Robert Lietz

3 poems

**

Gearing Up


.....The kingfisher asks and water shows the way again.
Ignoring the ruins of ruins.....-- the disasters
.....arcing pole-to-pole in autumn boardrooms.....-- even
a mind at seventy.....-- because.....there's
.....listening all over.....-- remembers the decades when --
the news so close to bright it’s humbling --
.....remembers the looks of husbands then.....-- of nights
when.....dark-sleeved.....men.....collapsed --
.....of.....wives.....-- when.....nights.....and.....wives
were finished with.....-- their.....arms
.....around.....the least.....--and
worst complicities.

.....Even a mind at seventy can place the song in its retelling
/ the tables.....in rooms
.....the heart.....could name.....the builders
/ buyers of.....-- can.....see
.....to.....the tables.....afterward.....-- the cities
described.....in time
.....as accidents.....of treaties.....-- where
the public seers
.....danced.....toe-to-toe
/ to.....the fierce
.....music.

.....No matter how close this seems to prayer.....-- no matter
how deeply film-clips run.....-- set as they were
.....to all the wizardry and peril.....-- there’s.....someone
still sleeping on cellar stairs.....-- asleep
.....in the wells.....and.....just.....this.....out-of-reach
of deals.....-- someone.....in love
.....who’s fallen.....short of promises.....-- somebody
not warm yet.....-- as bones in the hills
.....just east and north of the rebuilding.....-- whose
morning’s as fresh as data seems --
.....someone.....who’s.....not cheered yet
by.....all.....this daylight
.....counted down.....-- these.....cities
simmering.....in reflected
.....expertise.


............*

.....Who would believe the smoke and unsettling acoustics?
And who but the kids again.....-- tired
.....themselves of right.....-- decked with equipment now
and the hues of personnel.....-- who
.....but the kids care now how close he seems to prayer --
reciting the names of party chiefs
.....and coroners?


............*


.....They’ll hire themselves as proof. They’ll sleep
with the tablets there.....-- repeating
.....a phrase hard-come.....and.....woven with instructing --
assured as the light abides...../ the colors
.....of chalk and blood and coming sun decide the numbers --
reflecting themselves.....the flatted action
.....pressing depths. Some mornings.....(he thinks)
there’s too much wait and see.
.....And then there’s another theater.....-- moving
the dead around.....-- the kids
.....under tarps trucked off.....-- and
leaving.....a few.....forever dead
.....in.....front.....of
Nikons --


.....just as they were before they blew the limbed knolls
back to greystone.....-- whatever
.....the official records said.....-- the diplomacies --
the signs of the brides
.....in windows overhead.....and.....thinking rescue --
remembering.....the meadows.....then
...../ the sun-wide rooms.....and.....conditional attire --
and.....-- where.....the meadows
.....were.....-- the homes.....that were closed
in furious.....and.....ever-running
.....operas.....-- another.....improvised
and understated history--
.....letting the buttons go.....-- below
the faces that betrayed --
.....almost.....alive.....as minds
moving away
.....in.....their draft
language.

**

Provocateur


.....The firemen dress for laser-tag. And the toughs
endorse reforms.....-- the players
cops from days gone by still recognize.....-- winking
as flames fill in the dark of Avalon.
You draw the line between the native stalls
and sustenance.....-- seeing
the suites burn steadily.....-- and the bleeding ghosts --
well beyond their numbers.....-- now
that the pestering’s turned mean.....-- the short-run’s
gnawed the edges of their thinking --
alluring as snap-on parts and party uniforms and lattes.
So much for the walls of glass.....-- blond
booths.....-- for the punishing fit of their machines
until they finished.....-- driven by ancient lusts --
when nobody’s.....asked.....for sportsmanship.....-- for
more than reaction times.....-- seeing the places
where flames were.....-- where the alien silks / the alien
crafts and sorriest passions came to figure.
The images burn.....blue.....clear. And.....the moonlight --
blooming in pure space.....-- in.....places
where flames were.....-- is ample...../ amplified.....-- on
the last cold plant...../ on sills where the children
coupled up.....-- just when the air seemed good enough
/ the moon on the shatter-tape and sudden ash
where whispers were.....-- where.....their.....breath
on kid-crowded panes must seem a fiction.....-- and
the tablets shared.....-- inspired by the sponsors --
over and around.....-- repeating.....the prophet’s brag
on their flat screens in the small hours. You
have to know the period if you want to guess the lead.
You have to know the period.....-- and
this daylight well within the nature of your talents
/ this mini-series stuff.....-- with all its shades
and distillations.....-- now that he paint’s been worn
off the chains of memory.....-- and.....now
that the moonlight’s wrapped.....-- bedding
in chemicals and rusts.....-- at.....home
in the pictures rags and e-zines mean to pay for --
as if it were nothing more than phone-sex
or.....commuter.....accidents
/ than ground-level brought to bear
.....and innocence.

