pigtails and other twisted strands.

And even, sigh, my own fig stands

And timeless market Byzantine.

Let's separate.

Why Usufruct?

Why Usufruct?
English Rondeau
dgw
6/22/13

Why usufruct? I'm glad you ask.
The word, a plume on a watchman's casque,
Means to enjoy but not destruct.
Pass by, but leave, the viaduct.
Who'd abduct the sun, just to bask?

To own a thing? Let me unmask
Possession. Once an evil flask
Its sucker's very marrow sucked.
Why usufruct?

And then there was likewise a mask
That in the wearing wore the Basque
Away who donned it.  The air duct
should only duct, not deconstruct,
The air. To breathe's a toothsome task.
Why? Usufruct.

Hail, Afternoon!

Hail, Afternoon!
Rondeau
dgw
6-16-13

Hail afternoon, the day's spittoon!
You hole up in the hot saloon,
Receiving, spat, brown, and sour,
The spent juice of every hour,
As buoyant as a burst balloon

Or trash bag torn by mad raccoon.
Sweaty equatorial June,
Where e'en lovers frowning glower,
Hail, afternoon!

Flowers show tendency to swoon
When thus bound, like Laocoon,
In your seething, sordid bower.
"Oh, where is my cooling shower
or fragrant moon?" they often croon.
Hail, afternoon!

A Poem Is Like a Tattoo

A Poem Is Like a Tattoo
English Rondeau
dgw
6-9-13

A poem is like a tattoo:
A mark on a birch bark canoe,
Flavor of yew berries and sweat.
The new pen-prick fades to regret,
Resisting attempts to undo.

Some are hieroglyphs, some Hebrew.
Some mumble, some menace, some woo,
Some glow blue like a TV set.
A poem is.

The news is, if you own one, you
Can't join him in the special pew,
Whose ink-free arm smoothes aiguillette,
Unmarred and unmarvelous. Bet
You approve this distinction. Me, too.
A poem is.

Her Gentle Flaws

Her Gentle Flaws
English Rondeau
dgw
6-2-13 v1

Her gentle flaws do not conspire.
Because I say they inspire.
Not as claws scare muslin.  Nor with
Haunted shaws share kin nor kith.
These saws sing in no mean choir.

Flaw is an awful name. Pyre,
Rickshaw, jackdaw of desire.
Delicious slaws of awesome pith,
Her gentle flaws.

A mob of fryers in the fryer,
All in crackly brown attire;
In each crevice oil goeth
And herewith flavor, flesh, and myth
Arise.  Applause!  And admire
Her gentle flaws.

In Aviaries

In Aviaries
(English Rondeau)
dgw 5-25-13 v1

In aviaries the finch thrives
With his finch children and finch wives
Snuggling on the finch sofa bed,
As hair transplants on your smooth head,
As in your red clay pot your chives.

And the finch car on Sunday drives
None too far. In fact it arrives
Securely home before it fled.
In aviaries.

Chicken-wire walls would give you hives?
Landscapes by Currier and Ives
Are more your kind of thing. Well said!
And yet your landscapes are painted
On a tin of olives. What gives?
In aviaries.