drinking stout
from a glass
of naked women

•

a cock
in the Valley of the Moon
the color of autumn vineyards
flies high
into a ripe persimmon tree

•

Almost out of the sky, half of the moon
Makes a cross of mourning between my eyes
Oh to follow the road that leads away from everything

Your breast is enough for my heart
I have said that you sang in the wind
You gather things to you like an old road

I have gone marking the atlas of your body
Stories to tell you on the shore of evening
I who live in a harbor between the lips and the voice

•

wave and sand
moonlight phosphorus glow

the universe pours
through my eyes and yours

wipes warm and clean
our worn out seams

died and gone
to heaven or hell

•••

daylight
on the bed
spread

•••

A full moon in the birdbath, a perfect circle of ice blunting sparrow
beaks. Cold stings the first knuckle of each finger breaking pieces
of bread from a slice now half its original size. I laugh out loud at
the morning headlines, "St. Francis of Tucson, Bread Man to the
birds, found wanting for nothing ever again, a freeze in a cactus
garden of the Tucson Basin."

•

a plum, happy lungs, a radio in touch

Frank is . . .

a hungry ghost gripping the wheel
old man saguaro, the hum of blood, the sun, a glow
pajama sleeves, morning's radiance, unspeakable things
the compass in my pocket, whatever
the wheel, fallen leaves

•••

B sharp, G

the wild

flowers

•••

saddle up a fine cream-colored mule
an unimaginable mystery
eager to be abroad in its
startling white church, its clustered town and its acacia trees

clumps of wild pumpkin

a great colony of gray-green lizards
petrified rock, "yellow as ochre"
ancient juniper trees

jutting upward 700 feet from the sandy plain

•

what wind blows the Mexican Palo Verde
the cactus wren

my footsteps confess
no special talent

one sneaker follows the other
into a brilliant make believe I know I know

Mother Father Sun and Moon
Hi O Silver and away

 

           © 2009 Frank Parker. All rights reserved.

        

                                  Franks Home

8.5 X 5.5
12 pages
100% rag cover
Hand sewn

If you’d care for a copy email your address to me:

frankATfrankshomeDOTorg

Obscure Press
June 2009
Tucson, AZ