HOLY HISS

       for Hart Crane     

A holy hiss bestows its kiss

in the bristle of twigs

or breeze bending branches

the wind whining low

The breath of thieves whistling in the lurk

gives substance to such emotion

as to answer singing crickets

their quizzical mysteries

Ewes lick a wounded wan battalion

Bees blend intent upon their favored flower

and monotonous lies swarm morbidly

A swish of whispers and a cough

Wait – dare we forget the threat of doors

closing – click – stark in their locks

The boxer's fingers in a sweaty sponge

gloved in the oven of his mission

Climates aerially approve the meandering

melancholy of gray continental cloudswells

Swiftly a towel enwraps a dripping dad

his Timex ticking still

Invariably in transit we persist

to spray our personal pollen

and thrust a tethered nerve

through shivered leaves of stress

Day's azure holds its zones in motion

only to finally flicker pink and falter

Sending Morpheus to issue ethereally

his very thimble of tiny stars

TUMBLE DOWN THE WONDER FEAR

       for Clark Coolidge

Tumble down the wonder fear, barely

borrowed from your commerce eyes,

a pause in my century stare, a schism vision

of a puffball plantation, wary of

the tick-tack laptop consequences.

Discern the mere holler of a dollar down,

soundless pestilence in the palm court.

Eerie trajectories of a cramped corridor,

the surge inflicted by inflections past.

In person, on point.

I'm here wherever weaving trends send a

message to my moron toes, the news frozen.

Closures surround the common corners

voicing the swoop of an anthem

…damn the manageable meanings.

Could the very workaday perk up

my errant ears? Can the stance of a dancer

manipulate the center stage?

Or must I mop the millionaire's forehead,

unmask his subcutaneous pores?

I'd drink a sinkful of gladdened magnets,

darkly draw the curtains for emerging moonbeams

scheming to envelop the pulp and panache,

in future volumes well-versed in

the doggerel of a fogbound clown.

Waive the price of long-grain rice,

the burrow widened by a wiseguy mole,

then heed the bellow of celery stalks their

talkative lipgloss. Heap wishes on a silver star

alluring skies, the nascent night.

Pretend words are woolly stems in a trend

of buy and sell, clever puns impending pearls

of woodshed wisdom, morphed into

border cops in shiny badge arrangements

…true to the nicotine peril.

Wriggle the pencil point forward with the hiss

of hands swiping the likely plight of credit cards

enlightened by sight gags ingenious

in their common denominator

of trip-stumble-and-fall.

Lips clash of wishes tossed like ripe squash

in sautéed skillets, the perk a pile of

wiccan knives in size 8 sheaths, itching

to inscribe their drifty slogans

into an arm of justice.

              

IF NONE BE THE NUMBER

       for Gerard Manley Hopkins

If flimsy whims spew skewed flaws

slightly ajar with raw fire, then wring my

free reeling will its wheeling worth,

a tenth of might my meteor.

If few be elegant my names

for your sculpted face

ascending the ranks of speakless reach,

then wrest the empty nuggets out

from my dryest mouth.

If none be the number of my shy praises

for your lady’s ways

your wordy whims your pudding hands

your fairest yes

then damn be the curse that lay upon

the pale brown earth

one bleary skyless desert-riddled dearth.

If woe be the silence I pay

with awkward artifice,

the lisp that lingers in long reminders

then I, witness of your favored features

must pay endless cash unkind

ever-mourned by my sad hand laden

with hardened time.

                                     ---Mitch Corber

Mitch Corber has recited his musical language poetry throughout

New York City. He’s appeared in Columbia Poetry Review, and appears

online in Blackbox Manifold 4, Blazevox, Listenlight, Polarity, and

far out further out out of sight. Corber founded the extensive

Thin Air Video Poetry DVD Archives (thinairvideo.com) which includes

Ginsberg, Corso, Ashbery, Di Prima, and Cage, and hundreds of

contemporary poets. Winner of a New York Foundation for the Arts

grant, Mitch is director-videographer of NYC's current weekly

Poetry Thin Air Cable Show, a chapbook publisher and a singer/

songwriter. You can receive Corber's well-received poetry book

Quinine (published by Thin Air Media) by sending a request to

poetrythinair@earthlink.net.