John Joynt

Slowly Increases Orange caprice leapt from autumn leaves As comets of darkened ore yet to speak Of the fallen world, paced as cosmic dandruff. It is sly to lie naked on the bluff, before sun And its lice dazzle the notice of pretend, Like most I grew like a strange river Drowning in the opal throne, evenings Laden with the carrion of stars and cold Breath of algae swimming beside current. There is solipsism in the reservoir That drains our rivers. Towards mooring, It says, where mist and egret each gaze On piney legs. Here the anguish of apes Is a bellow while foliage grows constant.   The Beauty of Uselessness I stand like a crooked elm beside the river of thought A twined weave of protective solvency, a welt of two Plains that touch the passing nouns of nonvisable account. For every lip there is an edge, wrought and wiled. For every soul there is a minor bird who hums the dialect Of pure anonymity. These closure fragments defend The principles of Man, defend the baroque instruments Replaced for a grace more precise and protective, Retreating towards the indelible steps of vanishing.   Patience Patience is a funny little fool Who labors lost in sense. The orchards are not patient Impregnated in internal seeds Nor the ragged wisp of St Augustine Who like a mountain crumbled Once God spoke as a river Leaving his incorrigible fortitude Dispersed in beautiful ruin.   No Rest for the Weary I occasionally think of Socrates visiting the Stoics As I near dream state, where a professor of truth Declared the answer to life is in a good-days work Thus productive days lead to tranquil slumber A firm belief in the infidelity of wisdom, thought The wily gadfly, sending irritating bites across The arms of the slumbering sage until the truth-sayer Was enraged with tiny bites and aimlessly swung his fists. A philosophy of ignorance is all that is attained, if we settle For the orchard to bring its subsistence to our residence. I think of the awkward stance of questioning Knowing as much as I know of the rain outside And the dark courtyard with beds of happiness Saturated in the odor of wet cedar, That our only hope is to know the questions To reach an intimacy we will in turn proceed to question.   The Abnormal is not Courage - for Jack Gilbert Last Thursday a harmless historian borrowed my little stoic ship Under the pretense of exploring the lost treasure of the word, to rightfully Praise the grace of angels. The next day I wore a shawl to bed and shut out The ravenous butterflies looming in their stolen airplanes outside my window. We find what the heart is by dismantling it. So we ride along the sunlight Experiencing the colloquial dignity of this alien world. Trying not to become it. Little pieces sprayed from the sprinkler of seraphic beauty. Green cliffs, cricket Operas, blackbird October, ruins tamed by river-reed. Leading to a ravished civility. Life is not projection of aim, rather it reaches to attain what has departed. This shift towards grace is why the angels left us, their ankles bruised from reach.

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