milk and eggs
this girl
got bold eyes
and she hide them
behind cool shades.
this girl cool.
this girl,
she look at the men
and she look at the women, too
this girl don't care that they see
they see black
they see sky looking back
see their own ideas
don't see them bold eyes
but they know
they feel that
in their skin
the small of their back
shoot through them
that look
those eyes
bold eyes
this girl
she smile
she walk on
a thousand adulteries of the heart
twelve of the mind
milk and eggs
back home for tea
Mairi Graham-Shaw
© 2015
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
Kniende in orange-rotem Kleid (Kneeling Female in Orange-Red Dress) - drawing; 1910: Egon Schiele
Public domain
zinnias for all their red gold violet spectrum
beside the gray sidewalk
appear neither glad nor sad at midday—
at midnight aspens in a ditch past your windows rustle
leaves as if rain-struck but
no raindrops fall—last Sunday the
beads of mist on the rosa rugosa alba’s
spent blossom & I thought
teardrops but that was another day—
today Wednesday a pair of Canada geese
paddle in the shadow of
Burnside Bridge as the sun’s
photons kindle glints across the river as
though the water ran metal—
Monday evening the wind chimes
outside your door strike together in bamboo
five-tone song without words ex-
cept the words you add—
the carp thrashing iridescent in a fisherman’s
net in noon sun without
shadows except those in my mind—
gray heron posed in Sunday’s drizzle on a
beached log like a man in a
morning park’s fog practicing tai chi:
weight back relaxed torque spiraling through his
sinews—you recumbent on a distant
lawn in the dark observing the Milky Way
spread out overhead a spangled map of photons &
voids referring to history &
dreams one can’t say out loud
here in afternoon a bridge abutment to thin air &
green metal water & blinding sun
hunkers between two ash trees
Jack Hayes
© 2015
sunflowers aspire curbside: yellow
explosion of kitchen clocks—
petals marking ticks against
permanence, which just now equals sky blue sky &
white sun we can’t see past or into—black
brush stroke service wires below—contrails aloft—
everything in this story connects:
sunflowers my height plus a hand reaching
skyward—
you (not “you”) in a photo planting a
sacred fig in another country under another
of these zillion suns: as blinding—
the fig your height plus a hand reaching skyward—
brown leaves green leaves scattered in
gestures of resignation across
ground cleared of land mines—fig sapling aspiring
to shade the next enlightenment—
what sunlight’s flash & blaze divulge: these zillion
dust motes flutter encompassing each a
cosmos swirling in anguish & seeking—each
day seeking you again for the first time:
I need to make over my life—
a yellow clock’s hands sweep imperceptible
circles until this afternoon crescent lost
outside in light sets itself in
motion toward a sunset’s moonrise
& at last the big seed heads bow in late afternoon
Jack Hayes
© 2015
Sunflower
The traveller who crossed the Halles at the end of summer
Was walking on her tiptoes
And across the sky despair furled its big calla lilies such beauties
And in the handbag was my dream that bottle of salt
Solely breathed by God’s godmother
Torpors spread out like steam
At the Smoking Dog Café
Where Pro and Con had just entered
The young woman could be seen only poorly and in profile
Was I dealing with the ambassadress of saltpeter
Or the white curve against the black background which we call thought
The ball of the innocents was in full swing
The lanterns caught fire slowly in the chestnut trees
The lady who cast no shadow knelt down on the Pont au Change
In Rue Gît-le-Cœur the pealing was no longer the same
Night’s promises were kept at last
The carrier pigeons the emergency kisses
Joined with the beautiful unknown one’s breast
Thrusting under the crepe of perfect meanings
A farm prospered in the midst of Paris
And its windows looked out on the Milky Way
But no one was living in it on account of the guests
The guests that one knows are more devoted than ghosts
The ones like that woman seemed to be swimming
And into love there enters a little of their substance
She takes them in
I am not the plaything of any sensory power
And yet the cricket that sang in the ashen hair
One evening near the statue of Etienne Marcel
Shot me a knowing glance
André Breton it said may pass through
André Breton
Translation by Jack Hayes
the flock of cabbage whites rises up from the sweet pea,
grapevines, blackberries twisted through chain link along
Vancouver—if they’re really a flock of ghosts basking in
August heat they remember nothing not even your
face—just imagine!—intent as they are on the parking
strip Queen Anne’s Lace, as oblivious to the howl of the 44
bus, only noting the woman pushing a blue
stroller when trying to occupy the same space, which
they do not want—if one in their midst is dreaming
he’s Chuang Tzu dreaming himself a butterfly no
change takes place
if one in their midst is Chuang Tzu
dreaming he is the butterfly they are occupying the same space
i think i want to occupy the same space as you for
moments in time on this August afternoon—& what says
desire like a queen size mattress taking the sun on a
brown lawn flanked by Japanese maples?—they remember
nothing not even your asymmetrical face & as always
you’re elsewhere—still I glimpse my reflection in this
plate glass window—beard streaked white as if this flock of
cabbage whites was about to rise up—as if
they’re really a flock of ghosts electrified by
desire & the parking strip’s purple clover
the same space
from the inside not reflected & all at once
if i could set aside desire in a box my grandfather carved with rose blossoms
if i could set aside desire in a box my father crafted with two veneer hearts on top
if i could set aside desire in a box of ashes
this ghost that ghost the ghost inscribed with your full name
Jack Hayes
© 2015
On Death's Road
On Death's road,
My mother met a huge ice-floe;
She wanted to speak,
It was already too late,
A huge cotton ice-floe.
She looked at us my brother and me,
And then she cried.
We told her— truly absurd lie— that we understood completely.
Then she smiled this delightful smile a really young girl's,
It was truly her,
Such a pretty smile, almost mischievous;
Then she was snatched into the Opaque.
Henri Michaux
translation by Jack Hayes
Image links to its source on art-days.com
1927 drawing by Henri Michaux
a double sunflower gazing east on this scorching
morning takes note of nothing except sunlight's
spectra—for you, the red lean-to, tin roof weighted by
truck tires, sheep fence heaped & spilling from the front,
is inseparable from the surroundings: power lines, a
magpie preening on a stop sign on the lookout for death—
no anger no sorrow no despair in a landscape until
you take it in—sure, the rocky south face of the mesa—
basalt, morning glory, backhoe—glares sun-blistered—
but the meadowlark trilling at noon from a mullein in
yellow flower could make you stop an instant, thinking:
the brilliance of the cosmos within a feathered body—&
your vision evaporates on August’s desperate wind
Jack Hayes
© 2015
