Thoughts of January on an April Journey 

“Be home by nine!” On December 31^st?

Let’s tell the world’s tumors to become benign

While we’re at it. One who’s arrogant at first

Is nakedly enigmatic (so, benign)

Until the silver fields come alive with sounds

And colors drunker than Noah. Coupling sans

Romantic feeling makes unrecorded sounds

Beneath the flowering local artisans. 

A thousand gussied up redbuds must glissade

From heaven for days Dinocrates designed.

That thought’s prettier than Absalom; de Sade

Would stick the most unique snowflake Hell designed

For this purpose up its oh-so-fine backdoor.

(If April could out-Janus Janus, it would;

But lilacs must bleed and sing at each backdoor

To keep spring from death.) My heart is made of would…

It’s weak and easily catches fire. I stuffed

It with seaweed and straw soaked in vinegar 

To no avail last winter. Eagerly stuffed,

This spring seems tougher than tufa. (Vinegar

Tells autumn’s tiger to roll my cigar tighter.)

That weeping cherry tree’s an attention whore. 

But then, there’s little Miss New Buds, who slept tighter

Than Sleeping Beauty till now and wore the hoar-

Frost like the glittering jeremiad that

It is all through January’s chemical

Imbalance. Annual conundrums like that 

Remind St. Michael of Satan’s chemical,

And his heart becomes corundum. Purple’s good;

It won’t take no for an answer. World-renowned

This April’s chintz should be, with tulips so good

The blues runs wind sprints and death’s still world-renowned. 

More Thoughts of January on an April Journey

Of dogwoods that seek to look like other dogwoods,

Beware. It’s Maundy Thursday. In both your mood

And brindle there’s wisdom, Barks-At-Dogwoods.

Hanukkah sacked our dark and Seleucid mood

Last winter. Now, the hellebores do the trick. 

They can fix anything – midnight's pallor, red

Decembers, broken weeks, you name it! They’ll trick

Havdalah out until blood’s no longer red. 

Each ice storm’s a crybully – if Jethro’s son-

In-law was here, he’d melt them all with the lord’s

Gemütlichkeit. This katsura Fingal’s son

Couldn’t claim he composed; its diapason lords

It over arrogance. That magnolia knows

Its bowers stand for when days and hours kneel.

Its branches showcase crows that no shadow knows

On Erev Pesach while the daffodils kneel. 

When this crocus croaked, it only left behind

A hoe, a pair of white gloves, and the idea

Of paradise. The Pleiades hid behind 

The moon when Anthony Kiedis said, “Idea!”

To Flea on a snowy highway. (Here I thought

The moon didn’t have a Hapsburg chin on the night

In question.) History blooms like an afterthought,

But never too late for Scheherazade. Last night,

I heard the shehecheyanu and the month

Rejoice. The flowering plum’s tenacity

Impressed the new nyctinasty all last month. 

Its clippety-clop next spring’s tenacity

Is haunted by. The Evening Rain Lilies’ silver –

When my joy departs and I inherit all

The griefs my fathers felt – proclaims, “Hi-yo, Silver, 

Away!” – and Nyx returns my joy, bones and all. 

Even More Thoughts of January on an April Journey

“There are two things we must get rid of early in life: a feeling of personal superiority and an exaggerated reverence for the sexual act.” – Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead 

I blame my soul’s economic problems on

The blustery green December. The mock orange

Makes a rusty sound, like candelabrums on

A windy day. But May’s the William of Orange

To all things ramose. And nothing’s more morose

When winter’s dry activity grays than April. 

This river’s too rimose – a missey-moosey rose 

To the occasion last Koningsdag, when April

Became (albeit briefly) the month it hates. 

The rabbits gavotte in every warren, nosh

On the wildest ribose now that nothing hates

What’s always topical. The body’s panache,

A river might say, has come full circle. Then

There’s hell, an everlasting trauma unknown 

To any deer’s lip or springtail’s thought. “Till then” –

It means that now is dead and gone, more unknown

Than it was before it came; it means what tu-

Lips mean when they go to work each morning. Both

Firstborns of robins will someday say “Et tu, 

Brute?” to either God, the other or both

Of them (a settled truth before Hebron was). 

When spring says, “Beauty, beauty you shall pursue,”

It does so knowing that winter’s sleeping. Was

I wrong to tell young garden snakes they pursue

The wrong things in spring? It isn’t like I put 

A mindless quarrel before an angry squirrel!

Ack! Who says your heart has keener ink than – put

Your proud opinions down for a greedy squirrel

To hoard (the most unkindest planting of all),

Dear poet. A killer with a friendly smile –

You might say that’s ambition’s mavourneen, fall;

You might even say a tooth in a throuple’s smile.