Runes

Tracy Thomas

BlazeVOX [books]
Buffalo, New York

Runes by Tracy Thomas Copyright 2010 Published by BlazeVOX [books] All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced without the publishers written permission, except for brief quotations in reviews. Printed in the United States of America Book design by Geoffrey Gatza Cover art by Hilla von Rebay First Edition ISBN: 978-1-60964-032-3 Library of Congress Control Number 2010931947 BlazeVOX [books] 303 Bedford Ave Buffalo, NY 14216 Editor@blazevox.org

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Sun on the Ruins I Its 2 in the afternoon and they are waiting for the waxwings The cliffs that overhang these regions are composed of the dust of myths Its not the book that everybody hides Its not the great ideal that worms die for Its just not Were making way for faraway dirt While the limit hums Their hands are gently folded They are fossils of the wind Grey road beginning with entombed words Nights vicious axle Black toad rain Im at the last marker The seagull graveyard The ugly songs are burning in the half-eaten landscape She is the harsh sound within the orange colored lanterns of distance The men in the bubble caress the machine Whose use has been forgotten I peer into the glass with which they plant chimeras Theres a snag in your prayer they tell you before opening it The landscape is a rain dream I burn irises on their stems You harvest the broom straw The others are counting worn out days So they wont have to hide them in the riverside shadows And this whole thing was covered in a black sort of mud Like whats used in ancient baptisms Everyone wanted to go home Except for all the blood coming out of them I believed for a little while until the glaciers arrived with wild flowers Until the Etruscans borrowed our pliers They thumbed the pages of sad books Carnivorous birds were watching them Fruit erupted from the grave annoyed by hoof prints They were speaking in windy metallic sentences Down there on the corner of the world These people upset me at first with their inoperable fishing reels Their emasculating recipes I came from far off to hear the destroyed version of the story This sort of dizziness suits you but now you must return to your cage

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Sun on the Ruins II In close proximity it wasnt the same Because of all the forgotten deities That hopped about the place like maimed locust The Wandering Jew rode by on a grain thresher His smile like those long summer afternoon shadows All the islands barely visible beneath a sad twilight pink ocean The medieval players continued their arid dirge Much to the elevator occupants annoyance We could see we were on the outskirts of a terrible prayer Saffron painted fish along the smoky roads Gallons of time unaccounted for Toothless grin of former reckonings The hands of the worlds end were far from empty They were the deep sea divers of my mother of pearl dream The howlings out on the dark plain finally acquired a coffeemaker It was a sort of trinity interrupted by baby birds I guess we were more aware of something deeper down They were the winners of the rag war Kingfisher on the banks of heartbreak Theater of graying solitudes Paschal waters disturbed by flamethrowers We were guessing beneath the ivy prison While the movie stars pestered the horses In the remotest corner of the wanderers mind Was the most subtle way to play the gong It was the half-rotten death with sleeping turtles You couldnt find your horrible little whistle We were hiding in the black grass of a vacant lot with the burnt virgin Their clay underbellies were finally showing You dont know how much this meant to us The wanderer opened the diary which was actually a cage For phosphorescent beetles that refused to learn the umbrella song Theirs was the slow rotation of melancholy amusements minus the graying light He surveyed the country road he found himself aimlessly sauntering To the lugubrious calls of whip-poor-wills They abandoned the cheap seats with a flight through the pines We were watching the starlings mate in the toy box The wanderer sat on the clovered bank of a silently flowing stream He opened the trunk fallen from the wreck of ages He heard the sort of voices one uses to pick pomegranates He imagined the conviviality of the hermits friends He danced along cursed gables The skeleton of rains fell in rusty torrents The spirits of soap followed our shadows
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They refused to touch the dustfish They imagined they were candle flames Their good-byes drowned out by moonlight On this island you can only find by speaking into seashells

