Four Poems

 

by David Appelbaum

 

 

 

 

The trench with Tieresias

 

 

Sullen marks

deplete Circe’s canvas

 

under towering wells

throat blood-dry

 

a gentle whip

my heart

 

if still, a drop

that I am

 

clings to a lip

of the brass faucet

 

somewhere above

earth’s eternal gutters

 

 

 

 

On the epiphany

 

 

a burlesque fire

while rattles dance the edge

a tower with fury

against the rising winter moon

 

one pale eye, the other rages

clawing for the naked branch

five heads above

but now closes in ash

now a-mire, pity

now less than nothing

 

while a prank pearl pupil

looks through a thin veil

a veil so veiled

no way to hold one

apart from itself

that veiled gaze

seeing what ashes say

but unable to tell

 

 

 

 

dull-tempered

 

 

the hourglass curves

for good reason

near as full throng

pared to a loss

in the dark cauldron

 

I am that stone

cast to the bottom

with water refusing

the last passage

 

as when wind ceases

leaves fail to fall

 

 

 

 

Sequel

 

 

Since then, appearance

only by surprise

in familiar places—

a hem of a skirt

in neon

a dog trademark

a secret code

 

always live that

high white contrail

the pure story

is never told

 

but expired

in a search

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David Appelbaum lives in the Shawangunk Mountains.  His most

recent poetry collection is Jiggerweed (Finishing Line Press, 2011).