#robert wrigley

[nomorechoirs]

“Do You Love Me?” by Robert Wrigley

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[aemperatrix]

Robert Wrigley

[lillyli-74]

I am cupped and capsuled, swallowed by the night inside the night.

~Robert Wrigley

[tikkisaram]

Kissing Comet

[Robert Wrigley - Kissing a Horse]

Original:

Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings we owned that year, it was Red— skittish and prone to explode even at fourteen years—who’d let me hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain up the head to the eyes. He’d let me stroke his coarse chin whiskers and take his soft meaty underlip in my hands, press my man’s carnivorous kiss to his grass-nipping upper half of one, just so that I could smell the long way his breath had come from the rain and the sun, the lungs and the heart, from a world that meant no harm.

Lipolation:

Of the two tough, equine mounts we owned back then, it was Comet— skittish and bound to bang even at fifteen—who'd enjoy having me put to his face my own; the massive maze and cavepits of the nose, the wide bone up the head to the eyes. He'd enjoy my touch on his thick goatee, have me take his soft meaty mouth in my hands, give my feminine, zoophagous kiss to his meadow-nipping tongue, just so that I could take in his distant scent coming off, out of fog and mud and sun, out of back and thigh, out of nothing, peace and joy.

This poem really reminded me of Supergirl's romance with the horse Comet, so I proceeded to lipolate it with that in mind. It is a pity to lose the homoerotic overtones of the original, but I think that the context warrants it. What do the Tikki Troops think of Supergirl's equine relationship — yay or neigh? ;^)

[ruknowhere]

...

Winter Bale

Not a scent so much as a bouquet of smells, that stable: old wood, horseflesh, the sweet round buds of manure; molasses, oats, leather, hay.

In the ancient bushel basket a nest of twine, now the red taut plunk of it cut from the bale, as puffed up out of the flakes comes dust

from the fields a year before, and a stiff, sleepy bull snake oozes across the cold floor and into the stall where the edgy stallion waits for hay.

Soundings

The birdhouse made from a gourd is wired to a flanged loop of steel and screwed to the southeast post of the shack. Two holes at the top—near where the stem was, for a thong of leather to hang it by, which long ago broke— are now the fingerholes of the mournful wind instrument it’s become. The broad round bowl of it makes a sort of birdly basso profundo that pearls through the steel, into the post, the floor joists and walls in two notes: a slightly sharp D and an equally sharp F, says the guitar tuner, which explains why all my thinking these days is in B-flat, a difficult key for all but the clarinet and this sudden covey of nuthatches, whose collective woe makes it a minor chord I am in the middle of. Nothing to do but hoist such silks as the luff of limbs and needles suggests, and sail on, the barely-escaped-from-the-cat chipmunk chattering like a gull, and the mountain’s last drift of snow resembling the back of a sounding whale. Hear the thrum of the rigging, Daggoo? Hear its profoundest woo, its sensible gobbledy-goo and doo-wop, the boo-hoos of the spheres, by vectors and veers, by tacks and refractal jabberings, taking us deeper into the weirdness of the ghost sea those prairie hills were the bottom of once, this nowhere we shall not be returning from. Draw the lines! Assume the crow’s nest, Pip. This ship sails on music and wind, and away with birds.

-Robert Wrigley

[allyourprettywords]

“Stop and Listen,” Robert Wrigley

Sometimes the woods at night are so still the sound of your own breath abashes you, to say nothing of the racket as you walk.

Sometimes talking helps, saying a poem, or even, if you’re going downhill, singing. Other times there’s nothing to do but stop and listen, or even sit

and close your eyes in the name of attentiveness. In daylight, there are birds, and for some reason the wind too is always awake,

delivering weather or dust. At night, you concentrate and your listening is enhanced, and sooner or later you will hear

a scale of bark let loose from a tree or a needle tick from limb to limb on its enormous journey to the earth. And sometimes, having resumed

your walk, you will stop at the top of the ridge above your house. Its window lights will illumine the ground around it, and you will listen again

and hear the faint hum of it— the buzz of its light bulbs, the industry of its clocks. And sometimes you will approach it as would a thief

and peer through the windows, in order that you might covet, being part of the world’s greater silence, everything that is already yours.

[aemperatrix]

Robert Wrigley