Blue Ridge Mountain Runaway
High cries broke
from that salt-beaded neck
above splintered hands
dangling on strings.
Now rest hushed in moonshine
between bar lines
as lead begins to drip.
We escaped on the trail of rhapsody
to the crossroads of flattened steps
until the air had a bite
facing an Aeolian hall.
You reworked the elements
and shot into a deep heavy dazzle
slapping guts, beating petticoats to pop
and shed away to flaps.
And mine fell in the middle of waves
of underwire domes weighted in their seats,
hissing what good will come since we began with that form.
But as you bend
over me, my arms lift up and open,
as if none of us have ever done this before.
* * *
Searchlight
turning madly, mutely with 120 volts
fastened to ground the coy bonnet fidgets
streaming them lucidly to fortune and targets
they plunge deeper into foreign territory,
with fraying bootstraps inching into blackness digging
hastily before history remembers them ghosts
others, entrenched together chins wet with sludge
firing in a far away land, a final moan
faces blown right down to the bone
a seven-year-old girl with a six-week-old scar asks:
why do they sing ‘and many more’?
with black-and-blue eyes on her birthday
let’s change the subject to the translation
of the Blockbuster, to think it’s already bringing in millions
how many billions more could be made?
everyone must find out about it
flashy promos for the biggest stars
there should be signs in lights
but how do you penetrate
the dark between naked maple’s limbs
waiting to be coated in ice?