In Their Sad Desertion*
by John B. Lee
Like a smelt run smell
that empties the town-the aroma of dying
shadflies overwhelms the threshold
of the North Bay mall-that fish kill, that redolent spawn
of all-at-once widow-winged
and frailly-legged things
as thin as cottage screen
at perishing, like rented life.
The little rain-rattled web
of feckless fickleforce
like something bachelor-mended
licked long to blunt the needle by like a split thread.
And they are there in the thousands
and the twenties of thousands
deep as mullet milt
from a fishmonger god
murk to a filmy glaze
oh oceaning, oh brining tide
the falling of fairies fails compare
with lift and lacklift like cursive f's in flight
I've seen what lingers streets deep
the fourth consonant writ large in loops of fatal summering
like scribble practice
and I'm wondering 'who housekeeps this insect-wounded town'
to sweep or wash away the pestilent myth of traffic crashing
foiled by slippery hills
the day that disappears
as in a fog
that rolls about the ankle bones
like smoke at hiss above a burning douse.
Last night, they weathered
at the door
like rain's arrival
they learned like nails rust-thinned in ash
to lose the house
the hinge, as with
a trembling of the last to go
a weedy movement in the windy grass
marked a loss of faith
as it was with Job
as it was with plague towns on the Rhine
unchronicled
like lashes blinking tears
they make
a nuisancing
peripheral
to sight.
* "In their sad desertion" is a quotation translated from a German witness to the dying of entire towns in the plague years.
Variations on Shadfly Silence
by John B. Lee
shadfly
clinging to the light
it strives to hold
*
shadfly
clinging
the spirit blows away
*
shadfly silences
these words
the w i n d...
THESE WORDS
the w i n d
these words
the WIND!
these words
the wind won't have...
*
sh
sh
sh
sh
the lake has forgotten
the sky
Back to Poetry Page
Back to Top
