Heroic Tenors

Daydream

—Poems and Photos by Robert Lee Haycock, Antioch

ON A PHOTOGRAPH OF BUSTER KEATON

He was I
And I am he
Not a question if I wanna be
Bounce me
Break me
Let me fade to black
I am dying
But I won't tell
I was beautiful
Did you notice?

 Light Bearer and Brother Sun

SO WHAT

What was that you said?
The wind carried your words away
Before my ears could taste them.
What did you see?
I need your eyes for mine
Are rusty with too many tears.
What meant you?
I meant to mean the world to you
So busy living beyond my means.
And what of your dreams?
I would be your heroic tenor
But I fear I only number among the supernumeraries.

 Things You Do For Love

MUSIC

My grandmother's guitar hangs next to my bed
A wedding present from my grandfather to her
The label inside says 'Orpheus'
Orpheus and Gammy and Papa long dead but still singing
Next to a photograph I surprised out of Mayme
A smile by the lake in Paradise
I tried to teach myself to tease music from those strings
So many summery lifetimes ago
Bloody fingers for all my fumblings
How I wish you were here
To kiss away that pain and this

 Things You Do For Love, II

EMBROIDERED

And those things dimly known
That will not brook elucidation
Do they hide from the light
Or are they mere and merely invisible?
Hold it in your hands
This deliciousness of silk and hemp
Belying amplification
Defying expansion
Make it big as a wall if you will
But what then of holy intimacy?

 Everything Old is New Again

WHERE I COME FROM

Eveningshade
Arkansas
My grandmother was born there
Great grandmother too
They never met Burt Reynolds
Not that they ever mentioned
But Gammy might have had
A subscription to Playgirl
She was always full of surprises

_______________________

Today's LittleNip:

Delicious Autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.

—George Eliot

_______________________

—Medusa

Pieces of My Day