Homagaic Elegies

After Mathews, mentor,

            who never met me:  I, too,

like the smell of burning bridges

but only if I have set

the blaze.

After Ashbery, without a snowball

            in hell to refer to as dull:

it was exhausting placing

the coat on the shoulders

of the fairy,

wasn’t it?

After Young, after Mary’s response

            regarding traffic signals and M

possible biological positions,

no one holds hands

any more for

long.

Not dead?  What matter that

if rivers rise to blues on warm evenings

in springs that dream of autumns?

Buried is a state of mind

as is breath.  And its rhyme.

After Celan, sacred

            right? blood also flows

under the coagulation, under

the flame, the bridge carries

water home

rises to meet, joins to part,

this is the prank which water,

like words, breaks

the fill

in the blank.

© 2012 – Mark A. Douglas – All Rights Reserved