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Cantrip We buy books and magazines pertaining to our favorite themes and motifs. Our hope is everything but especially the flowerbed clouds. The roast is unhappy. The furniture is ragged and uncomfortable. The fan is droning in the crucifying heat. The clock pounds and our ears bleed. These plastic mugs of benzene water taunt us. Oh God theyre plotting a coup! We escape to the country villas, loll in beds of violet clover hanging like oriole nests and drink black tourmaline wine. We spend afternoons aimlessly drifting down lily speckled streams in a glass-bottomed boat. Theres pink sand and smiling vermilion catfish shaded by blue-leafed willows. Theres aeolian harps in every window and in the evening, careless strolls along perfumed terraces and moon-garden porticos. In the morning a little green heron snaps shiny pink fish from a mossy banked pool in the garden and theres blue milk in green glass bottles. The clock is a martin house. Finally the rage of idiots and children chasing white laughing pigs through the tall feather grass is our haven. You see now? We have places to go stupidities to commit! Come with us or stay here and be turned to living stone. I hear the work-a-day worlds screeching medusae! Theyve eaten the roast. Theyre watching re-runs in the living room. Oh the horror! I mean how do you see beauty through these tiny cracks? Ive resorted to the traditional medium of sorcery. Blast it all with magic!

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Intem perance Ive decided Ive nothing to say to the hibiscus eaters with their mouths of auburn sunsets and lavender breath. Theyve devoured all the blooms in the neighborhood and relieved themselves in the koi pond. I smell their vulgar conversation in the subterranean twilight. One came to my door the other day with her blue porcelain eyes asking for a glass of something strong to quench her thirst. So I brought out a glass and a decanter of mescal. She seized the container and with her glistening proboscis emptied it to the lees. Afterwards, she devoured the chili peppers hanging from the porch light. I stood dumbfounded as she staggered away in a blue haze. When I thought about the incident, I realized I never knew anyone who didnt have some dealings with the hibiscus eaters, except some self-righteous teetotalers. Now it seems I have a desire to cultivate exotic flowers and an obscene urge to visit the koi pond.

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O ur M enageries Three I hear you now like the blue fin of the ragged edge Where from the tight rope the goatsucker speaks to you And the vanished tide Because the worlds stop spinning You have a way of smiling that makes melons grow like A crown of doves black as the laughter that follows us or The emerald eyes of the dead The Christmas truck rolls by with those dastardly aardvarks and their black market cigars Because the sheriffs daughters found her way in the world If we could only say as much for ourselves Wed only speak of abandoned things abundant things And heave a sigh for the belly dancers and the fruit bats who love them Once again the circus hides its face from you But I can find you I can find your hidden plethoras Here comes one now like the Feast of Fools Where I kiss you in vain and the earth resumes its course Were the vandals of love The ones that steal the candlelight from dinners for two The spies of lovers leap Were the red lever at the end of the world Something moves deep inside us where broken ghosts live Its the little black asp with sanguine eyes The gumball machine king called Today One of these days Ill tell the truth Theres not any sign of you And we still cant pet the gold fish

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Pom p and Standing Around The ghosts of parrots are a sinister gang Playing cribbage under the bed And my shoes are full of paradise Out in the alley some flying fish lurk Silent and burning in the guillotined hedges The neighborhoods ticking like a bomb While rusty anchors litter the Alfalfa of the rooftops A man and woman wont stop making love To the sounds of passing trains The trains of souls and seeds The trains of nevers and needs Outlawed and homeless that euphoria And our feelings are homeless too Dragged through the dust to see the show With the finale that never ends Again I chase the little treble clef of night With a net of green velvet called my heart

