Reed Bye

LIKE PUCK

To help her with the drying out

                        he floats in on

            balanced wings

rides a moment’s tension

            breathing

 

Not time, perhaps, this time
he can see

and thinks to

            skip the thought he had

                        “Improve the shining hour”

                       

            And drops
down as a a leaf

            through branches

and even though she cannot

            see him

           

She hears the sky-blown
rooster’s

            cry

and looks up from her line

TIMING         

I am not going to worry about this world

There’s nothing to do it takes care of itself
This happens, that comes along
What I can’t often predict
but find myself rationalizing
is the rise of anger or passion. What will come of it
like an organized crime family’s
struggles to keep up in the world today. Don’t correct her
She was teaching when your children learned to spell
She’s not as squeamish as you think
Right place at the right time
She wields her weighty gavel
beyond the burden of this world
 
The concert calendar’s bait and switch
turns regularly. Sameness
is a difference we get used to. The crash
on the horizon, milk on the highway
Reservoir dry
but with those storm-clouds in the foreground
what’s to worry? It all happens without history
Please, let go that theory
as she grips the bars and rises
Can you see her now above the water-line?
Don’t worry
When she steps out of the tub you’re already
lost in the translation
that is yours to read and question

ARTS

You squirrels are acting like monkeys

waving your purchase receipts so far above

the rest of us, squawking

A break in the action gives a clear glimpse

into the sky and clouds

the underside of leaves, veins pumping

sugar and water. From a seaside palisade

the tide turns. Heat of a body

pulses in nervous exchange

What anchor to the absolute

comes down?

Bring it on, showing

what service to expect

If I had a pencil I’d draw

whatever can be known  

Can anything be known as it was

ten seconds after? Or is it just business as usual

from the moment it is born?

CROSSROADS

Put the last amount left

into a circle, with powdered eggplant

under a tree. Each station receives a gram

Stomp it around

Call on Demos, god of community

Enter the ranks with budding branches

Crows perch on the walls

to observe the boundaries

Invite the doves to rise above and

beat their wings of light

In a heartbeat, things are equal

One season leaves

Another comes in with changed expression

A central election pits one half of the citizenry

against the other. People fall into camps

What is the government money can’t by?

Then comes reality’s decree

Dance around the navel

Bones turn in their sockets

Muscle and tendons open up and shout

     intoxicated

til we’re all bound up around the tree

     and see

many roads leading out from there

ADDED IN

This madness may or may not be

accordian-like. What do you say

Who or what gave its permission?

There is dark remorse

to get through and then perhaps

a turn of some kind

gradually filtering light

Love will leave its

tentacles extended

towards relation. I took this picture

(left out of the collection)

You see it’s like an artichoke

in flames viewed from the top of a pavilion

Any clues to where it might have come from

or what might happen next?

A MATTER OF MINUTES

  

What the gray sky brought: memory

and consolation. The litter is

sleeping, rain dripping

Too much consciousness is just

names worn on stone

A lady in a blue jacket 

walking her dog

Air and rocks

feel the dandelions

It’s the play of the world

You want to use the same terms but

now the dog walks the lady

     the other way

Not much to work or wait for

It won’t be what you thought

Listen now, the crow said

Memory fades

wading through this fog

holding a lantern for the sun

PASSION

On the one hand all this interest

is a sign of mutual connection

care and love. On the other

it is more comparison shopping—

Who is getting what and why am I

left out? In between

a story vast and complex as

natural mechanics—

Meeting characteristics

and their thumbprints as oneself

Some look right

at where all of it is made and see

the sun melting ice 

refracting light. Water does and

does not drip. Each step of the way

I’ve looked and then

begun to talk 
nakeder than what I thought to say