Bindweed
I peered into the sex of yellow primroses
to look for yellow spiders that lurk therein,
and I found a few, but what then to do
but look upon them squatting crabwise
amid stamens, pistils and the yellow stuff
of life that powders our cars like sulfur?
Immovable un-movers. Eyes wandered
while the mind still nestled. Twin vines
strangled its stalk like snakey filigree
and a pink trumpet blossom poked forth
brazen anther sacs for every winged
thing to see. They lolled down like ornate
glass lampshades that once cast a cone
of yellow light on the quiet knitting
or a soft plop of cigar ashes exploding
as mute dust on drooping newspapers
where old folks of our youth drowsed
in their brocaded easy chairs. What tells
a tendril’s blind tremble to bend,
then spiral up a stalk? I don’t ask how,
but why? Of course gaudy glass lamps
were cast as fluted morning glories,
wherein dainty fairies with gossamer wings
might lounge legs-crossed, cute antennae
nodding on delicate filaments—perhaps
when poets still painted green trellises
of creeping vines about the margins
of their verses, before our austere eyes,
impatient with the inexorable creep
of florid clutter turned our hasty gazes
away from weedy snarls to stainless steel.
to look for yellow spiders that lurk therein,
and I found a few, but what then to do
but look upon them squatting crabwise
amid stamens, pistils and the yellow stuff
of life that powders our cars like sulfur?
Immovable un-movers. Eyes wandered
while the mind still nestled. Twin vines
strangled its stalk like snakey filigree
and a pink trumpet blossom poked forth
brazen anther sacs for every winged
thing to see. They lolled down like ornate
glass lampshades that once cast a cone
of yellow light on the quiet knitting
or a soft plop of cigar ashes exploding
as mute dust on drooping newspapers
where old folks of our youth drowsed
in their brocaded easy chairs. What tells
a tendril’s blind tremble to bend,
then spiral up a stalk? I don’t ask how,
but why? Of course gaudy glass lamps
were cast as fluted morning glories,
wherein dainty fairies with gossamer wings
might lounge legs-crossed, cute antennae
nodding on delicate filaments—perhaps
when poets still painted green trellises
of creeping vines about the margins
of their verses, before our austere eyes,
impatient with the inexorable creep
of florid clutter turned our hasty gazes
away from weedy snarls to stainless steel.
