Kenna Poems

The universe turns a mighty stranger
When one perishing takes with one a heart;
Or if all else would perish no danger
Would come those perishing refused to part.
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Encroaching every opportune hollow
Letting the seeded sorrows grow and breed
To fill the absences with howled wallow.

A flit of bees, on occasion, invade
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Letters, quoting Kafka, intercourse ghosts
(wisps of vague physicalities observed)
as one finds what in one to love the most
removing shadows from the soul's reserved.
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As the acorn aspires to the oak
A man toward his dream unfolding grows;
But dreams and goals alone do not evoke
Life - for growth depends on what love bestows.
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(Where passed by the winds of time they remain
Moments - immortalized - once first, now last
Forever etched on some eternal plane.)
Your eyes, your laugh: as if it were today
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With few smiling frozen photographs?
Can ever more a soul below, above
Be trapped in snares of inky fetters grasped?
Thus trapped can one be within letters sent?
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'Madness, my mistress, your tender abuse
Embraces me from the bureau mirror.
It has a cozy, familiar excuse
That wishes we were but were not like her.
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I, a lunatic, observe the crescent
moon: concave one side, convex the other –
like a mirror or smile turned ascent –
lulling, reflecting, I think I love her.
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If Beauty ever was for worse to wear
And kisses not in the taste judged too rash,
Then Beauty's bar would set on Mary Claire's
And kisses tongued would tongue her silken ash.
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Horizon-hinged, the sun meets the daisies
(That meet my feet) at some endless distance
Tall enough - to my fingertips - they tease
Nostalgias at every touch, every chance.
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