Hey Mr. Archangel

Ending up
In your presence
Later tonight
Will not be quite
By accident

Whether sitting alone
Or with my wife
It was she who
First brought
The notion to mind

Although I should
Also mention
I personally arranged
For an extravagant bouquet
Of white flowers

Two geraniums
On either side
Of a towering
Snap Dragon together
Serve as backdrop
To a teardrop orchid
Ladled on top
Of a green chevron
Why don't you come in
And see for yourself

And this poem in the form
Of a prayer is what
I'm thinking right now
Whether it carries you
Over the threshold or not
Only time will tell

Two by personal invitation
One by intuition
And then as to
The three wishes
Let them come
Straight away
As my heart swings open
Like a garden gate

Perhaps Enlightenment
Always proceeds this way
Cross-crossing
City side streets
And narrow alleyways
Up the back stairs
Until St. Thomas and the others
Arrive with a rustle of wind
And unpack their bags
For a five night stay

To Fellow Members of the Academy

Unsure on which particular day
I first became a member
Of the American Academy
Of those who dabble in verse

I found myself sitting down
From time to time
In front of the typewriter
With an energy that was
Incredibly succinct

Though nearly capable
Of bursting through my capillaries
That’s how sharply it pulsed at times
And how much I found myself
In need of release whether
By means of measured rhyme
Or just the reverse

It came to me
Line by line
Like an extension of my very self
Yet also as if begotten by ghost hand
Powered or perhaps informed
By someone other than I

All the while
It resonated so deeply
From soles to crown
Measuring the totality
Of who and what I am

So now I say
Let poetry itself
Be the foundation’s rock
I don’t need Harriet Monroe
Or anyone else to help decide
In point of fact
And difficult though it may be
To get the news from poems
Let no man die for lack thereof
For want of trying

Qing Chou and Lao Nian

I trouble myself
Now and again
Thinking about
The three stages
In the life of man
Qing Chou and Lao Nian

Wondering where
In their midst
I presently stand
Betwixt the there I go
And the here I am
Not entirely sure
I still know the difference
Between Qing Chou and Lao Nian

At MOMA Wendesday Afternoon

By the Philip Guston
You stood deep in
Contemplation
For a long while while I
Blackberry in hand
Proceeded through
The arabesques
And swirls heading
Towards whatever
Next came to mind

Not long after
Pollack realized
He wasn't Picasso
You saw how he figured it out
Through a flick of the wrist
Paint thick on the brush

And in the room next but one
There it was again
An image that lingered
On the retina of
Barnett Newman’s inner eye
Abstraction made
More vivid through
The pushing and shoving
Until you stood
At the very forefront
Of daylight's parade

Then heading down the corridor
Twenty years in the making
By Rothko in contention
With failing light itself
Along the dimming path
Of a darkening palette

It was precisely then
I understood you
As a student in
In the same academy
The same impulse of light
Though sometimes
Inclined to take up
Disguise just
The reverse

With a firm grip on the brush
The horsehairs bristle with life
In a virtual reenactment of
The flowering act
You follow a genetically
Determined path just like
A bumblebee races along
The curve of light
Enfolding the tip
Of the hibiscus bud
Next about to bloom

Sonnet No. Thirty-Two

If I just happen to be
Wearing a cardigan
Due to inclement weather
And there’s no message
Inscribed either in the top
Or bottom of the bottle
And I’m stuck in the middle
Of the universe trying
To clear my mind in preparation
For rhyming meter or blank verse
Though a paper cut may give rise
To a daub of blood upon my brow
As I prepare once more
To assume my forgetful state
Let the real world slip
A continent or two away
Though I remain incarnadine
In an inconsequential sort of way

From the Extension Chord series by Brad Melamed

In the Jungles of the Heart

for Sarah K

Via the hyperlink
You sent me yesterday
I saw this video clip
Of a captive lion
Who through the bars of his cage
Gave capacious embrace
To his indigenous savior

This being no mean trick
Accompanied by a typically
Incoherent news report
I imagined the back story
Of this noble beast
Enslaved by some Colombian drug lord
And then for reasons obscure
Perhaps as the federales
Pressed in was cut loose
To fend for himself
A monarch exiled
An ocean or two
Away from his
Original realm

Surely any king
Would likely starve
Finding himself thus deserted
And dethroned
If not for the apparition
Of a savior of last resort
Passing through the forest
In act of loving kindness
To the animal shelter brought
The starving lion and
To good health it restored

And to see the lion thus
Embrace its maiden savior
Is to know gratitude
Is not to humanity confined
But as with other feelings
Thus refined
They're equally shared
By us with animalkind
We have such likeness undeniable
Being all sisters and brothers
From the Pekinese tossed
Roughly to the curbside
To the raven proudly sporting
The tools she has made

And thus we all
Grieve over our
Respective Edens
And savannas lost
And dream of lifetime restored
To our full natural glory
Instead of living out
Until the end of days
Being everywhere confined
By this widening pall


If and when the day comes and
It's our turn to be struck
By hunger and despair
Whether in dark forest solitude
Or a cage of our own making
Much better that we remember
There's a Natural order
That overlays the statutes
By which we humans aspired
The entire world to enslave

And by standing upright
We all may better clasp the bars
That have kept us apart
Almost embracing
Each other
Skin to skin
Lions and humans
We're creatures akin
To each other beholden
And it’s the same love
That rules the jungle
Inside every beating heart

A Short Poem for William Blake

The deeper into the purple
Of the world that I get
The more I discover
Whether to better
Or pleasure yourself
First you must put
One skate forward
And then the other

Not always marked
By urban woe
These faces I see
When I’m pedaling so
Cousin Billy

That’s the way it is
Not everywhere
But more yes than no
Among the places I know
Deeper into the purple
Where I choose to go

Photo by Marissa Bridge