Poetry by Stanley Gemmell
my muse
nothingness I offer you
pearls of other wisdoms
poverty bereft even of poverties
only convenient broken vows
misunderstandings
interrogations
absence I offer you
open silent mouths
you shall remain nameless
your fingers curl too much
grasp the trembling, wounded hawk
whose wingspan approximates a child
stuff your pockets with those alphabets
deemed to be brilliant abstractions
by judgements of learned men
after the same trial
eternity is what happens
eternity is what happens
looking at you, Wildflower
I am that country
your body lines on the map
sadness separate
from your blue green eyes
sadness separate
from the seventh or ninth month
with your name
returned to the book
angelic wildfinger
Dianthus
ruby throated stare sings
the muse electric
dark blond pelage
arms over arched in reaching
yet your quietly acute angle
from slenderest wrist
or sharpest elbow
describes the copper
I use to teach my tongue fellowship
Silence - neck and small of back
Silence heaving bones of bird wing
silence silver sinus
silence simple chloride
eternity is what helps thought
to sing you
especially since you curved
miles long like a train
You crazy locomotion
you
Pleasure pumping
blood
Red since last
Spoken word
Was the newsworthy
And noted names
For this world
Had ended
Only that certain
American pink
Can come closer
Only that olive grey
Illuminating iris
Onto ivory upper arm
Or sloping, angled shoulder blades
Black beneath nine mouths
Dirty, sunlit eyebrows
Sharp as scythes
Only rosy cheeks on which
Shrike alight after they have
Impaled their prey upon
Dark tips of your scapula
only certain ruin
your belly
and its broken, revolving
stars
the single sun curved
into that questioning hook
that same, clear look
slit with sadness
now I bring words to your eternity
cirque
cirque: (surk)n. [Fr.Lat. circus, circle.] A steep hollow, often
containing a small lake, at the upper end of a mountain valley.
to have tried in vain to catch the marble eyes of statues
and to stir
unconsciously, like a river
to have at my disposal
all the peeled husks
of your beauty
to recycle the bloody swords of the saxons
to protest the selling of smiles
I kiss the knotted wood of your back
smooth the slopes of your thigh and belly
there is your hand, for me to touch
to take the depth, height and width
of these walls upon myself
every nation tumbles
cascading chevelure
(my morbidly bitten
peach)
twenty four hours of
circling you asleep
full-lipped, Girl
unforeseen
Pluto In Service
eloquent sits he at labor clear gaze
enfused nine rings of transparent
blackness onto the legacy of his birth
and his measured worth is his service
brought about by a collision or a collusion
of elemental particles, he hovers, aware of
a subtle and keen wind. pluto has reached
within and satisfied, brought out a plum heart.
it was this he once offered the horizon, until
his gaze grew luminous and proud, and distant
archers and distant throngs. so long had the
two young men remained in grace and holding hands.
CANTO: Of the Origin
The Bachus was not born at birth, rather he was slowly
born from his birth into death. Like a male and female plant
whose roots stretched into the sea and entwined,
and whose fruit and offspring was hard of crust...
Poppy place, a navigation, ludicrous with honey smelt.
Silence with many silences, confabulation of bones,
and mist heavy with footsteps whose self abandonment
plots the direction of the arrow even he wishes and or
the same clarity of vision: a woman.
CANTO: Of the Province
Also a place. Every place, in fact. And no place.
Like a mirror placed flat upon another mirror.
(S)He/It, the place was perhaps made of sand.
And a pacification of water and a light, a fire.
Breath like a crisp, possible or imminent victory.
Yet absolutely necessary and still a gamble.
The place would dream proofs of love with
logics taken from still unexplored fields.
And a growth of laughing shadow-trees sent
forth crystal and liquid surfaces. Pluto-
exoskeletal; Pluto- fluid...imaginary timespace,
introparadoxic, and a scarab on the horizon to
inform the men of the water. See, at times
bold ships come to harvest the soul, silhouette
of the shadow of the dream tree's growth,
and they bear marks upon their thighs...
CANTO: Of the Women Aboard the Ships
A very strong smell of the moon accompanied
these ships, who sailed from the Water That Is Light;
and once, when very young, the men of the villages
by the shores of the province would wait for the ship
because it brought visions. Its mast was high and silver
and on its sail it bore the image of an eye. And it was
luminous and the boys on land thought that they could
hear their own memories emanating from its deck.
The Captain of the ship would land and inquire of
the young dreamers where their dreams had come
from and then the men would see visions. There
was also a scent of nectar at the times the ship would land.
Moon nectar girls brought forth ominously.
And with lavender and with subtle wreathes
brought forth. So that many young dreamers
died and their memories became tree roots.
CANTO: Of the Times
Lain before Gods. Awarenesses. Bustling centers
of exchange. Sympathies, all crude. Also, fineries...
Symbols became For. All hallowed things. Rivers
of black blood. There, in the cool darkness of love.
Cubist Love Portrait
wild angled double
furrowed lip
of peach vulva fruit
inlayed in
the gold frets of a guitar,
noonday suns
exploding
grotesque
human head twisted
into insane curving road
three eyes
blinking
back at you
spread ninety degrees
into weeping kalaidescope thighs
beyond a curtain
to the left a yellow bull
there are twenty
bright sickle
moons super
imposed
upon white
steel fang
steel fang
midnightfalls upon the stage
constellations twist
their meanings into mist
love is what becomes this
you say somewhere
because
time is
black ink
you
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