Mike Wheeler: poetry

Vermonter in Dixie

[micwheeler]

Uncle Speaks of Love

And you don’t know how to envision love As a rope, two harps, the black forest Of bent trunks, the spiral of your loneliness Through dry blood, a cobra sparring With its tail in bleached autumn grass, The last leathery and spotted egg Spared by sharp talons, the need Of a mouth to match a mouth, Touch it, press into its tight ringlets, Its crushed raspberry, the noise That springs forth From any instrument like it, A hairline needle Tying skull-white knot To skull-white knot In the burning ladle above, Its tin stars drained Of their secrets, The great speckled bird In its high curve, Wings like parted vines, Kissing everything we don’t See, necks, lost coins, the only promise You can’t even begin to make sense of.

[micwheeler]

Winter Fence

Black gulls push off silver barns, Drop like forgotten blades To hog winds. The garden burns Flowers into brick. Scratchy, failing trees, & the last tomato on the vine, Let out their high whines Of prayer to a biplane Tangled in its smoking pile Of ghosts. Once they clear, The drowsy fall bees Dip towards the sun, Drink its cool evening wine, Prune and shiver, Gossiping about the flowers In a dark bath. & like clear barbed wire, Thin burrs Sprout all at once From my cold knuckles & remotest bones, As to fend you From the frozen slush Of my hardened cage.

[micwheeler]

Chromed Invaders

I’ll drink martinis by then, Watch baseball, and call myself A sock, like scholars who grasp Things to feel the red seams Of their brains come evening. Are you good? They ask me In The Brothers Tavern, My beer too low too long, Its sweat crowding the paper Which means the barkeep, On behalf of the flies, Has to know why I'm on the books. “The fuckin Boss is shakin the pipes, man!” And the bases are loaded.

[micwheeler]

Excitable Boy

I like to sicken myself With refills, misjudge Gazes of old humans, Walk so a gold plane Stops mid-air, Enter the church It hangs over, placing A few guilty blinks there-- To see if I can’t Remember eagerness Brings me here.

[micwheeler]

Found: A Human Hand

From “Daughter of Fortune” by Isabelle Allende p.9-11 The tiny newborn appeared screeching, grating, never close. She had needed huge breasts to loosen the howling. Misery added to sour feed. Her cin- namon goat brought the revolting infusions, the frantic sucking sounds-- a bottle in the bizarre animal mother, every night, bound with a red, secret charge.

[micwheeler]

GTL

What macho deeds Will you save us With tonight? Who Takes you into her Scraggily bent Arms? Who crushed By the fist you call Your gentle dove? Kissing each Mountain tenderly Before the mirror, The glitter Of your weekend Falls back to its Orange cloud. Your blood kin, Wet and oiled In coveralls At digs above, Peer down, Shuddering, As your muscles Swell in her hands Like Weeping Yogis.

[micwheeler]

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[micwheeler]