iris

sitting on the bathroom floor
white tile / cold hard / electric heater
blasts beside me / blows my cigarette smoke
back into my face

this was the day of almost spring
sun straying from behind clouds
the air finally warming

but st.ill nite time arrives
cold / almost zero / frost covers the
car in the morning / puddles freeze

yes we are st.ill on this side of the sun
sailing / yes one supposes we are spinning
but i prefer the nautical approach
isn't the universe much like a vast sea
if you sail to the edge / we might all fall off


what a ride / but certainly it is cold early spring

bit by bit / every 24 hour spin / takes that mean
sun higher on my horizon / evening light creeps up
in / over / north side of the house begins to feel
the rays / touched ever so slight lee

so light lee / & green begins to spring from the brown
soil / today columbine / tiny tender / purple clover like leaves
a beautiful fairy flower for ever marred by a school shooting

death of the columbine / i like the yellow ones best




snow drops are full bloom now / & crocus handsomely clad purple
& orange sprouting up from slender point leaves

ah these dreams of gardens & flowers & may & green june
you know some thing shifts / the earth i'm presuming



& i'm certain now / that i can go on / always moving for ward
wish i could go

back


to ward the sun






& body becomes late night
unforgiving / & oh

i think i've been here before


don't you remember

an old man poet phones me to recite a poem
i can't hear / don't wish to know



& you speak of iris the colour of girl pee
yellow pale giants
& you speak of iris / one eye to see all
washing the earth clean

for this i carry your cross

my burden


& i wonder
why you tell me these things /