Six Vultures

Circle and ride a carousel of sky,
unmistakable from below, charred
V’s branded under gray wings
fired black before the empty sun.

Something caught scenting up from
a green winter meadow, some bit
of remain left by shrewd canid or
natural calamity, something given
over to the end of some purpose.

I sight them with my camera
for looking at later: gatherless
T’s of onyx pepper against blueborne
salt, in measured passes seasoning
slow shadows in a still terrain.

Circles, more circles, until they
unspiral as pulled string to vector
toward deep mountains where
something else rises to take them
away into what they are, into what
they recoil unerring to become.

Joseph Gallo
February 15, 2010

The Poet In Layers

We weren’t born to become onions,
but the gardens beneath our roving feet
often say otherwise. With the sun comes
a flesh-hugging Lycra, something to pull
us tightly into ourselves lest we fall out,
lest anyone sees the fruit hanging saggly
unselectable, how the seasons decrepit us.

Next, something looser to overhide the
corseting, preferably with ribbed neck
of spilling turtle so the turkey won’t show.
Over this the open denim jacket that says
a poet lives here as there are pockets to
prove it, penned little ditties tucked in
each one, the ink run bled and blotted
from years of washable forgetfulness.

Remember now to add the scarf to
loop under collar and lapel, the snaking
ensemble coiled above kickabout jeans
or a faded picnic print skirt that would
spread cotton for a tablecloth, then slip
into calf-high black boots because this,
this is what a poet is supposed to look
like and unless we don the eyeless onion,
drape fabric deep in textured obstacles to
model as if it were a mantel of office, how
will one know to inquire about the peel work?

Joseph Gallo
October 2, 2009

Silence In The House

Silence moves through
the house like a thieving
monk, the mutestruck
cricket huddled where
candlewax won’t fall.

Songlessness swells
to swallow the windows
snapped shut against a
terrible calm pressing
in from all sides.

So are the days when
ewes’ milk is scabbed
with hoarkissed memory,
a vervain aftertaste
flushing your damassine
mouth where word nor
wind dare pass beyond
a thousand bled breaches.

Sip fool’s water then,
the weepworn issue
of what days to come
might bring in rain
or the lack of it.

Mind your new mother,
her hushthread skirts
dancing the dimwashed
walls like a thin shadow
singed in umber Gypsy.

Pass here without feet
for to step through is
to violate the first law.

Joseph Gallo
December 27, 2009

Shelter

He wants to change the world

only because that is what art

does.  He wants to stand

in a high place and draw it all

into himself –

all the mass and movement

of it, the music and time

and bleeding, surging life –

and let it sit quietly in a space

within him - near his lungs -

where it can breathe in and out

with him, bearing away the hours

and the small, animal sounds

of pain; and near his heart,

where it can find a new rhythm.

Something less a locomotive

than the sea. 

And when it has rested

for the years it takes a tree

to stand and live and die,

he'll take it out and set it

softly on a table in the sun.

There are follow-up thoughts on this poem over at my blog, Metaphor. 

- Kyle

Shelter by Kyle Kimberlin is licensed under a

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Thanksgiving

The bird: splayed on the plate having
lain the last mile of its road to ruin,
glazed by loving ovens, its eloquence
tabled in the funerary mouth, drawn
and stitched-up like a hasty conclusion,
docile as blood-drawn cranberries.

The family: elbows down, heavy with
caked aspic and sticky tradition, rituals
arriving at truths run from only the
day before, choked with aftertraffic,
diesel still fuming in the hair, eyes
shifting like side dishes being passed
over halfless glasses and obedient utensils.

The meaning: lost as Pilgrim trinkets,
strewn out one harsh winter after another,
flurried shapes moving through trees
and the dining room furniture to settle
in chairs we occupy for the briefest of
time, nodding, smiling at each another,
passing the light, picking through the dark,
cupping warm biscuits in tendering hands.

Joseph Gallo
December 2, 2009

The Animals

The sun would never rise at all

if not for animals who conjure

morning and call it down

to warm them where they lie,

having slept the night in places

dark and cold. The blue jay

summons light to warm

the concrete bath. We owe

the cat our gratitude

for bringing rays of strong

and dusty light into the house,

especially to the shoulders

of the sofa by the window

where she sleeps.

And if not for horses, cows

and elephants the sun

would never reach the fields.

The lizard owns the light

that finds his rock

and dolphins play to bring it

on the waves. So I thank

dog for all the light I see.

Kyle Kimberlin

11.29.2009

Dulcetea

We move like this, sweet pangs
on a tongue of honey, our mouths
met to their true purpose, no song
save the savor of a kissless food
whose nutrient is thus needed by
the body if it is to continue in this
solemn manner. Cue measures
from medievality, some tender
gride of pernambuco to bend
the bowing bones; let us fall
together through histories yet
to come. I have missed you in
all our misgivings, mornings
slept apart like owls who lose
the day to sacrificed moons.

We hold like this, bitter aches
rivering through the marrow,
our limbs woven through the
sky like migratory birds who
carry the architecture of breath
and sigh to pass high overhead.
Observe ritual as we dance from
one fretful misholding to another,
surrenderless secrets we keep only
for ourselves to bear as gifts laid
at the feet of others as if for the
first time. I have kept you within
an occluded place in time, when
our scattered instruments fail to
remind us this was ever music.

Joseph Gallo
November 1, 2009

Coyotes In Rain

It comes to remind them
this is what they are: given
to the canter of their nature.

Rabbits run as blood runs
uncaking from autumn coats.
Showers cleanse predation.

See them arc and cavort
over downwood and scrub,
foaming beneath heavy cells.

They will excuse this unnoticed
intrusion, allow what eyes may
follow toward a trackless source.

Joseph Gallo
October 13, 2009

Blessings

Breathe

An opening

A releasing

An acceptance

Of what is

An invitation

Into the core

Of my soul 

As I breathe

I stretch

I embrace my willingness

To invite the goddess

That lives within

To pour out of me 

Like a waterfall

I drop into the center of my being

And like the sun

I rise again

To meet the divine

That connects my very essence

With the stars in the heavens

As they guide each of us

On this journey

We call life.

- Mary Pat Nally

November Story

Sea fog obscures the meadow, douses
starry dewlight that caught sirens for
the sun, mutes voices we once saved
for one another to flash position from
ventured seaborne hearts. Morning is
a martyr for metaphor—the hidden frog
bleating oxygen in a hedge; a moist
warbler simmering sexsong in phantom
folds of smoky field. Somewhere in
all of this, our story. What it says, who
can say. Between edges that reappear
and recede, nothing is certain, not even
this day. Wet coyote moves low against
her red hunger. Hunt sustains the hunt.

If something changes we might never
know. A small chapter in featherscatter
may read to conclusion in the dirt. This
might have been us. What we give to
this may define what we are incapable
of giving. Mist notes every marker of
courage even when we cannot. Some-
where, rabbit struggle. Scrub holds
silent. Sun sweeps out a call. Meadow-
light answers. Woodwren and bowerbird
respond. Day gathers to materialize.
Everything resumes as it must.

Joseph Gallo
November 3, 2009