**

When All the World Seemed Caught Up


.....A story to walk out of.....-- abandoned / decided on --
as if it were there.....-- on those church steps --

.....and.....there.....you selected.....fast machines.....-- having
learned yourself.....-- speaking.....yourself

.....some trick.....accrued in the equation. The last delights
amused. And.....the words.....themselves --

.....the phrases parsed and charged.....-- sounded.....in time
/ snapped.....violently.....in time.....-- over

.....the field cups...../ salutes...../ the meals without desserts --
in the looks of faces older than their diets --

.....edited.....-- in.....deep.....astonishment.....-- made rough
with the moon’s glow...../ with.....once

.....you think.....and.....autumns.....in Trieste. And.....once --
some.....luminous.....otherwise.....-- agreed

.....on credibly.....-- being.....in love with.....once.....-- before
the dead stood up.....-- imaginable

.....but changed.....-- before.....the dead stood up.....-- in love
and.....partisan: Here.....were.....the breakfasts

...../ boulevards.....-- and.....the arresting.....sense.....-- bright
motions.....away...../ into.....-- letting

.....the eye adjust.....-- the dawn.....and.....twilit.....softenings --
and.....here.....this Trieste.....-- the.....coffees

.....and.....custards...../ cousins ordering delight.....-- because
you had watched and once become --

.....had measured.....the deep wine’s influence.....-- because
there were kids...../ no kids.....-- but

.....sled-metal and barbs.....-- but feints.....and scrimmagings --
strummed.....stinging.....chords.....-- this

.....noise.....in the wizard hills.....-- and.....kids.....made new
/ made.....equal.....by.....the weapons --

.....because.....there would be no telling it.....-- the companies
of children turned.....-- flesh...../ flash --

.....to somnolence...../ to.....this light.....like one more name
you must get used to.....-- squeezing

.....progressions off.....-- while frost asserts another hand
in holidays. No secrets.....-- except

.....to tell.....-- no hands but these.....-- that had been busy
at their kneading. And.....nothing

.....but first-drawn threads.....-- but secrets.....-- deciding
what.....men.....were.....-- that.....any

.....might yet be heard and richly summarized.....-- that
any be touched and turned to light

...../ that any themselves.....made terrible.....by retelling
be drawn.....from broken loaves --

.....might speak...../ be heard.....-- at tables you think --
where the wines.....had.....counted once --

.....puzzling.....the tokens...../ tithings.....-- and
all.....that.....remains.....of phlox

...../ of half-way houses and mid-century
/ of this science

.....now.....-- and.....naming
..........preferences.

**

return to Sawbuck 1.6

**
Robert Lietz is a professor of English and Creative Writing (fiction and poetry) at Ohio Northern University, with poems appearing in numerous journals, including Agni Review, Carolina Quarterly, Epoch, The Georgia Review, The Missouri Review, The Northern American Review, The Ontario Review, Poetry, and Shenandoah. Seven collections of his poems have been published, including Running in Place (L’Epervier Press), At Park and East Division ( L’Epervier Press), The Lindbergh Half-century (L’Epervier Press), The Inheritance (Sandhills Press), and Storm Service (Basfal Books). Basfal also published After Business in the West: New and Selected Poems. He has completed several print and hypertext (hypermedia) collections of poems for publication, including Character in the Works: Twentieth-Century Lives, West of Luna Pier, Spooking in the Ruins, Keeping Touch, and Eating Asiago & Drinking Beer. Besides the print publications poems have appeared in several webzines, including: The Salt River Review, Terrain, The Alsop Review, The Black Swan Review, & Kimera.