Winter Stanzons

1.

'yes rain - oh no'


rain it does now
and
doubt I do not
that rain it will later
when out with dogs
I'll shake my fist at skies
causative
in their shaking out their fur
nine tenths of the rain come soaking it
to be shaken rattled and rolled
and some will seek succour
in the as yet unsaturated fabric
hiding hairy (but not furry) legs

my hands by that time cold
enough to evoke the characteristic
top C from an operatic soprano
should I with uncharacteristic lack of charity
seek to warm them in intimate contact
with whatever part of her skin should be
bare
rain and bare hands
may combine in coldness possibly
intense enough to prompt
a 1046.502 Hertz note
from a baritone

not to worry should you reading this
be a baritone
touching baritones (even when tied inside a burlap sack)
is something I avoid
loud voices being not at all my thing

my ears are not pierced
and I intend to keep them
that way

what am I going on about

rain
yes
rain


2.

'not a love poem'


love in terms of hormones and of hormones'
little helpers pheromones is a four-letter word
spelled wrong
(to be sniffed at)
lust
concupiscentia carnis
not a desire for meat but
of
the flesh
the lust for knowledge (other
 than in the biblical sense)
in days of yore carried
associations of loftier scent
that of books
(the slow decay of paper)
(gradations of sluggishness
 a measure of acidity)
(by some
 to be sneezed at)
an allergy to pheromones
a certain sign of saintliness

possibly

imagination's safeguard
to the rescue
Sofia Loren rising up from her bath
(glistening and restored to youth)
(silent in symmetry of the speechless beholder)
quickly caressing rivulets running the gamut
of fantasy's curvature

lavishly lusciously lasciviously
more words for love
lost in lust


3.

'winter muse'


with the Spanish friends asleep
on improvised beds
taking up much of the space
of the single room
with adjacent cubby-hole kitchen
and niches one of which she called
bathroom and any bathing had to be done
behind the door beside that
(the shower)
we had to be quiet and crept into her bed
and made love gently almost noiselessly
until a shimmer of dawn crept through curtain-gaps
her whisper told me that she'd like to
do this
with me every night

four at breakfast meant an exposé
on the art of shoplifting
at which the Spanish girl declared herself
an adept
her boyfriend told a risqué joke
about a man telling women on buses
in Madrid that he had a square one
(yo lo tengo quadrado)
as his ploy for impromptu seduction

her face is what of her I best
remember
the way it showed cold winter weather
to affect her
even more than the discomfort
of a failed marriage her hair-shirt
when she stopped showing up where we met
for a week or two
for a while I felt
lost
locked
into her winter wander-land


4.

'verse in bad taste'


surfaces scratched tend to end
up
(very partially)
under fingernails
(one small part of)
ancient mythology accounts
for the material universe
as created
from dirt under a deity's fingernail
(so what)
so what divine surface
got scratched
(however divine)
to collect so much dirt to be dished
given the highly anthropomorphic deities
of ancient mythology
haemorrhoids
cannot be entirely excluded
from the options
not all that many
of global characteristics
would seem to speak against them
(haemorrhoids that is)


5.

'diasporadic'


as rain
drizzle
but snow
snizzle(?)
quizzle
fragmentary status quo
sizzle and snow
no go
nizzle gizzle
how so
(hao sew)
(sow no how - know-how?)
uh-oh


6.

'word gazing'


verses written inside out
in linear meditation
sight of both hands holding
imaginary means of writing
hands held still
but
writing still
words released
into descent of lines
into ascent of falling into line
as patterned mantras
double-handed lines written to converge
from both sides of a mirror
not quite meeting in the middle
formulating mere approximations
of Nirvana

making love can be like that
come
to think of it

Levi Wagenmaker

If you have any comments on this poem, Levi Wagenmaker  would be pleased to hear from you.