Pastures
I.
Skyscraping Chicago gargoyles stared as he traveled west.
Within the city behind, seconds were few; a new cloud, he wished to
spend time.
They thought him strange with avenue clothes, & his mouth at rest.
Dry years were decades gone; pastures lay in fertile prime.
A song hung on his ears, "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," sung by mother.
Solace of corn, the earth a curious female, & tortillas for thee.
Above the stream sitting on a sycamore's branch, scratching for
skin of another.
Sun glared a mold of growth; barefoot on warm ground -- to just be.
He did not plant seeds nor harvest; villagers pondered whether he
wished posterity.
Strong weeds grew, & the fields were not tilled -- loam went dry.
Spirits were in the undisturbed reality of what he could see.
Holes in pants & hair cut only to keep it out of the eye.
They held a meeting at the general store, & decided he was in a
mental tomb.
His thinking without direction, & feet in the stream, reminded him
of the womb.
II.
October showers rain on barren ground -- the season's
cruel.
Under the wagon turtles dig for gnomes & memory.
Thoughts vacate skull; farmer leaves house for hay & fuel.
Wind no longer shy, a shriek through valley, brush fire & what will
be?
She laughs at the doctor, & tells her husband the dynasty will
increase.
The pipe has been smoked for a long time, tasting of a book's
content.
A Spanish corporal dies in the barn from smallpox; the curse will not
decrease.
The doctor tells her she lives for pain as she hangs tragedy in
ornament.
Each night the man is the setting sun as he sacrifices a goat with
burning orange eyes.
A psychedelic phalanx of butterflies feasting on eucalyptus leaves each
spring!
The Rhode Island Red rooster losing its head & feathers -- on the
blood-soaked loam it lies.
Grabbing a rifle, was it his own or his daughter's honor he was
avenging?
My son, ask questions not just from the three books I read, ask the
nature of the sky.
With no direction our family tree grows crooked, even though our body
die.
III.
An orphan drew coyotes, hawks, & all the animals in the
valley there were to find.
In the schoolhouse he spoke the language of forest -- the teacher could
not derive.
The arithmetic lesson was over, & drawing was next as the clock
continued to wind.
He had a bull's strength, garden hands of a mother, & his
sunflower eyes seemed to thrive.
Once called to the blackboard, he chalked all the animals of the valley
into a frieze of art.
When the children erased his creation, he screamed, kicked, bit, &
someone's eyes he plucked.
Indians escaped the Carmel Mission, & so this child would not be a
convert.
An unfinished sculpture; a farmer found him one day inside the trunk of
a redwood by luck.
The school board gathered to cough & prognosticate.
With this beastly child the others' education would lose quality.
They found an asylum in Napa & quickly made the date.
He caught wind of the plan, & followed fireflies into his own
astronomy.
The town looked for him morn & night, but he could be found nowhere
to tell.
Only the bullfrog he sang to knew his hiding place at the bottom of the
farmer's well.
IV.
As air grew drier, dust thickened, & he wallowed
untrimmed.
A hundred cows collapsed, their ribs spoke, "You will also fade."
The once-green leaves at the tip of meat & bone branches dimmed.
Deep-smile of inner body left & took a siesta under an oak's
shade.
Wheat bent backward in sorrow as in its last pirouette.
The old man on the cliff sacrificed another goat to the sun, so the
blood would sow.
Weather lost its patience -- no longer temperate.
Babies stopped feeding, & fingernails would not grow.
Clairvoyant prostitutes knew worse stood ahead for it was only May.
Asking self & soil's wealth, why does the scarecrow have more
flesh than thee?
Stomachs crusted, green moss fell from rocks; an hourglass of survival
each day.
Afternoon wind blew the settled dust from rooftops & trees -- one
could not see.
A cycle as ancient as memory itself; each season declines.
The corpse of a failed harvest gives richness to the golden hills &
all that shines.
The poems of Jonathan Hayes are filled with rich detail and some tasty
lines. Here he also offers us some intriguing photo poems w/
photographer Bill Nolan. Hayes is the author of Echoes from the
Sarcophagus (3300 Press, 1997), St. Paul Hotel (Ex Nihilo Press, 2000),
and self invented (split chapbook with Mark Sonnenfeld, Marymark Press,
2003). Recently published by Political Affairs, Street Sheet, and
Unlikely Stories. He edits the literary / art magazine Over the Transom.
check out Jonathan's new book:
Saint Paul
Hotel.pdf |
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