Three Poems

by Cedar Sigo

Blue Moon

    (Three takes on Alfred Starr Hamilton)

For I pulled my blue coat over my subway sleeve

I had to leave to let the cat out

I had just enough change to ride it to the end

The lines corresponded to the rainbow bolted map

I was nearly shot. The same vampires casting about underground

The country folk had caught up with my manner of hearing

Such resonant shapes meant danger

The golden poem is a flower dropped on its head

Broken open bleeding in a pool

And through death we incite further poets

We nail the old bottles to the wooden box

*

Aren’t we all dying to vacation?

Aren’t we all mad from wasted money?

Aren’t we all scribbling into invisible lockets?

Aren’t we all trying to form the perfect search?

Don’t we wish to be left alone in a workroom?

Aren’t we all waiting for the cake to cool until it’s iced?

*

A brown rooming house withered

Kept up all night

With frozen flickering lights

Incision

for Norma Cole

The gauze

in hair-sprayed    lilac

                    mist 

out from her green box

                                        she draws 

innumerable

                     diagonal swords

                     each pointed 

inward

                             definite kingdoms

         announcing their

                                        grip in flickers

                        always with adjacent 

alloyed 

counting house                a blizzard

                        of crystal is blushing

           outside the searchlights

all shored up

                             at rest

       full pleasure

past our secret

                                we will continue in our work                  

                                                 and bodies

    no choice

                as to when

architecture 

            must intervene

(sun beheaded-blank-no blood)

        It is the occasional 

bend in a turnpike 

                             a long curve

           to break

                           my fitful sleep

A trampling heard

                                            clearly

                            intermittent

 nails

                           pounded around 

                            the door 

more snow 

                            is springing loose

Our Lives

 for Julian Talamantez Brolaski

Thinking back

after all 

we have done

just to write

it plainly as fact

would be beautiful

with no choice

tangle

or conveyor 

for rest

words get

replayed endlessly

anyway

our light

shall be termed 

queer

and superior 

STAR