Sunday, November 06, 2005

Poetry by Danny Gentile












Matters of State



i



You

bellicose

raucous



give strange

adapted words

& raise a glass



You demand

an upstanding

audience that



race through

the vestibule of

a 5 star hotel



chasing another

Pick me! Pick Me!

from childhood



You offer a toast

words like dice

words of focus



runes in ash

& an exotic

cigarette



from a case

neither ornate

nor austere



Your appearance

Raison Detre for

a special event



The acclaimed

Cause Celebre

of the moment



Ice sculpture

smoking under

a chandelier



ii



You there!



You there!



Coining a phrase.



Your there?



How about

one for the

management?



One for

the ladies??



How about

I ask you

for a change?



The moment

was never

self evident



with you

far too busy

arranging poise



Let’s not

get ahead

of ourselves



means: don’t

complain you

have no choice



the thinker delivers



the clown destroys



Sluice



Through days of sorrow

& iron-cast brow, nights

of water unsettle dreams



to sweat the day open

& drag its furrow over

faces that languor there.



Every face is anguishing

staunch expressions of

appraisal & approximate;



all very well in waiting

for night & its further

hinged apprehension.



Light opens onto you in

fish-tanks from it’s bulb.

You are not the same under



every differing filament.

The city carries pages that

drink from the overflow



as if it were a stream,

not slopping stagnation

jarred in this. You swallow



fish; an irksome action

offers them as coins that

only flounder against all



that is real & rational.

You plead waters to abate,

but little ever comes of it.



Night & day are relentless

& the pavement a fist that

hardens you down. Scales



have flaked to nothing

but dreams that carry you

uncertainly & carry you



in arms of automation

to where the field still

cries in echo for the rain.



Danny Gentile 2005

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