Three Poems by Duane Locke

TERRESTRAIL ILLUMINATION, NO 195

Wall paper, goldfinched,
But no song.

Brown streaks, roof leak, cross
Black cap on yellow head.

A previous anonymous renter
Scraped his intials, GB.

The leaves once bright green
Have curled, wilted.

In Venice, upstairs room,
Tintoretto angels fly through walls.

These angels wear costume standardly designed
For adolescent proms.

I am at the prom in my room,
Dancing with a cardboard replica of Daphne.

I feel against my shirt, her leaves
Pressing against my cloth-covered backbone.

Daphne, like a Tinteretto angel in a Venice upstairs
Is flying through my wall.

Daphne is flying through a paper goldfinch,
Going outside, leaving me. She left a leaf.



TERRESTRAIL ILLUMINATION, NO. 196

Montepulciano cobblestones speak
Through my shoe soles to my feet.

My feet communicate by feet mail the message
Throughout inner forest of my neutral trees.

The news is a memoir of the air that ruffles hair
Of those on the grasses around the cathedral in the valley.

The air recounts the lovers’ conversations as they talk
About they learned when schooled in the sciences.

Soon, the spoken words disappear, and the script projected
On the theatre of my mind is only commas, semi-colons, dashes.

The cream-colored rice paper seen in my mind contains no periods
No question marks. It is as no sentence wanted to end, or have a content.

I understand. I understand, although nothing is really understood,
Everything is only partially understood, sometimes completely misunderstood.



TERRESTRAIL ILLUMINATION, NO. 197

Warm, this room. More than warm, hot.
But no wood, no fire in old cast-iron heater.

The cast-iron heater has cast on its side, eagles.
When heated, the eagles’ wings turn red.

Eagles wing black, so it could not be the heater
Is what that is making this room hot.

So I started serious research to determine why so hot.
I discovered by a rare look at calendar it was summer.



Duane Locke lives in Tampa, Florida near anhinga,
gallinules, raccoons, alligators, etc.
He has published 6,661 poems, includes 29 books of poems. His latest
book publication, April 2012,
Is DUANE LOCKE, THE FIRST DECADE, 1968-1978, BITTER OLEANDER PRESS.
This book is a republication
Of his first eleven books, contains 333 pages. Order from
http://www.bitteroleander.com/releases.html,
Or Amazon.
[for more information on Duane Locke, search Google by clicking on
Duane Locke, or Duane Locke, books, or Duane Locke, arts,
or Duane Locke, The First Decade]