Cyrano fait hommage à l’italien rétif
de un deux trois cinq huit et treize indélicats rongeurs
Répine à l’aquarelle fait de grands poissons plats
devenir congres roses gonflés au blanc de baleine
Bérénice admirative et muette
supprime un pur joyau de notre côte d’Azur.

Cyrano met de l’encaustique
sur de simples bagues nuptiales
Amélie nous intime de prendre connaisance
d’une maxime qui dénonce la fange en nous
et Caton s’interroge aussi
sur le peu de réalité de ce qui semble nous appartenir.

Cyrano règne nous dit-on
sur une forme traditionelle du théâtre japonais
Molière est la chimère l’hybride inouï
d’un lexique grimpant et d’un herbier loquace
Chaliapine eut l’atroce idée du nœud coulant
pour tarir celui des ennuques.

Cyrano salue la princesse grande bretonne
d’un “monsieur” qui la choque
Babeuf fait monter en neige
les grands rouquins de son étable
Guignol a distillé près des branches d’un chêne
le sein qui danse au lieu du gland.

Cyrano reproche à ce ténor du barreau parisien
son excessive pingrerie
Cléopatre ouvre grande à nos moutons
l’idée même d’une ouverture
Ronsard ira cueillir des mûres
pour offrir avec un poème à celle qui s’imagine.

Cyrano apprend avec stupeur
le nom du meurtrier de Robert Kennedy
Esther gardera-t-elle le silence
sur un souffle oriental qui nous endort?
Mallarmé cherche dans l’Azur
un révolver qui garde sa valise.

– Paul Braffort

Cyrano pays tribute to the rebellious Italian
of one two three five eight and thirteen dishonest rodents
Répine watercolors fish large and flat
to become pink congers swollen with spermaceti
Bérénice admiring and speechless
suppresses a pure jewel from our Côte d’Azur.

Cyrano applies wax
on simple wedding bands
Amelie intimates we take knowledge
of a maxim which denounces the mire within
and Caton also wonders
about the little reality of what seems to belong to us.

Cyrano rules, they tell us, over
a traditional form of Japanese theater
Molière is the unheard-of hybrid chimera
of a climbing dictionary and a talkative herbarium
Chaliapine had the atrocious idea of a slipknot
to dry up those of the eunuchs.

Cyrano greets the British princess
with a “sir” that shocks her
Babeuf whips up a storm
with the redheads in his stable
near the branches of an oak Guignol distills
the dancing chest in lieu of the nut.

Cyrano reproaches the famous Parisian lawyer
for his excessive stinginess
Cleopatra opens wide to our sheep
the same idea as an overture
Ronsard will go gather ripe berries
to offer with a poem to she who imagines.

Cyrano learns with stupefaction
the name of Robert Kennedy’s assassin
Will Esther keep silent
about the oriental breath that lulls us?
Mallarmé looks to the Azure
for a revolver which guards his suitcase.

1. i

Six rats Nos.
Rép pine
Bée reine Nice

2. ∞

Cire anneau
Ame élie lie, améliore
Qu’a t-on?

3. verbarium (gabby trees)

Sire à Noh
Mot lierre
Chat lia pine

5. le cinq y danse

Sir Anne? No!
Bat-bœufs
Guigneool

8. ate’m

Sire, ah non!
Clef aux pâtres
Ronce art

13. très à l’aise

Sirhan, oh!
Est ether
Malle armée

Vent d’Est vent d’Ouest mon frisson sait où vient la foudre
et le nuage gris verse un flot blanc de poudre
Allergique au moindre fardeau mis à l’essai :
la peau est si âpre au gramme

C’est le centre du monde ou bien c’est la banlieue
L’azur monte la côte aux bottes de sept lieues
Est-ce un piège roman pour marin snob? Laissez
l’appeau Eze y happe rogue rames

Poète sauras-tu dire où tes métaphores
le levain du Levant et la mie du Bosphore
Car le boule de mots que moule un beau vers c’est
LA POESIE A PROGRAMME

– Paul Braffort

East wind West wind my shiver knows where lightning comes to
and the gray cloud pours a powder-white deluge
Allergic to the least burden put to the test:
skin is so rough by the gram

It’s the center of the world, or it’s the outskirts
In seven-league boots the azure mounts the coast
Is it a novel trap for marine snob? Desist
the decoy Eze catch rogue rams

Poet will you know how to say where your metaphors
the leaven of Levant and the crumb of Bosforus
because the dough of words that molds beautiful verse is
POETRY PROGRAMMED

Ever feel you are a rat going through
and beyond the walls of your maze, fully
aware that your tale, on fire, bleeds type O?
Poet, unshell lit rat churr word shop.

Yours is no mere paw, your hands brew
the perfect stew to indulge your belly.
Around this bouquet garni, tie a bow:
potent shallot era char whirr chop.

