lather

 it's unclear to me
how anybody
can anymore take themselves seriously ;

it takes
joy ;

the joy comes with mourning
deep rich mourning like the lather
of aftershave--I spread it prayerfully
on my face, maybe even dollop
some old spry cologne on my nape
if only for the mention or touch of that part
...wholly for some purpose... ;

woodwinds on the winds now
(( ...birdsong!... ))
too warm for the chaparral
or the Cleveland streets about which
I'm hung up on ;

dry worked-up chorus girls
stingy, stringy; working for hours
each morning before toil ;

what i meant was
in the joy there is deep morning
steeped rich morning like immersion
i carefully enter it to expand my features
fighting back as a saint against the apocalypse
not of time ending but of people lying
sweltering stowaway ships
-- IN WHICH THIEVES HIDE --

lies, lies, lies down the river,
so common they become commonplace barges
nothing to see here:

we cannot imagine an empty present;
we cannot fathom a clear conscience.

((America thinks thus romantically
about the stowaways. Freed slaves,
maybe, or nautical airwave
pirates, sauntered and screwed into the hull
like the mouse sound of silence exigence
bleeding away in the water, frail
freed ink off the wainscot ways
of the church cotton.
We pray these ways after all. ))