A Nonny Riddle

Hey nonny-nonny, many know
a Swan winged with manuscript,
hey nonny-nonny, many flow
with quills sharp and blackly tipped.

And he wrote a many a bonny plot,
and we read a many a nonny thought.

Hey bonny-bonny, maybe he
came to be by the Avon,
hey bonny-bonny, he may be
less a Swan than a Raven.

And he dreamt a many a bonny dream,
and he seemed a many a nonny seem.

Hey wanny-wanny, swanling dead
afore he could take to wing,
hey wanny-wanny, twinling bed
a half-empty nesting thing.

And he gave a many a bonny act,
and he gave nought as ought nor aught of fact.

Onibi, A Fragment

In the cool depths of night,
when in the Autumn dark
you may see a green light
roaming the toro park,
a swaying orb aglow
where the mists lead astray,
beware if you must go
along the shrine-strewn way
for she drifts with the mist,
her lantern held aloft
in her gaunt, bony fist,
her face so wan and soft.
“A man I seek,” she moans,
“a man honest and true,
to help settle my bones
beneath the predawn dew.”
If you dare to be seen
she lifts her lantern high
and in the glowing green
she nears you with her eye
and peers into your face
as into a koi pond
and should you lack the grace
of heart, love, and the bond
thereby tendered, like wealth,
she touches the hollow
of your bosom, yourself
but ghost that must follow
her glow where it leads far
from home, family, friends,
and, beneath a green star
where the village path ends,
wander forevermore
as she does, Onibi
ablaze like swamp gas for
all of eternity.

Hangnail

Behold the accusant’s pointer,
so ready to assign the blame.
Behold, it is the anointer
of guilt and punishment and shame.
It is, as all things of Man, flawed,
with an unsightly flap of skin
which affronts the eyes of the god
whom the finger oft confides in.
So peel the petty hangnail strip
until the whole pointer is flayed,
crimson finger whose crimson tip
blames the glover for what is frayed.
Painful is the skinless finger
and wroth with outrage for the crime,
yet the peeler’s the harbinger
of bloodlettings, time after time.

Isolato

Deep is his innermost thought,
deep as a midsummer wood,
not cool in the shade, not hot,
covered with a blue-green hood,
undisturbed by bird twaddling
and insects that buzz and bite;
the shade is but soft swaddling
to soothe the waning daylight.

Repose is not oft chosen,
but comes like the eventide,
soaked with shadows—it flows in
to lull the bustle inside:
the chipmunks and the songbirds,
the bees all abuzz, a breeze
whispering some headstrong words
with the speech of leaf-tongued trees.

Becalmed be the petty leaves
erstwhile aflutter with talk,
asleep be the worm that reaves
within root and stem and stalk;
begone, that foul white-rot ring,
begone, those fecund wasp’s galls,
begone, the ant’s acid sting,
begone, the termite queen’s thralls.

His thought is a wood bestilled,
shaded by its own enclave
of thoughtless oak, the air filled
with the silence of the grave;
it is a glade domed in shade
against a life’s needless noise,
a refuge dome wherein fade
echoes and suchlike envoys.

Prair

Speeding along the serpentine backroads,
frigidity deep in the fingers
as they clutch the steering wheel,
cold morning mist aflame
with sunrise
and accelerating rubber
as the car rams the shadows of the vales and hills,
the Baptist church steeple tall and white and
feckless
across the Kentucky hollow;
hard halt entering town,
each traffic light devilish,
changing green to yellow to red
once,
twice,
morning rush hour traffic distended, sluggish in its cellphone-heavy flow,
meanwhile the rear-passenger tire leaks
fast
and no amount of air spent on
prayer
can stymie the puncture wound
as the low pressure alarm flashes
on the altar dashboard,
like a priest in the throes
of a hell-and-brimstone sermon.