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Philip Kobylarz

Preen


Only a Moor could know the passion that burns in my breast when
our faces for a moment lock tight and our capillaries swell blue. It’s what
he thought he heard being said when the in-immediate foliage of mountain
yarrow, or simple avens bonsai to a shadow of themselves. The speaker
in this one man duel shoots a grape from the lips of his lover, whatever
or madame whatever his name be this month.
                                                               In the light of pyres
all wear red.
                 Voltaire and Buffon drink. They continue their argument,
and, to drink, wondering how sea shells, damned sea shells had arrived
on desolate peaks. The theory is that if we all stay where we were born,
we would be statues by now.
  Somber as a robe, her nudity bequeaths one
to look away. To shame is to call into being. He, as the perception of a male,
is worthless, is a consideration of ( ), is one half his mother as well as father.
Clearly, man is the necessary evil of all roots.
                                   Roethke is right: it is a void we
grow into with each day. Filled with ripe young things and the possibility of
sprout. In the end, there’s no fallow field, no exact bloom that waits
   pollination,
no her-true-love although there’s one named. But, there’s garlic. And radish.
Buffon and Voltaire sit at a table drinking red wine, thinking which one
   of them
will be in posterity proven right. How do seashells arrive on mountaintops?
Does anybody know? If so, why do the seashells stay?
                                                           If only we could
be as diverse as plant life. Until then, there will be war and wars. Insects
may have more choice.
                              Just as hair varies from day to day, from body part
to body part, we stroke, comb, play with it. We caress hair, we unknowingly
eat it, we nuzzle hair, we wrap our necks in it, hair we feel and want to feel,
hair we knead like pretzel bands of dough, hair we tussle, we are the
   deserted
follicles of gods and beasts and angels with piebalding wing



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This issue of Jacket is a co-production with New American Writing magazine
published in the northern spring of each year by Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover
369 Molino Avenue, Mill Valley CA 94941, USA
All back issues of New American Writing including No. 4 (New Australian Poetry) can be downloaded in their entirety and at half price from InfoPost at http://www.infopost.com/


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