Selected Poems II



     

Jeff Harrison








Porphyry Gardens



semi-dark belly
two patients
to, ha ha, write
a year at hand
   out tongues, new works of the storm, sticks...
 
blind duck
coastwise schooner
spellbound verse
banking circles
   ...to no novelty, not even a trolley car
 
national capital
crispy unknown
robe authority
robbed wet event
   many oh yeah many meters of muskeg, swamp...
 
oil shales
untimely death
dashing waves
veneered mahogany
   ...tundra, & glacial debris, well maybe not that many
 
sea serpent lair
trail boards
steel-grey hoards
lips at the mouth
   scenes of wild grandeur peculiar to our nation
 
gathering wood
firm sentimentality
total nostalgia lack
commercial stanza
   when the giants arrive, the circus is coming
 
public unfitness
unfititude? someday!
butcher incision
mettlesome horses
  we shall don buckskins & go about armed to the fangs...
 
waking dream
unbroken façade
tombstone floozies
glorious heroines
  ...rebuked & mortified by complaints of our woeful nudity
 
boring boy wing
cherub Dillinger
flanking pavilions 
crude boomings
  into a desert of dirt, dust, mud, & wind
 
superb view
gravel wall
two-headed calves 
colossal order
  the plain lives of sea shells have nothing on us