To catch you in the act, the fact, of reading—
to catch me in the act, the fact, of writing—
naked time in this promiscuous meeting—
naked space in flagrante delicto—wing
it, in the long crying, in the dark lifting,
the birds’ sudden red clamor interrupting
Category: Roy Herndon Smith
Non sequitur
My mother, father, aunt, and uncle—”just us”—
talk on the train in an exquisite other
world of transitory time and space; the mood
of intimate solitude opens between . . .
but then sudden interrupting eavesdropping . . .
the glance, the mute decision to talk nonsense,
All
All’s words squirreling on thinly present lines
before they leap vast voids in singular bounds,
the lattice window casting patterns of light,
angled sunlight in an unclouded morning,
the same patterns, still and soft, in falling dusk,
from the street light after I turn the lights out.
Serendipity
Pick a word, any word—serendipity
say, an admittedly scampish, campy tramp—
a loosey-goosey waif. Her father conceived
her, commendably assisted in her birth,
named her, and then abandoned her; her mother,
magic, was, he said, a “fairy-tale” rumor—
Syncopations
“Use your words”—as if they’re tame, but words are wild
absences conflating-distinguishing all,
tumbles of thundering tranquility (you,
dear reader, other, lover, mother of time),
artifacts wailing, raging, syncopating,
galumphing (you falling between), smoothing space,
The Wedding
We gather together in waving wild fields–
forgotten, fattening, old Father Big Bang;
promiscuous, pregnant, new Mother Presence;
twinning quarks singing duets; you and I dance,
following, not following, borrowed patterns
under this blue sky that will not come again.
stretch
Last night, from the ferry, I saw a long stretch
of soft mauve reflecting the sharp yellow lights
of Brooklyn. It was a wisp until I saw
the Verrazano, the tops of its towers
and cables were not there; the realization
of a vast expanse of cloud, pressing unseen,
