A Spenserian Stanza

That Icarus was right, this guy's on fire
and falling where the sun has scorched his wings:
these works of pen and paper and desire
that seek the sun and reach on up for things
above us. Even as those cooled wax rings
are spreading on the water, my hot bones
and flesh continue with their mutterings
and neither sink nor swim, but drift alone,
making the stops in all the elementary zones.

 

 

Cogged Joints

On a log cabin wall hung
a stag by water, pines,
snowpeaks, sunset.

I wonder: "Is this real,
that real, log fire, bare table?"

And hear above the creaking cadence of a rocking chair outside:

"It's a poem. It's
cold out here. Or
hot. Squirrels. No
squirrels."

Then silence:

"You mean I make my
life? By writing
make all this, all
that?"

Two creaks from the rocker.

"Your life?"