un-leafed
the trees
the trees
the trees
the trees—
the idiocy of time—
the deliberate
debilitation
the desultory
feel of the wrath
of my bombast
says time
says the melting clock
say the hypnotized trees
trees in the clutch of the sun
full of viral potential full
of youth unexamined
just a month or two before turning pink
think great surrealist pink
or is it Christo pink—
like the white to the yolk
islands of Biscayne bay
esto no es rosado
(whatta’ ya mean this ain’t pink?)
chock with color
amok in strained iteration
pushing the dactyls at noon
beyond all breaking point
speak to me so that i may gaze
on your diacritical marks
they say profoundly
untutored profoundly
un-leafed eight (8!) months later
a Daliesque giraffe eats a Magritte
apple dark in the daylight
flecked with snow unloosing bark
like crepe paper sandwiches
another extolled birches
but i’d rather swing urban
environments
lamppost to lamppost
and land upon a tree in the fall
not the early fall variety
not second-week September
yellowing green in a palsied
moment under clouds
laden with rain at five o’clock
on a Thursday afternoon
no—
i’d like to alight on a red maple
on fire with its blustery
rutilant blisters
in the last pang of midlife
where de Chirico sits
with Man Ray
it’s his kind of sky
(you know)
“crimester. only crime i’m guilty of trying to
play alice straight in crookedland”
— Wanda Coleman / “Felon”
thee istsfor manity reader 