More Middleton

"Quasizeros: 21 Miscellaneous Micropoems for Hans Vogt"
From Two Horse Wagon Going By

1. 

Walking, stopping in
Mid-stride

Leaning on air, word on the tip
Of the tongue


2. 

In the creases of her finger pointing up
To stress not that, but this, what

Else but

Eloquent miniscule
Horizons of grime


3.

Watch the velvet
Black
Big
Birdspider piano
Finger his moonlight
Sonata, eight arpeggios
To cross
Your bed


4.

All the limbs
But not a stitch

Stretched, then, in their folding, that
Much the more naked


5. 

Level head, one hundred such,
Hardly to be seen, tilted

Imperceptibly forward, and
If cocked

Not predatory, never a
Mountain top mistily

Bloodying the dreams in it,
Might, no, not even

These might have rectified
The nasty bent

Our species took, ignorant
From desire, gungho with dread


6. 

Slow wings beating take
Motion from unharmed air

Around children who break at sunrise
Bread and will not grow old


7.

     Possum breath
--whiff of the One
     Tongue?
        Imagination--

Hear a mouth
     open
        Looked for unicorn (cornered
mirrors) by

Flashlight a ratlike
     baldish creature
Weaving

     Through fresh bark mulch
Pellets, in distant
     Indigo, still driven

To pick among the 
     Crusty spitball
        Subterrene (Nastürmchen!)
Nasturtium seeds


8. 

Frowned--

So droopingly
The roof

Tiles overhead
--heavy

Red beef


9.

Hellbent, thunderstruck
Piss-asses, locust men
Grope for popcorn, nip the beercan

Gape at screen

Face cooked
In a helmet
Stole the show for one


10. 

Head thrown back
Feet skimming the ground, who

Is this coming so fast she's
Lost from sight?


11.

Scorched wizard
Sloped indoors, heard his babies

--A Squelch of organs--uncorked
A bottle of Ghost,

Ate his Lantern, slept, in his high
Horse head, catastrophic, nought

But song of katydid:
Darkening a mountain, shaking out

The hair of the world


12.

God, pining for whom helps
Keep some slim

Strip from this, pray, tormented
Skeleton the wobbling

Fat rolls that make him speak
Instead of thunder, with a squeak


13.

Heavy logistical weapons of muscle mass rush
Up front to fling
A stone

                           Hated squirrel
                      Gulps another mouth-
                             Ful of bird-

                                    Seed frisks

High  /  lightly     His tail
                                  Melts into the trees


14. 

Not the eyebrow, its
Traject, not the gorgon

Hairmass, lady,
What is it, this

Mirrorless me
Topples them

Cracking, somehow
Into your pit?


15.

Cuff tucked
Back, palms up to

Help you squinny at
Her cuts


16. 

A gartered swinger in the human tree
Enjoys her husbands to the tune of three

Her flesh still willing when they hit the floor
She signals for half a dozen more

Those being spent, her art not stopped, she swings
Up, to catch her breath, her heart on other things.


17. 

Glossy, not from clinging, these
Knuckles predecease her quilt--

Eyelid sliding back peels a white,
Now she called a name, joyfully, it was mine

But in the country she comes from
Girls divined their fortunes

In shapes of wax they sprinkled hot
At random, over water


18.

Dry smell, dark yellow
     tugs at heart thongs--
old leatherbound books, bays glow,
    drifting,
when first light stirs up
    the pure fume


19.

With cabbage
Leaf ears
Pinned back and young
Stumbling elephant steps I ran
Up to you,
Poetry, but almost
You had forgotten

Me, you
Gave me a lick,
Delicate and
Suspicious, the way
A lion, lowering
His tongue,
Drinks


20.

                Hollering into the
         Pool
A wild
   Peony of boys
          Lobs its petals


21.

As limestone through smoke
       goes amber
             so goes the world

Through my slit eyes, clenched
      hands, when I
             write these poems