configurations and hesitations

the clock always says five twenty-five

in the slightest sunlit room

i heard the phone ring when you

sauntered by past the street

i'm working on my wall

listening to old tapes

from then when love wasn't a shade

but a blink on the table of light

i'm listening to the stop watch of time

rewinding the spool

somewhere looking for the carnation

of softness in old ferris wheels

bare kingdom of nothingness

and crater men clinging to vines

vines and old news broadcasts

i'm holding holding

the midnight kiss where

bulls charge and dance in the cycle of

spatial races winding

back and reeling reeling in the newspaper

from the old collage the new day

fresh spent on berries and dandelions

clustered in the mind's emptiness

a garage of filters

syphoned through silence

in my lover's head

and all down your breast

foot pads over the pale yard

the pavement is also a dark reward

or a memory a charm against backaches

i'm sliding the mirror

through memory and forgetfulness

but here in the panama suit

awkward men dance a pavane

over gilt stones and temples

to breasts written to breasts

and spring is a greek myth before my breath

the ruffling and creaking of pages

after dinner

recall the sweet fruit of your eyes

and the jealous knock

recall the lines of your bones

sweet bones of your hand

before cofee and the jazzy horns

bugle's nightmare in the body's taut nerve

before dressing leave my unconscious

i worry in the hill's virginity

fingers plucking the veins the widow

the dinosaur and clap for the hurricane's meadow

i'm talking about changes in her hair

white wavelet in the curling wind

the breeze the breeze and the final flummoxed

woman of my body

the arms of the train station gather me and

we tango to the number

of the night's orchestra

shared beds awake tumblers fall to

the aching bed of salt the quasar moon

and sunset the long piano of your grief

the butt burning smoke in your eye

the riant radiant fence post

the burnished balustrade

oh and when will you break your arms

your hands ring call me to dusk

its small sweetness of rain

no more reeling and swooning in the marmoset forest

the lonely typecaster will conjure your brown eyes

flecked with wheat spills and your tortured hair

while the rainmaker the indian

open their doors to my pillow my bed

will be the loveliest soft dream for you

the barest floor will be ravished with your kisses

hoping the knives in the air stop their complaint

and the long bar of the waiting cloud shall break

the dam of flight the bells squire the true

prince the shepherd of pieces and the language

all worn the craving penumbra of the rising horn

and the zephyr shudders for a mention

in your earliest eating heart

i bring you my hands open like a restaurant

the gift of a rustling tunnel and peace

the furious messenger and the quiet cabin

with the waking knees

  ...............................

"farewell weather to fine friends" by Clifford Duffy

Montreal 1990