The simply unreadable
��������Expression of pain
����������������From which no
Laborious concoction of gutturals
��������Slithering consonants and abysmal
Vowels can contrive a fixture
And so it goes off
��������Into silence.
����������������And I am bothered
By silence
��������And so I read books to my children,
����������������And snuggle them into their beds
Upon well-fluffed pillows,
��������And the Care Bear nite-lite
����������������Glows, yellow is its nose below
The glow-in-the-dark stars
��������We pasted on the ceiling.
����������������But I dislike silence,
I distrust it, I am not
��������Religious enough for it, you
����������������Might say -- when Blake died
His good friend
��������Took his wife in
����������������As a servant -- if I die
Who shall take in these children?
��������And what message
����������������Will gradually spin out of the silence
And into them? Will it be
��������A message of bitterness?
����������������How may I control
My dying shadow? Will I be remembered
��������For the bitterness of my
����������������Cigarette-smelling beard,

My children are secured as offerings
In the patient low glow of the nite-lite,
A halo of goldenness,

I have also noticed that glow
Around the Food Lion
Late at night,
When the parking lot is deserted
Except for the dented Camaro
With fine chrome wheels
��������Of the solitary cashier.

We joke with her, when we go there:
���������You look like a model,
What are you doing out of Hollywood?�

She does, indeed, look like the spitting image
��������Of that African-american model
������������������������With the perfect teeth.


For all I know, this statement turns to hurt her
On the quiet drive home
At 2 a.m. or so -- yes indeed,
��������What am I doing here
����������������In this junk-pit?

I have seen another sort of halo,
��������The gray one, around much-used doors --

Everyone in the South at least knows what I mean
��������When I talk about the drifty walk
Of certain retired factory workers
��������As if dried wind was their skeleton.

For me, please, muse of god, patience, paxil, whatever,
��������Describe for me a single dandelion,
Its myriad of spiny petals, upturned, insatiate
��������For the good sun�s drizzle. Yellow flowers
��������That rise to leak the essence of sun
����������������Back to the sun, a tribute.
And then their eerie, pin-pocked cores.
��������Dissolving, then, is the wonderful promise.
Let me find a way to say this without irony.
I do not mind being a middle-aged fool
Who sits clueless through a full green light
If you�ve raptured me away with sight of what�s here:
Suffering, lack of foundation. Unconnected
How free the sign is

Unaffixed, mercurial,
��������Vertiginous --
It muses, like a desperate man
Cruising door to door��������at 3 a.m.����������������past the dented Camaro



There are many other beauties��������which have been evident:

��������Rubbery kelp-strands slung far up the beach,

��������Sunlight playing through a bottle of whiskey,

��������A woman who pauses
A stick of cinnamon incense
��������In front of my nose,
Then oleander;
��������Oleander in the highway medians,
����������������In billowing white clouds.
The taste of lemonade;

��������Ringing steel of a snowball to the head;


Thin whistles��������at the far end of a��������field.



��������These sights will continue, occurring in others
Plus there are occasional woman
Who even lust after whiny men,
��������Such as my wife.
There are cold pills in the near drawer,
��������Inside the dishwasher -- clean, not dirty !
And all of the rest of the retinue
Of foolishness we say
��������Since high things are for squawking
Rarely.


��������As we walk the 12-inch doxie this evening,
The Big Dipper drifts
��������Above the apartment,

With a curve to it, like
��������That of her hips
����������������In bed. Behind her, in the mirror,

I see that yellow glow again --
��������Mirror when will you remember
����������������What I know of you
And show it more
��������Than the barest silver?
����������������I know that you�re hollow
Of a depth
��������Which is only illusion
Were life only real
��������Which it is never.



�2005 by Jack Anders