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Some Ways Of Looking At A Black Mouse

[to the reader:
This is part of a series poem...this one
follows 'Instead of You Today One Black Mouse'
which should be read before this one for greater
context. There is a playing going on in both
poems which is not only about love had and lost,
a black mouse that shows up, as well as a dove,
the day before the lover returns permanently
to live in native country of India. There is
a Wallace Stevens' playing with notions of
poetry, meaning, and more, and a playing with
language and signs which shall hopefully lend
some jarring but enjoyable takes/slants/songs/
glyphs.

When you see the 'x's
in the poem, read
'times' as in the
math sign for multi-
plication. & of course
the = sign should
be read as 'equals']

keep saying/
writing 'mouth'
when I want to
speak of the
black 'mouse'
which seems to
have left soon
after it appeared
as you departed.

'Mouth' and
'mouse',
'black mouth',
open and shut.

The window,
the casings
fall, clatter
scattering the
dove brown
upon the space
between the
escape escaping
what is become
poise no
longer.

'Mouth', the
stronger, is.

Is blackness,
I think, insisting

its way past thinking
into mouth or ink

so it is that
lips which are

sometimes pink,
swollen, as if to

kiss, miss the dove
by a wink, and the

mouse is somewhere
else,

at,

passed to

other spaces

still I feel you,
you're here, big
ears, black fur
of Mind

still love, I moan
this morning saying
aloud before the
covers are kicked

he is gone,
hands x 4

he is gone,
feet x 4

he is gone,
lips x 4

he is gone,
heavy groin x 2

he is gone,
heavy groan x 2

the chimney flue
suddenly
in a little
breeze from
above
loosens the ancient
ash from the caked
brick

x countless

number and the
anxious hands, again,
against the grain

x 4

push one finger

x 1

into that ash
writes

x 2 two names

plus 1 subtracted

from the empty
escape

x 1

and another day
of counting

minutes

hours

x seconds

of seconds is

begun begging

Love, yes,
backing in

the floor where we
lay our cluttered
clothes deposed

x at least 3

take me once
again one

x infinity

into your arms

x 2

and leave me when
you/we are done doing

x 0

a mere cypher flown
sheer up the flue
into the blue ash
which now the sky

is

where

(there is
only one
sky)

a dove flies
into some
possibility
of memory

or not

x 35 thousand

x plus the time it

takes for you to exit
shedding skins shells
(I am a shell)

x infinity into

the one drain in-
to ocean reflecting
the ash of what remains
of you on the beach
bathing soft Junes,
the organ grinder
smiles/sings 'te
amo, amor fati'
mellifluously
from the boardwalk
Coney cotton candy
disposed in gales
from breaking
waves, tumbles,
smears, speared
on the weathered
wood

x planks from

many trees

x ants in the

roots lumber-
ing their end-
less burdens
black or red
carapaces as
if shining
sand or sugar
unspun

x grains untold

as hairs, their
bodies follicles
delicate, when
under the June
glass espied
magnified count-
less, collected,
caught upon the
webbed threads
of your large
soft towel with
the palm tree
sewn upon

that I have burned
in the old grate,
a first fire
long awaited

x 30 years since

the last,
undisturbed by
carbon dates

x all times

black mouth
yawns sun into
the window frame

yellow the
other flame

intended name
smears on the
glass an accidental
pane, Mind

x hands touching it

delicate as trespass
what is allowed lace
of vision

x want

= at last a sum

= a remorse felt

memory

torques,

into soft

teas

June

steeps

tur ns

steaming

said window

(and torsos)

said prints

views obscured

of nothing

in particular or

special, but

troubles, troubles

only of passing

birds enamored-of

(their lighter
bones)

or

are they

cloud and shadow,

merely the steep

sun declining ashen

into the Jersey side?

occluded
silhouettes
contrails
glyphs &
Maxwell House
'Good To The Last Drop'
sign,
the familiar
cup for decades
tipped
tips &

one

(out-spilled)

drop

x 0 suspends

o suspends trembling
reflected in the water
river made of the many

countless drops

x (again) infinity

x (surprised) my
father there
(momento mori)

opening the
can all blue with
the same cup tilted
spilling that dark
brown dropp imprinted

x (the

dove, to recall,
brown, shaped like
said drop, now
flown, or) finally
spilled into water,
river currents
downward, to bottom
pulled sort/sift
my father always
complaining of grift,
a weather man by trade,
a cloud man once a pilot
WW2 drifting often since/
enough into sky,
he turns
the silver opener
butterflied
round and round
with effort, his
arthritic com-
plaints upon the
ridged silver top
of the can blue
with coffee
'course grind'
the better to drip
with within &
that satisfying
hiss of compacted
air hissing out
from within
compressed now
released
the smell
then
of coffee fresh
not yet brewed
in the kitchen