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Picnic in the Attic Ill bake you a cake Ill bake you a big black cake Of triremes and their sun-drenched angelus Ill bake you a cake of singing blue lizards that wink at you Then hide in your prayers Well give notice forever Well paint the skylights Well finally get something for nothing And Ill love you like peanuts Its just a thought Or probably more So I can find that subterranean workshop of hedgehogs and habits So the breeze can read my book By the light of a green candle So we can hear the mauve metal merganser Who quacks like a bell and walks the bottom The bottom of coffee cans The bottom of quicksand The bottom of losers dreams Where the yea and the nay lay down with the ghosts of marigolds With their delicate gestures and scared daylights The bath time squabs wont follow me And whatll I do with Conquistadors lost in garden Whatll I do when they resuscitate the afterlife with airlines and ice picks Only the car wrecks will hear me Because catfish love me They fondly brush against me in the pigtailed rain While proverbs blossom in the pond with its Burning cradle amidst the horsetails With its ambergris days and patchouli nights Windmills are a brand of mousetrap for the dead and misbegotten Or some toads in search of crackers between the sheets Like Halcyon And Copious Lolling in the surf One more line and there I go Just another elemental accident
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Memorized by the sun Like a beehive in an airport Where all the departures Are destined for you

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The O ther H alf of N ight Ill catch up later After Ive tipped the scales And the equinox And I want a mystery like The ruse of falling down the stairs With a bouquet of space and some devils in a basket or catch Columbine sulking in the shadow of absence and a fallen bridge Where charred doves nest in harmony with the vinegaroons of dusty tears Just one selfless act of love or tragedy or Maybe a wish That night was folded in my pocket like a ticket A ticket to the carnival of teaspoons and talismans Where the heart of things beats Next to Gods yo-yo You can wreck your life with poetry Hide out in the country Beside a pebbled stream with green fish And a dungeon for clowns What climate have you descended from Time piece in the hornets eye The victim of his own ingenuity Unlocking his briefcase full of beaches Just so we can begin living our silly lives Fresh from the grave

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Bucket of D ays The Venetian plagiarists and the no-no girl are at it again and you brutal marmalade what have you gotten yourself into an airliner is landing I see its pablum of eyes and the trail to the hinterland pygmy calculus nostalgias according to the laws of iridium and spectral bean dip episodes the sugar cane is no more a part of our lives than that wily avalanche in the attic the child with the lazy heart with the gnostic rules to hibiscus and metallography a race through the mud of mangled aerobics the fly is near as far as we can see the joint chiefs of staph infections and their aurora borealis of untamed genitives the twilight death of swallows above the milo.

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Eclipse of the Eye When its beyond desire A halo of blackbirds atop the cotton bails is Just another meaningless ornament of the world And were a Caribbean shipwreck Out there where the tide cries its blue streak There in the dusty rain we sit in our night things Balancing midnight crabs on the ceiling fan Because were the engineers of the other infinity The one you wear on your ankle like a Tuareg amulet To know that youll never think of me And Ill never dream again Unless its the crust of your horsehead mania Or heavens charred acres I cant find me anymore Expectations Youre the nails we use to crucify being here We play with the shadows of gypsies in the basement The shadows of what Ill never breathe again Unless its the dolorous green of your eyes or armadillos in the garden The past, present and future are only the prismatic dust of nameless flowers swirling in a corner Poem Youre the censer of monotonys resurrection And Im just biding my thyme You can have my token My token of plenty And Ill never see again Unless its your jellyfish laughter and a jet ride into the sea Were much too sophisticated for poetry And life too We dance our bashful dance in a little lazaretto by the sea Were the invalids of happiness If only we could sail away In that white galleon of charming catastrophes But Ill never hear again Unless its your delightful ambulance of roosting herons And a slice of blue delta pie Were everyone and no one at the same time The water tower asks you your name Which is a primeval sound like wombats and dreadnoughts
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Weve shredded all the pixies Their limbs are twitching in the flowerbox We put goodness to shame And evil too So that Ill never feel again Unless its your lips like Harlequin and Columbine or a scarlet dahlia sprouting through the asphalt plain Let my hand brush yours One more time In passing To remind me that Youll never think of me

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