4 landscapes

    for Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino

 

 

  by Joseph F. Keppler

 

 

 

 

 

1. 

 

terrible, beautiful cities congregate earth all over earth

a city of weather watches stars on television

dawns rise to café con leche with a pastry in a bag

administrators fly in for the day to sing in their trousers

earthquakes cease when they calmly descend in elevators

mirrors smash the nights out of loneliness

 

 

 

 

2. 

 

the place has no working horses

the children see no sleeping sheep or butchered pigs

the park is there for everyone

 

 

 

 

3. 

 

all noise humans shout about everyday, just poetry

one word silently persists, the one within one within one another

 

 

 

 

 

4. 

 

big and pruned the cherry tree never bloomed this year

no fruit, the few last leaves are blowing away today

now among its boughs run parallel power lines, clouds, crows,

    and the cold wind

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joseph F. Keppler is a sculptor and a poet.  His books include All the While a Child Counting On Counting the Moon in Flight (Winston, Oregon, 2003), an artist’s book based on the poetry of Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino entitled 3 Poems Introduced by Joseph F. Keppler (Seattle, 2008), and Correspondance (a sketchbook) (New York, 2009).