the twist of
the edge jagged
silver metal
carefully turned
with fingers to
break the remain-
ing stem of metal
holding the round
to can entire
unsealed now try
without spilling
the grounds
out

x at least 100 thousand

to guess having no
acumen with numbers
and math but father's
over
there in the cup tilted
over spilling into
o endlessly
it's seams, it seems
from river bank
into memory which
is, already
over-said
overheard redundantly
as river
and time,
this one
now recalled
to Mind, dad,

dad
the cloud drift
and the flows
the tides beside
the city
both sides
is as ancient
as it always was
& is

as in the beginning
was darkness over deep
water & a word, any word
really would do it,
form something
out of deep, of
dark, of water
which shapes it-
self only by outer
circumstance,
in this case
a word
leading up to
this -

Palisades cliffs
above bridge tilt
toward, always,
currents, the river
over-
flows north-
wards
tides rare defy-
ing the moon
that other pull,
you
live the other
side of
sand
the palm sewn
swaying adhered
to Mind

x 1

still, to pass the
time now

x 1

the sooty hand

x 1

over black
'mouth'
or word 'mouse'
allude perhaps
to river at
city's start
up from water

the silver bay
capped, remembering
frigates

x countless

ferries torn

and Tories be-
tween seas
wars
vast to
the east

x duplicating

waves, stretches
the narrows,

the necks with
rocks strewn,

the lonely buoyless
depths their vespers

intone

I am, unkindly,
left remembering
once was laughter
spent

seeking out
between bodies
valleys eternally
shifting eluding
rapture

x 1

whisper

hand over 'mouse'

or 'mouth' conjured

x 1 more

contraction
of sentinel
bells against
each of each
reaching

x 2, the legs

x 4, the lips

x myriad ones gone

before, of murmurers

O lover

of thee

I adore

the arms

x no more
embraces

This, just to
reintroduce some
levity

for we
were many day-ed

x merry

we merrily played
harming no one,
not even the
mouse unmoved

perhaps, watching
perhaps, still,
still, from beneath
the god you insisted
be excluded from
all our nakedness

x 1 too many breaths

exchanged, groped

x many ropes all our

wanting

father loves
with his cup
his pipe songs
of love
of love will
he dance between
the violent fasts
from love,
our mother, with,
fast around around
& around the danced
living room
phonograph brass
loud plays
where June
curtains sway
me and Mr. Miller
(Glenn)

I stand behind
them the curtained
dancer entranced
entered into/
upon a mystery
how one could
be so, well,
swell, so
marvelous &
so cruel, (upon
one silver stem
hangs the metal
tin top jags
tears at
memory edge
opens facts

FACT

that there was love,
there was love after
all

I can see
it smell it
feel it there
dancing round
the living

one dropp Mr.
Maxwell holds,
hold on to &
upon goodness
brown pulled
from below down
& dark into deep
such this is
the riddle it is
all now become
since you
departed, love

since you
departed I shall
count backward by
3's then by 4's
the

door which once
embraced you now
never lets you

go

x brooms

or releases

x all the x's
here accounted
for, listed,
besos as kisses
scribbles, notes,
letters,
no matter
the black or
blue tide

of thee
O lover

what
slips out
ebbs black
back into lapis

lapses into what
self is

uttered/poured,
scored trans-
parent upon
surfaces

faces which are
even
eyes which now
glaze with love/
loss

beside the flue

glaze upon the
pane

the black
mouse remains

stays,
is many,
a multitude
of petals

x 3

the jasmine
unspurned
at last

at last/least
O return
soft Junes
the lips of
which are
sometimes
pink, of
lavender
swollen, as if
to kiss

x memory

x Maxwell the

house the cup
O Mr. Miller
an O'Day serenade
plays close
...'Hi ho trailus
boot whip
boo boo daddy
floy floy'...

the late night
suppers of chops
the peeled onions
the laughter the
potatoes boil
& bubble in the
pot then
father
to dance
the butter in
the sizzle in
the cast iron
pan

their vespers
now descant,
descend
...'How high
the moon...

x 1 black 'mouth'

hungry
the
dish it has
all become
feast for
black 'mouth'

& mouse makes again

x 3 the antinomies

a string

of pearls

anemones

& thee O lover

bring all them

back, so many,

to me now

x Pennsylvania 6-500.

poem by Warren Falcon
Added by Poetry Lover
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