Jeff Wright
Jeffrey Cyphers Wright received his MFA after studying with Allen Ginsberg. Best known as a New Romantic poet, he is also a publisher, critic, eco-activist, impresario, singer/songwriter, filmmaker, puppeteer, and artist. He is author of 18 books of verse, including Blue Lyre and Party Everywhere. A book of sonnets and artwork called Doppelgängster is forthcoming from Mad Hat Press. Wright publishes Live Mag! www.livemag.org
GHOST POWDER
A few clouds scallop the sky like pale fish
over the river. The carousel on Pier 25
closes for the season. I waste my days
courting puppets and chasing women.
October turns out its empty pockets,
squeezing the last glow from evening.
The nation teeters on spindly hind legs.
I almost lose it in the Bureau of Frustration.
Baz and I swap jail stories at Howl!
The pigeon lady quivers under feathers
at Union Square. Katherine Bradford
paints a pirate ship in my imagination.
Another friend had a stroke.
The frogs have a motto: “Born to croak.”
COME ON NOW
Evening stoops under its sodden shawl.
A siren broods; its caterwaul
snarling over blackened roofs.
Someone’s on the run.
Wet tires whisper to Avenue C.
“I’m lost without you,” they swear.
I wanted to be a matador
in Manhattan, dancing with horns.
I wanted to be a genie
smoking in your coat of arms.
While you gave the raindrops names,
I made up a little song called
“You’ll never be happier
than when I was a string on your harp
GIANT SIGHS
August is a saucy scamp, a brazen zig-saw
puzzle in jade beads and fishnet stockings.
In purple dahlia. Dianthus laced with Apollo.
August is a racehorse in a cave. A county fair.
Boiling-over light in the warehouse of desire.
Antlers on a heatwave. A wedding caked.
Shopping for memories, trumpet vines
tumble over the fence top. In a deep well
you coin a word to quell the nerve-swell:
Troubadorable. Busier than a Byzantine.
Eerily early, a herald arrives. Dire portents
gather up steam for the Monster Prom.
Truth shuttles through a stuttering loom.
And August swaggers, drunk on the moon.
CHANGING STATION
Agony—the inevitability of our demise.
We were spinning sugar when the giant
crutch fell short. The clocks running
for their lives. The city humming
like a freezer. A black caboose on ice.
You were making mushroom ragu.
I was admiring your industry, reading
the Metropolitan section. When
the denouement comes, look for me
in the cockpit handing out straws
to clutch at as we veer into a viral spiral.
The Empire State Building’s opal spire
cuts into night. That’s kinda how
I am now—a lightsabre, ready for hire.
PARADISE ANSWERING SERVICE
November draws its purse strings tight.
The moon is eaten by a pack of clouds.
My old lamp blinks, its wiring worn out.
Between useless and euphoric, I sleuth
for meaning, meandering from Chelsea
to the river. Listening to The Shivers…
to Robert Kelly lifting scripture off
a mirror. On Windmill Attack Mode.
Milling around in my grab bag of genes.
At the end, the language we suspend
will shepherd us past midnight’s derrick.
Leaning on eternity like a vagrant. O,
I’ll still pay for the foolish love I spent
when you were on top of my to-do list.
LIGHTNING’S QUIVER
To haggle with the hoary gatekeeper.
To power-walk by a river that runs.
To clean time in the laundromat.
To plunder rubbled thunder
for a lonely key to sing in together.
For when you are ill to comfort you.
To sing you to sleep. To hear ice melt.
To pour you another round of Old ’98.
To carry change for the indigent.
To visit the infirmary.
To bring solace to the solo acts.
To fight for a cause but not be caustic.
To stretch the inflamed ligature.
To let you lead across a dancing floor.
