-for Justine Carrelli in Philadelphia-

phosphorescent

grey —

the dance drifts leather-

flat as rare smiles cracked

to move your mouth.

phosphorescent

grey —

tuned-in
to perfumes of gentle
stone.

does it melt in your

eyes

phosphorescent

grey —

is your hair spun-

blonde

still

    city

        sweet? 

-what's in a name-

Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head belongs to the ages now.

Across the refrain of Sophisticated Side-ways Ponytail 

spun in skirts of steely-green—  metallic sort of emerald  

bleeds its white-girl's legs like sticks in dropped 

porcelain.

Voice sings in sharp vocal strains,  

testing the measure of the chord’s extremities, 

searing like strings of Solerno-Sonnenberg, 

splitting the sinew of its matter in half. One half is yours.

Her half is radium.

Like ironed-blonde shimmers in the face
of her atmosphere, 

luminescence as sweet and funny
as moon-stuff.

                                                         8/19/09

                                                         

  

-Jezebel-

1.

The elective would have been 
To speak of jazz standards

Whose closing syllables extended

The red-lead

Fire of her mouth ablaze at the mic.


This is when pneumonia 
Squirmed in the distance

Impatient for the flush of stainless-

Steeled hypodermics to shut you up.

But they couldn't——

Could they?

   

Mouth to the mic

Moves through the greying

Lyric of heroin.

2. 

Sing closely, 
Narcotic young Jezebel

Into my ear as I ask you ——

Dance with me?

                           for Anita O'Day

                            

-of Neruda Songs-

Mezzo——
That which is dropped to the lips 

Which is drenched of the river will come 
To carry its verse,

Dark Alto——
To which day's clay?

Mezzo——
To sounds in burnished amber, fatality struck  

In its grey neutrality.   

Dark Alto——
To which horizon has light advanced 
From its clusters?

Which lands?

Whose lands?——

Once known to love, once known to living. Drop of songs

Drop to all rivers.

Mezzo. Dark

Alto——

Whose lips?

Whose lips?——

                           11/25-26/2005, Boston

                          07/03/2006, Santa Fe

                          Fall River, 2010