Uncle Ross

Technical Drawing by Ross Feld

It’s different than invention, burdocks
pulled off alone, let’s say alone.

I can’t take my own comparisons
nor make active the dumb rust machines
that are leased within.

Call it what you like but what rhymes
with peach is reach, teach,
beseech, all in a chorus of some positive
drawl, getting there.

Or with cherry? merry, berry, ferry
into some days you can’t get enough of.

But my invention. Not the novel of
insects. Plum with
dumb, come, some rum
soaked half-life burning

and sighing in a small wind.
Inadequate. My song sung. And just
too much for invention, phased

out, obsolete, parsed.

Reveille

The heart is too easily awakened by things
like the telephone. It is whipped from
its own tired science by a

noise, it sets down the figures of women
who ran, wild-haired, thru its dream. Women,
scenting the world with morning,
cut grass, damp breasts, an
odor of plums.
The heart lay there absolutely
mute and fascinated

by these visitors who had something
to do with happiness but now it

drops them and they crack. Broken women,
broken plums. The telephone rings and says,

"This is the operator,
Fuck you."