Graces Clumsy On Their Feet - Night Song For Cities In A Hard Time Poem by Warren Falcon

Graces Clumsy On Their Feet - Night Song For Cities In A Hard Time



The boy stood on the burning deck, Whence all but he had fled
- Felicia Hemans, from "Casabianca"1

These human legs are murmuring mantras.
Alone, alone...So I shower and put myself back, alone.
I alone am the center of the world's light, the Lord's lamb...
I alone am the air and the golden butter,
linden bark, the king, the sickle and hammer,
the Dalmatian, the saw, [America], the key, alone. - Tomaž Šalamun, from "Alone"


Cooler weather helps.

I'm up on the roof all hours of night just to take deeper breaths against the blight this world is afflicted with and by. A view of bridges and what passes for sky - though orange, which is not a great color for me right now, nor for the human family -

eases somewhat.

The rosary of a wine glass, sips, tiny cups laid out for asphalt spirits, and garden aromas from wealthy neighbors' rooftops soothe, remind of early easier grooves in Blue Ridge Mounts when the nearest neighbor was a stream, a creek, really, named 'Dismal' but it tweren't that at all as folks in those mountains still do say. It ran beneath my back porch and sighed much,

mostly for love.

I used to hear crows in this city, large ones, perhaps starlings or grackles, but haven't heard or seen one for at least 6 years now.

They use to murder up in long lines on the edge of a university's art department building and slowly walk about, looked as if the water tower was slowly turning round and round. I could watch those 3-D silhouettes in slow motion for hours, the hours turning too on clawed feet secure on ledges and, of course, the friendlier air, call it freedom to fall, to be drafted upward, blackness whirling, or feathered hovering, in nature such is allowed

just because.


Where have they gotten too
these graces clumsy on their feet?

They've fled, easy wings balletic
toward ocean or other, black, they
bob low over white waves, confuse
themselves for sails or Van Goghs
or Cezannes, even Twombys, and
so steady they do go away, or de-
pending on time of day and slant
of sun, they may wobble or appear
to do so when things, even birds,
are bent, mirage-podge-and-puddle,
trajectories and intent, fused in-
stincts, prevailing, so weaving they

have went,

their patience with the city spent.

They're fled. Gone.

Which can't be good. Large city needs its crows.

A man needs a vision of nature with wings especially
when heavy surrounded by bricks, the air thick with harder humanity,
his own and the unwinged masses.


Just noted a half moon high in twilight sky.

That's good.

A companion for the roof tonight though it will be low over the West.

Tar will wear a silver sheen.

I'll pour a bit of wine, a libation, add a bit more sparkle to what will barely be moonshine pastel, a veiled schmear in good Lower East Side fashion to fasten the image,

and flavor it too.


Perhaps a salt-salmon colored sunrise will seal the deal as the moon
wheels out of sight, and I can then sleep,

belly filled with night.


Dwell.


Something to do with love.

Something to do with light.


***

1 Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile) , after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.



PHOTO BY WARREN FALCON.

Graces Clumsy On Their Feet - Night Song For Cities In A Hard Time
Saturday, July 21, 2018
Topic(s) of this poem: lamentation
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PHOTO BY WARREN FALCON.ALL RIGHTS RESERVED BY HIM. SHOULD YOU WISH TO USE THIS PHOTO SIMPLY CONTACT WARREN VIA POEMHUNTER.COM MESSAGES.
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Warren Falcon

Warren Falcon

Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA
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