Joseph Farley, US

 

 

Free Verse   Failed Couple   Your desire to exist and my desire to live can not coalesce. We are separate beings with distinct ways of thinking, and sex is merely a bridge for genes to cross, not knowledge or understanding.     Snow and Ice   a smile can be so cold you need to put on a sweater. a handshake can send a chill through your bones, and if words speak affection it is time to run and hide, something bad is coming. there are practiced liars, masters of manipulation, maybe not successful in terms of wealth and fame, but comfortable ruining lives. avoid all contact lest you catch something virulent. watch your back. watch your wallet. watch the clock. look for a way to make distance, and catch the next bus out of town.     Mistakes Are The Source Of Creation   Errors are of value. They have made us who we are. If we were meant for perfection we would still squirm in the primordial goo as god's first draft germ.     Praise Be Ed   "Tomorrow is another day." So it seems. Then again each day seems the same loop repeated, an endless rerun of "I Love Lucy" and "Mr. Ed." I learned more from the horse's mouth then from the red head and the band leader. I have always sought wisdom in the words of others. Sometimes I have found it. There is no god but Ed, and Wilbur is his prophet.     Contractor Hell   Six days I've been waiting while water leaks from a pipe and air escape through a broken glass door, a baseball still lodged between the panes. The contractor says he's coming, but never shows. My boss thinks I've abandoned my job, but I tell her I'm just at home waiting for the repairman to arrive. Appointments are canceled. Estimates change and costs expand. Still the house must get fixed before the rain and cold make a nomadic life or slash and burn seem more attractive than ownership.     Thief of Heaven   The thief who stole heaven will not give it back. It took him too long to find and pick the lock. He will not part with it now. See him run with salvation under his arm basking in happiness as the sirens whine.     Fish Bones   in a dry river bed cracked yellow clay shines in the heat     the bell   you summon me to open doors; you tell me to get out of bed; you call me when the phone's for me, the dinner's cooked, there's a stranger in the house. you sound and i salivate, leap through hoops who is the master here?     Slow Fires   1. burn in the girders of the bridge iron cast brown in the sun declared unsafe, roped off for demolition   2. a man withers in his bed, swallowed from inside flames gnaw flesh; this too has been predicted: declining line on a chart   3. steel anchors span the river opposite the cancer ward a new bridge rises as the old fades there is no need to resurrect the other construction     The City   the city is old and sits on a river the river is old each year the bank grows smaller a little bit of the city slips away some day the whole town will wash downstream, a tragedy for those who live there but imagine the face of the beachcomber who stumbles upon skyscrapers on some distant shore     Point Loma   We waited to see where the whales rode through the mouth of the harbor, but the road closed at 5:15 and the guard didn't like our u turn reminded us, "This is a military installation." We never got to see the whales, or the sunset your camera begged for. It's just as well. The setting would have been wrong. The film would have come out too dark or bright, and the sounds of the marching on the parade grounds would have drowned out the singing of leviathan.     Penumbra   Darkness is the absence of light, no separate thing, substance, fluid injected into the night to color the sky black. What is an iamb to me? I sing of the absence of sound in a muffled voice so the birds can not hear and imitate, nailed to their perches on the ledges of bank windows. You are the electrifying spark that illuminates my night. Oh burning filament! You are my light bulb! What is the difference between kinky sex and perverted sex? Kinky sex is a feather; perverted sex is the whole duck.     Neo Psalm 20   God is God no need to bend your knee no need to pay fealty to a feudal lord God is God what need has He for peasantry? Kneel or sit cross legged or not stand or lay upon a couch all postures are the same for God if God is God and we are merely human     Neo Psalm 16   The ancients had drums. All men had drums. And there were bows and stringed instruments and wooden flutes and metal horns or hollowed horns from bulls or goats and conch shells blown. Such music stirred lives and faith. So should we strum and bang and blow and sing until voices fail and so make the world joyful as the noise we make unto God.     Neo-Psalm 14   make a joyful noise a whisper or a gasp in the heated night clutch at pillows and sheets roll your head from side to side heave your chest and rock your belly and know that this moment is good and was given to you and you alone a tender bud opening in moonlight to the enormity of all that is seen and unseen