Barry Spacks has had "about 350 poems published in every conceivable journal over all these many years since the Punic Wars, also stories, two novels, etc., etc.--seven poetry collections from such publishers as Harper's, Doubleday, U. of Georgia series, Godine, Johns Hopkins (Spacks Street: New & Selected Poems, winner of the Commonwealth Club of California's Poetry Medal) -- plus multi years of teaching at M.I.T. & U.C. Santa Barbara mainly, shoe size 11B."
Loud boss jay
*
perches on sugarbowl:
pecks -- bowl wobbles --
self-frighted, flies.Jay's feather-horn --
*
dumbhead dunce cap...
or warrior-helmet,
pointing The Way?A towel covers food...
*
at each end a jay
could lift it, pure Disney --
but...work together?Jays between forays:
no different from humans:
beaks always slightly
open.
They appear and appear in cascades, the Angels.
Many, wingless, seem simply human,
only revealed through their wit and glow
as an intercession of Angels.Even mere stones might in truth be Angels
brilliantly disguised;
say the stone on which you stubbed your hobbled
foot, and pausing to nurse the hurtarrived too late at the crossroads to murder
your father-the-stranger passing by.
Even a dustmote might be an Angel.
Ah. Ah. Very ah.Even a thought...an indrawn breath...
"Perfection of the life, or of the work."
--W.B. YeatsSomehow surviving my education,
contradicting Yeats, imagine!
I footnote this line as I weave through the dark:
"No, sir, baby -- 'and'."