Charles F. Thielman – Ⅲ
Parking Lot View
Blank page waiting as a calico cat
peers below azaleas from beneath
a neighbor’s Chevy, blue hiss of rain
through fir and spruce, avenues emptied
of midnight, lit votives on work-room sill.
Winter’s approach governed only by currents,
various inner priests cassock time-sponge shadows
over his pen. Being a recovering Catholic, powerless
over wafers much less sin, o Yes!, he has often enough
felt the willow branches of blame slice waves
into a drizzle, spent many pages initialing stumps,
grains of truth camouflaged then twine-bound upriver
from birch as moon glints littered the dark bones of his steps.
In an hour, the lot will begin another work-day parade, dreams
of absolution fading below welcome mat headlines as clouds
belly into gale, robes of gust after gust blown rain brushing brow
and palm as the sky flutes its hard grace, the lot pulsing out car, car,
Jarrett milking the ivory keys, jazz draping dracaena and coleus,
page like an empty barge launched at twilight, gray dawn
soon to spill crows from trees, his rubble fed fissures
soon to sprout ink blooms, a good line or two
as fin flash and mirage lick his peripheries.
Blank page waiting as a calico cat
peers below azaleas from beneath
a neighbor’s Chevy, blue hiss of rain
through fir and spruce, avenues emptied
of midnight, lit votives on work-room sill.
Winter’s approach governed only by currents,
various inner priests cassock time-sponge shadows
over his pen. Being a recovering Catholic, powerless
over wafers much less sin, o Yes!, he has often enough
felt the willow branches of blame slice waves
into a drizzle, spent many pages initialing stumps,
grains of truth camouflaged then twine-bound upriver
from birch as moon glints littered the dark bones of his steps.
In an hour, the lot will begin another work-day parade, dreams
of absolution fading below welcome mat headlines as clouds
belly into gale, robes of gust after gust blown rain brushing brow
and palm as the sky flutes its hard grace, the lot pulsing out car, car,
Jarrett milking the ivory keys, jazz draping dracaena and coleus,
page like an empty barge launched at twilight, gray dawn
soon to spill crows from trees, his rubble fed fissures
soon to sprout ink blooms, a good line or two
as fin flash and mirage lick his peripheries.