Primavera

Splendid cocoon.

I no longer live at home;

have taken up residence in my room

like a semi-detached adolescent.

Sleep is supposed to let the demons out.

I compose letters with doodles in the margins.

No need to replace the bulb in the bedside lamp.

I have developed night vision.

I believe in scenery, look out the window. 

Monkey swing branch to branch in the maple. 

Steal from the sleeping cap peddler.

Throw down my hat.  Sweat.

Turn my pillow, search for the cool side.

Pace around like waiting for a biopsy.

Accentuate my hard R's.  Then roll them.

I am ready for Carnegie Hall.

I pray to the electric fan.

Belt it.  Sounds like yodeling.

My hair blows out in a radiant halo,

grows long enough to cover my Venus bits.

Time stands still like I am twelve.

I rise one last time from the open mattress.  

Dust bunnies pollinate the air.
My wings visceral and lacy in the dark.

tk/May 2015

A superb delivery by R.A.D. Stainforth...

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Morning Star

Torso of Venus, 1920, bronze, Aristide Maillo
Columbus Museum of Art

Venus whispers through limbs in the ash;

charts the path of twinkle, twinkle, little.

Yet so much.

What are you like? 

Sleep becomes a nuisance.

I pace the ceiling, press warm footprints

to the windowpane, count the night

on her glow-in-the-dark rosary,

string it bead by bead across the sea.

Her morning eye watches from a headless torso,

holds me, transfixed.  

My goddess of love and war devotes herself

to the small hours,

offers me your kiss.

She is darling,

but not as dear as you.

tk/February 2014



Delicious mid-week read by R.A.D. Stainforth...

Transit of Venus

R.A.D. Stainforth ... radiant in his black and white world ...

Venus-transit,

come full spectrum,

radiate voluptuous,

without the slightest discoloration;

enough to chase away all blandness

and the blackest of dogs.

Step out of monochrome

to highlight small things;

the scent of stray fingers,

poison lips that hum

the sound of summer,

roam shy smiles,

with the most wild

and orderly interplay.

tk/September 2012

Venus and The Sailor, 1925, Salvador Dali

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