After a poem by George Rouault

The trees at nightfall, mistral-tossed,
swept darkly at a sky embossed
with stars. The solemn hermit gazed
upon this firmament, unfazed
again by symbols of success,
the stars parading in their tress
of laurels. “Brrrr, it’s cold,” he said,
and pushed his black hat on a head
around which laurels never spun
or turned from green to grey or dun.

A hearty winter psalm, the redbreast robins work 

the holly tree from misty base camps in the wood 

across the street. They disappear into the green 

to pop out one by one and cut through icy air 

en route to comrades waiting in the naked sticks. 

And aren’t redbreasts thought to be a sign of spring? 



Disturbing all the new-dropped snow, the branches spring 

their badly-camouflaged brigades. Today, the work 

of man is complicated by a slush that sticks 

to everything, including cords of firewood 

left stacked beneath the vagaries of the open air. 

Neglect and reckoning. And still, the evergreen, 



resplendent in its alb, convenes a wintergreen 

communion. Slings the laity. A constant spring 

of russet softballs, the preliminary air- 

support for April’s landing party, sets to work 

across the wires. It flips to dodging patterns that would 

throw the errant angels earthward as it sticks 



to spearfish diving. Crimson fruit, the sticks 

and brambles, snow and sunlight complement the green 

Cathedral of the Mistletoe. The ice and wood 

will be here in the morning. Set the spring 

of winter’s clock to wind as slowly and to work 

as unpredictably as cloudlines in the air. 



They’re everywhere, endowing the suburban air 

with Hitchcock premonition. Here’s a scene that sticks 

with you and draws you in. Inspired by the work 

of Bruegel and Hieronymus—the devil’s green, 

a pastorale of grey and white—these songs that spring 

across the lawn have sketchy harmonies, a wood 



ensemble hitting strings and tympani with wood 

and wind that lift the redbreast to its hectic air. 

Survival. To a resurrection at the dawn of spring 

as in its transit from the holly to the sticks, 

it comes to light upon a crucifix. The green- 

sward is a mirror of the heavens now, the work 



of a capricious God, a work of frozen wood. 

The swelling in the green will flutter in the air 

as, tentative, the sticks hold out a prayer for spring.

From February, 2008

Let’s get naked and dig The Doors
Let’s be German between the wars
Pitch our tents in the finer stores
And chant down Babylon’s hockey scores
Embarrass our riches
Discover our pores
In bed with a belly-up Texan who snores
In debt to our atavist dinosaurs
Instead of the capital bankers and whores
The future’s devoid of the obvious bores
And the sun doesn’t blow in the end
It roars

Oil on canvas, 9″ x 12″

Oil on canvas, 18″ x 14″

His brother had a recipe for clouds,
but that was more a formula for magic
than for chemistry, a kind of tragic
folding of ingredients as shrouds
of cumuli advanced outside the lab,
above the kitchen where he couldn’t see
and wouldn’t have been able to decree
that all of heaven is a cake to grab
and carry in a shoebox to his room
where he could sleep on it and tell his friends
about the view, the colors from inside
as he gazed out from where the cloud line ends
or down into the bowl of murky gloom
he stirred, refrigerated, spooned and fried.

Around the corner,
or whistling down the river…—Stephen Sondheim

It starts with photos on the front page of the Times—
Remember Giuliani with the holy men?
Well, today, another candidate has hats and beards
surrounding him. Hevesi is it? Maybe Green.
Ah, the primaries. The possibility of change
pervading skies of adamant cerulean

this morning over Vesey Street. Cerulean,
the coolest shade of blue. And there were several times
this weekend that I tuned in to impending change—
the news of an assassination, where two men
in Afghanistan who posed as journalists in green
and yellow mufti did the job. I saw his beard

and turban, this Massoud, the photo of the beards
and hats around him as they stood beneath cerulean
Afghan skies. Now, I’ll admit to being green
regarding Middle East affairs despite my Times
subscriptions (New York and Financial). But these men
affected me–somehow the news suggested change

beyond their bleak Afghanistan. The theme of change
had surfaced Saturday—“Russ Tamblyn!!? Where’s the beard?!”
I shouted, watching West Side Story. All the men
in Sharks and Jets were sliding through the high cerulean
rooftops. And I shouted to my daughter every time
the camera panned and pointed down toward Bowling Green,

“What’s missing?” Technicolor slid across the screen
into the harbor. “How about the Towers, Em! Some changes
since they filmed this in the ‘60s!” “Heady times,”
she quipped.

This morning as I ponder hats and beards,
the candidates and Afghans fighters, a cerulean
canopy unfolds above the plaza. Men

and women glide in countervailing currents, men
and women moving to and from the towers. Green
and yellow banners gently sway in the cerulean
light in which the engines haven’t faded. Change
is revving engines to a pillow punch, a beard
of contrails on the face of fire. End of Times

meet Genesis. The Times will count the firemen.
And I will start a winter beard. Tomorrow. Green
will change to red against the cold cerulean sky.

The new 14 x 14 includes my sonnet, “Post-Impressionism,” about Pierre Bonnard checking out the studios of our times. A lot of other great stuff with plenty of wonderful art as well. Thanks, 14 x 14!

I Come to Praise, Not to Bury, the Last of the Incroyables
To what is left of my 1970s garage band, now a lounge act

Chilling roots. A competent Bodhisattva,
you describe Adonis at fifty-something.
Total ice. Incredible. Only genius
covers the Eagles.

String guitar, a salient old perspective
claims the high road. Holy of Holies, hear me.
Count your minions. Carry the sonic proxy
out of our future.

Crank your manic destiny, Haines and Tuggy.
Slack becomes your adamant Dylan medley.
Larry Fix, your name is an astral 6 train.
Hail to the Fender.

Solid ghost, pretend to remind the gathered
ancients, hairless, vague, of the Minor 7.
None shall rise as few would dispute your glory,
Stone Resurrection.

Surrey down. Reveal to a static world how
angels wear your Dorian cherry hi-tops.
Call the game, O Surrealistic Pillow.
Surfeit the fallen.

Recited on stage to diners at the Perryville Inn, Perryville, NJ, August 19, 2011

Uphook Press’ 2011 anthology, titled -gape-seed-, is out with poetry by R. Nemo Hill, Gabriella Radujko, John J. Trause and Eric Alter. My “Death in Cal’well” is in there.