Fascicle [3]

three

Go then. Sky full, the way was there but not
now when Death has mounted the pyramids,
Cairo devolves to Damascus . . . too late?
the future dying and dead with no blood
visible. Esperanza, Life’s gate: Spain’s,
ours . . . Death’s camps, the bomb, the wars, refugees.

(31 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander

Fascicle [2]

two

To talk with God you must love Him but kneel
on both knees. Do it. You need to find words
emerging from the deeps, not from the will..
Sure, you’re beyond earshot if you find God,
and yes, it’s like in Oz, He has no face.
He’s said to raise the dead and leave no trace.

(30 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander

Fascicle

“I think I will go now, the booze is gone,
wherever the heart is, a box canyon
become an abattoir, corrals us all
and there’s no reason to continue gall’s
spleen: I can’t help it but I hate you now.
I think the hour of lead is melting, slow.”

(29 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander

Don't

  “We live in fear and therefore we do not live.” –Buddha

                    1

By the bo tree storms swell, mix fire with ice.
We don’t know

Weather. When the young took over weather,
Men turned to people.

First rain of napalm, no children ran free
Of scars and grief.

  2

Don’t change your name if you don’t want to die.
Stop.

History starts when you are born, brother
John claimed.

Try to feel time inside you suicide.
Live elsewhere.

Did not John claim he would die for his art,
Stay in L.A.,

Where canyons were filled again with the saved
Who never risk death?

(28 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander

Improvised Dance Steps to a Faux Ballad

Assignation does not a marriage make.
Nor do your body’s hollows in my bed.

The town–your town–so fifteenth century
Francois Villon succors the dream we share:

In the poet’s fantasy, making love
on the run, leaving the gallows behind.

(27 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander

The Lost

In morning, before the day, when quiet prevails,
no cars pass by, the cats asleep, the lady of this large house
sleeps in, for me: I rise and begin this poem of nothing
worth troubling the nerves to feel, stark memory of what I lost
among peregrinations. The sea was as warm as the city,
and I drinking the air, alone, imagined myself happy.

(26 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander 

Cabals

I don’t go now. I heard too many say the same thing,
so many I started mimicking them, turning them away,
inviting me to leave. There were precedents. The Nam
vet, say. He talked about war and the others were all
moved on, to Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan again . . .
Invited to leave, he walked politely off. And I followed.

(24 August 2013)

copyright 2013 by Floyce Alexander