Distant Cousins, They're Dead Now Too, The Bears - Views From Ropesend Poem by Warren Falcon

for Andy and Lowery -
the patient two who remain my friends

"We do not mourn that we see through a glass darkly,
we now rejoice in the dark loveliness of the glass." - John Dominic Crossan

"Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel." - Fyodor Dostoevsky

Hamlet: "I have that within that passes show" - William Shakespeare


Distant cousin,

We're made more close by
sorrow. Time's a borrowed
longing, reaches us each to
each - or yours to mine, for
nowhere now we are but
within, perhaps, merely a
conceit but, I in you and
you in vague, yes, me, a
guess, a venality, vanity
being a human trait common,
quite. It is still a trace to
be, to convene congenially.

I now confess:

I preach too much,

from high horse be-
sotted try to sing
a'stammer with all of
England's Pilgrim-more
behind beneath me us
who would be poets.

It is tone that can home
or disperse us, skin or
spooks thinner than thin,
reflections on walls or con-
fused for traffic or meteors
periferal. Didactic, pro-
lific, heiractic much. Ig-
noring transparency's bend,


Let excursus end.

Pretend or pray such
extends us into more
than infirm materiality
but let it rest, or give,
if rest can be given,
riven from wrested
Pleiades retread Maidens.

For now, let's, craven.

Encompassed much verily,

God damn the West, its deity.

Come cauterize come
correct, impress of self,
homo erect us bears
on what's for other fools
now to court, stalk, woo.
To palmer instead Word-
ward, on tinted oars
bend, or pleining sails
snail-pace skies turn
away day from sun
toward Polaris or

Ursas Major/Minor
two, close each
to each, (they)
almost would
reach but for each
a leg in stellar traps
so endless beeward
they wheel they
limp simple enough
bearing in mind
to suffer redundant
motion, helps to
know as all natural
things do no matter
where placed in
curved Space that
night skies every-
where indeed are

a sad

sad zoo.


They're dead now too,
the Bears,

& most seen stars,
a chorus of ill sorts,

to keep time out of
habit and rhyme as

a kind of home to dwell,

(in no where do I)

but liminal bring
them with, bearing

in mind, to say with
or without impunity,

Goddamn the West, its deity.

*

"My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt." - Doestoevsky

Night Walk With Images

streetlight (lamp
no more orphan
glows)

few passersby
up to no good
go

or not up to
any manageble thing
at all

they
but go

(no) things
themselves

loveliness
(theirs) is
parked swept up
groomed


sky machines
cypher domed
horizon crowned
w/scrapers i.e.

man's grim
insistence
vertical up

leapers

contrails

no more chimney
sweeps sooted

coaled

petrol-eum
now gums up
all works

*

Petrograd

(petrol-grade
how damnable
(are)your clever-
nesses)

now Saint Petersburg

(not one sister
city)

purges between
shrubs and
out of mis-
placed long
necked lilies

breathes
vodka and sex

grim chorus
pigeon-churned

Icon of Our Lady

(O the lilies white)

drapes drips
robed smeared
candle smoke

sags

fagged
ghosts

conjugal wax
in inkless sky


who is it
mispells

O mispells

repeately

the Holy Name

instead
uses abreviations

H N

for brevity's
not breviary's
sake

but (rather)

symbol's rendered
to sign alone

*

Kiosk white white
latticed enlaced
pink roses greet
darkness

TOURISTS WELCOMED

(but no one here
may there indwell but still)

Fodor
not
Fyodor

burnt hair

singed dawn

continentals drift



"The centripetal force on our planet is still
fearfully strong...I know I shall fall on the
ground and kiss those stones." - Doestoevsky