Short Cisterns Poems

collanades
   of clouds
    black
   broken 
   reeds,
exhausted
wells, 
       empty
        cisterns,
forbidden
fearful
failed
       forgetful
          undone-
unheard-
     infrequent
     inviolable
reminescent-
now
departed...

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Gilded streams tapestry weave
Frothy dew doth pageant aggrieve
Brimming bough wrapped in embroidered sleeve
Withering grass to the denuded soil doth cleave
Translucent sickles glimmer on each availing eve
Bristling ice pelets bleary-eyed cisterns do heave
Mercurial splendor doth summer's monotony relieve
Chilled masses do body's warm circulation deceive...

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Your hidden precious smiles
that selectively rain on my face
as water from heavens above
as drips from underground cisterns 
the silver touch of your  fingers
that paint secrets sensitivities on me
the face full of pleasure-shines
are delicious food for my heart
and drink for my hungry spirit
these secrets I tell no living soul
or else someone works his way
through cracks and holes...

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Trotter's words are his deeds
girding the Earth
in great magnetic lines
of universal intent.

In Ward's ritually upraised palm
we see the symbol Coriolis
south draining left
north draining right

Into the realm of Neptune
via the cisterns of Rome
down the ancient river Po
to wicked storms at sea

Into vortices the poet's passport
falls as a man overboard
all its pages torn
one by one....

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In the country, we do not have city shine,
we have luster, 
we have the glimmer of voles,
the fumes of turbid crawlers
under the slow burn of iridescent woods. 

We who night-watch
see from sunken waters,
gather light from luminous cisterns.
We understand black;
how it sheens the clapper claw.

On the pitch of the concealed
a country ken leads us to a quickened vision,
we see as a horse sees
fleeing from a fire breathing barn....

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