Frances LeMoine

 Frozen Poem, a Friday

"I attempt from love's sickness to fly in vain, since
I myself am my own sickness and pain." Dryden


Stilted syllables wanting form and image to
savor and spew
wait for some muse.

It comes again.
Unmapped, misshapen,
blurred thought with slurred
impressions of shapes,
scraps of light,
crumbs of touches and
flecks of sound.

And the landscape we share,
between these peeling walls
flakes, fades

but remains.

We long to flee the clearer surface
for murkier terrain.

My poetic license has expired.
Off to renew it.
I wait my turn,
turning older
and more pale.

With the slightest flaunting of my vocabulary,
the camera's glare and your nod of assent,
I force a license smile.

I think about other landscapes:

heaps of imagery.
Muses in constant attendance.

Your absence is evident,
palpable,
noticed.

Still frozen.


Letter from Macedonia

teaching American poetry
so pleased
he was able to bring along
seven of his nine cats
and his wife

he wrote of a vacuumed rug,
and a small, dusted table with
freesia in a water glass atop.

Freesia in Macedonia.
How nice.
 

Of Newfound Discipline That Keeps the Cork in Place

the wonder of a train whistle
in
the
distance.

that, unlike much,
still sings.