AN END, THUS A BEGINNING
A renewal,
The rosy dove returned
With a fragment
Of a sweet-pea vine wrapped around her leg,
Under her knee, a pink bloom.
This blue-jay day started as an acute angle,
With Circe’s song spinning in my ears,
Changed
By the sight of gourds
Into an awkward circle
Whose
Circumference
still retrained
in the resumption
The bumpy curve
Of an aged, marred, angelic burlesque dancer.
Euclid stepped out into this wind,
His sleeves flopped.
Queasy. I stayed among the caravans of leaves
Gazing at their cargoes, the eggs of cardinals.
Trenches were dug by moles in the garden
As if it were to be a settling for battle scenes
In a World War I movie. Mushroom, helmets.
Decided to spent the rest of the day outside
With wine until the moon. My life
Had been renewed, rewound on a spool.
When unwound, it will be a new thread
To weave a new reality, although the new
Thread will be knotted from being broken.
A PLACE IN ITALY NEVER VISITED BY TOURIST
The vermilion ruts through the green lacy grasses
Led to
The gold glow of pigs standing on a base
Of black, blue mud.
The swineherd was a barefoot girl
Who spun a red carnation in her sun burnt hand
As she walked and sung a song from old Napoli.
I had stepped outside of a church
Where I came to view a stiff Byzantine Madonna
In green and gold mosaics
With some pink for her face.
Being restored, her coral lips were crossed by scaffold shadows.
When I saw the barefoot girl and pigs, I never went back inside.
The girl still walks,
And the pigs still glow
In my mind.
GRANDEUR
Strong winds
Forecast a storm
When the lights go out,
And the clocks stop.
The tin fell
From the roof
Of a new slum house
Built by a slum landlord.
The tin propped
Itself up on an oak,
Was shook by fists
Of the wind.
The shaking sent out
Flashes like lightning
To illumine the sculptured shapes
Of the deep crimson ant bodies.
A terrestrial illumination,
The earth revealed,
These ants crawling on darkness
Dug up from the earth.
GOLD-EDGED GRASSES
Gold edges nipped
On the cold, grayed grasses,
Flame after flame,
As if a thousand stars burned gold.
Warm this slight sun on a winter day.
ON SUNDAY AT TEN, FORTY-TWO A.M., I STAND AT
EAST GATE,WEST GATE, SOUTH GATE, NORTH GATE
All my cats and frogs well fed,
My earthworms are joyous
As they swish through the mud
Left after the heavy rains.
My blue jays dance on orange tree limbs.
I sat down by some weeds newly sprung from the earth,
Cast the language of lies out of my mind,
Studied the mysteries of the weeds.
As I stroll around bamboo,
I am riding on a happy water buffalo.
I rake blue stones into a blue pile;
I look at my hands, they hold nothing.
|
 Duane Locke
2716 Jefferson Street
Tampa, FL 33602-16200
| Announcing: THREE NEW BOOKS OF POEMS By Duane Locke
[Duane Locke has renounced print publication to publish electronically. Duane Locke has over 4,000 poems published, over 2,000 in print publications, American Poetry Review, etc. and since September 1999, over 2,000 in e zines.]
E books (all published in 2002):
1. The Squid's Dark Ink-$. 99
The Ze Book Company | ZeBookZine@aol.com
2. From a Tiny Room-4.50 Euros
Otto E Books (Spain) | guiam@wol.s
3. Death of Daphne-$5.00
4*9*1 | Stompdcr@aol.com | Walksfreeman@aol.com
4. Memiors of Damniso Lopez-$ 5.OO
4*9*1
5. Luncheon Duets or Solipsistic Solioquies
of George Samson-$5.00
Print Book:
6. Watching Wistera, paperback $9.95, Hardcover, #19.95
Vida Publishing | iod@ironoverload.org
Or from Barnes and Noble, Amazon
|
[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in English Renaissance literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, was Poet in Residence at the University of Tampa for over 20 years. Has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander. Is author of 14 print books of poems, the latest is WATCHING WISTERIA ( to order write Vida Publishing, P.O. Box 12665, Lake, Park, FL. 33405-0665, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Since September 1999, he became a cyber poet and started submitting on-line, and since September 1999 he has added to his over 2,000 print acceptances with 1,195 acceptances by e zines.
He is also a painter. Now has exhibitions at Thomas Center Galleries (Gainesville, FL) and Tyson Trading Company (Micanopy, FL) Recently a one-man show at Pyramid Galleries (Tampa, FL)
Also, a photographer, has had 116 of his photos selected for appearance on e zines. He photographs trash in alleys. Moves in close to find beauty in what people have thrown away.
He now lives alone in a two-story decaying house in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives isolated and estranged as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language (some form of postmodern English) of his neighbors. The egregious ugliness of his neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic efforts of the police force who put bright orange and yellow posters on the posts to advertise the location is a shopping mall for drugs. His alley is the dumping ground for stolen cars. One advantage
Of living in this neighborhood, if your car is stolen, you can step out in the back and pick it up. Also, the burglars are afraid to come in on account of the muggers.
His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philosophy.
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