An open-air semaphore code: tattoo
a ball of words and wall of birds. Li-
Po’s mountain teaches embrace the typo—
POTENTIAL LITERATURE WORKSHOP

Which Is Raising Its Little Hand

the meadow faints and empire
is no more—now it’s tomorrow
as usual—the radio purls over pages
of last words—images of hearts blotter blotter blot—
news of rosemary
lamb comes on a warm wind—honeybee,
take me to your
glinting onward—
little city’s twinkle-pulse, signposts
pockmarked from buckshot

green on green on green on green—
before the feather fell on the grass
it was set against cirrus—thistledown,
thistledown—this is how
it summers here—

Dawn Is a Long Time Coming

this here is Isis, is her statue
crumbling—

tinoilmatch glass glass glass

smarmy little river
rivery little arms wearily weeping
iotasmus, wise little letter
—Inc. & Co. stained the water—
sundown on a still lake

the sun is bigger than its own light

glasstinoil match match match

stars crushed into the desert
are a one-act play—
briskly done, charges pressed
were never printed—what
lovely smiles you all have—whatever’s next
happens quick: sprinklers
on my face—sunset
in the water—beautiful little
no-stain—keep on left,
straighten the till, every penny’s accounted—

loneliness is what
angels catch in the day—the moon
is a spoon breaking water—gun-metal
for a long time, marked by wine in its travels

—foodstamp coin-op treasured trash
spitshine lightup a boozehound’s last dollar
now howbout now
soakup bottle olive little boilover

Lifted Out of the Sea

the hydrant, a pineapple—this,
her easel knows—painter breaks it
open, spills—what’s the moon’s
sobriquet? the sun’s?—fine, thanks
for asking, retsina! retsina! pour it
on, hillside plated with bayleaves,
birds wheeling in semilunar blue
arrow (→) → (arrow) dot (·) · (dot)
lilies and lilies give way to sunhoney.
green grass is big magic, light
streaming through the lawn’s blades
—tiny wheelbarrow spokes and thimbles in
a matchbox—every nook holds a stowaway
—give the peasant in stitches a crate
of candles—coins emit no light,
untowardly wayward. all
on the canvas now—the dovecotes,
the midden—dot to dot—the hues
deepen—arrow to arrow—light coming
from different distances—blue phlox
to blue phlox along the hillside

death stutters

in the voice

of a judge

ostrich-headed

predilections

blatant and grave

the body asks

for frost

the mind frontal

watching the avalanche

on bone’s white page

opaque wide space

filled with zeroes

and feathers

limit abetting

abstraction

gone with only

one breath

[without motive]

meaning

unconscious

under

the book

of saints

base metal

urgency lifted

gray words

save nothing

at rumor’s door

detection

masked as a gift

to meaning we came
across foci, a matter of
doing by faith alone, of
a fire centered in itself, in
principle we lengthened
to adjust, by a raylight
as refraction, after vision
points converge, turning
a beam distinct, dense,
another object, breaking
up through traveling, we
entered, index, essence.

A frame in which a window

to admit light into instance of organs, render
an area to during, sash under intention,
something separated to be contained, the air

before collapse, the air disconnects
by glass, to sort a part and divide without
divorce, a sunder from the others, outlet

to the scheduled, still a socket, circuit
somehow of the binding views, of things
growing together of separate parts, edges

the joiner to enlist in a line, a straight
line resisting invasion of curve, set
to withstand, opposing something else.

Mr. Magnifying Glass
     for Alexander Long

Larger and larger still,
taking on the wind,
each is hunches up against a series

of arrests. Upright roughly,
round-shouldered.
Pockets full of logs.

Thrown on a fire,
they spatter the calm with ash,
rushing everyone with black

scribbles from the guts
of cracked walnuts.
The crooked tree and the everyone

are mirror images; they shake
together and something reaches
for a chainsaw.

The cord slaps a fence.
The clock is always counting.
Tidy calculations case the place,

trim and drape the hedges.
The mulch sweeps over
the fallen hornets’ nests.

Metal

I bang on a door and it yields
aluminum flashing. Seeing no payoff
nor seam, I wield a steel-toed shoe.

The door becomes a shield.
Is there a rubbertree plant nearby?
I am covered in mud over digging,

and soggy-heeled.
I have kneeled in the local landfills,
made many meals of them;

I thus have sealed some very rotten deals.
Curse it all, I mutter. Count me out.
I’ve reeled like this. Subtraction

and retraction. I’ll steal
from rummage sales and dried up taps,
I’ll wheel away their crap.

I’m on my back and peeling
off the bitch-slaps. Consider me a stray
fielding all in you that’s kind—

and then, the great reveal :: bottom’s up! ::
an over-suckled belly,
an old, tin shack akeel.

Landscapes with Salmon and Small Countries

Sans a pusher of connection,
maybe I wouldn’t get so ‘this.’
Salmon policy: exile

by return-negotiation.
I am talking (talk is cheap)
land and they, crazy

tenancy under the to be
of where each one was born.
Crash course: Take the main

and fall headfirst and fast;
take the strongest impulse
and wonder long and upright.

Handsome little heads fret
on hardiness and grand design
while nits pick out the operative

theory. Rhetorical query:
where do mules go
when their saddlebags are empty?

I took the beachhouse route
and am convicted
of sitting on my couch.

The helicopter of abandon
shows its slick belly—
structure of far off, high riser,

seam splitting or otherwise—
a terribly comic novella
headed toward the Swedes.

I had made a quick deposit
to the safe of baits & switches.
Instinct said No other bank but.

Take the red banana tree—
a tropic is anywhere
one thrives.