Peter Bollington writes

Tom Mad # 1

Tom Mad was always worrying
Thought he'd lose the moon.
Troubled his eyesight, carried his legs
In a crazy gear. Hadn't tried anything
Except cogitation: that went sour in a week.
Tom Mad took to drinking marijuana
Through a hose and seeing ladies.
His eyes trickled in a roll but still
It took him years until he found
There'd been nothing to worry about at all.

Tom Mad # 2

Tom Mad lay down gently with the sorrowing leaves,
While sun and moon fell studying near his face
And waste Olympia cans unwatered near his peace.

Tom Mad lay there bravely ignoring all who came
To scold and run about beyond his eyes they could not see;
It wasn't hope he'd done it for this madman on the lay.

Tom had figured winter would curve along his thighs,
He hadn't known what after that if blackness he'd avoid
Then something from within unpressed, erectly strong and wide.

From somewhere down, from far beneath the logos in his brain,
The sun was stirring flower within the seed and cell inside,
So Tom aroused and looked about, the crazies leapt into a fade.

He saw felt birds and mountains on the run
The green blue buds, the peach breeze tossed his head;
he laughed why not; the fingers in his feet began to throb.

Tom then went truly mad, he laughed at corners,
Spent nickels in the sand. His mind was like a tree,
He said. His tears had flown away to pears and doors.

Tom Mad # 3

Tom Mad went snively down
To Hambright, whirling slowly on a gig,
His new eyes dashed the old, undimmed
And all who looked felt smiling from within.
Tom Mad had changed, no doubt, they said
His pace and hair picked up a bit,
A jovial frown beneath his knee was something more
Than a piece of shoe. Nobody had seen
Tom Mad before, except in flank upon
His face, and now he was a trace superior
His grin so wide, his form trucked into grace.

 

Peter Bollington writes

One Moment, Please (1972)

Remember the lovers

Pulling hairs on each other's thighs

laughing

Racing to the out-house

Caressing death into the golden moon

Eating and rolling their eyes

Screaming with the ambulance

Waiting in the cold

Examining

Leaves, flowers, animals

 

Golden Moon -- Lauren Marems

Peter Bollington writes

Poems for yoga (1972-1973)

1)

my eyes fly like the sun

    down southern cliffs

foam climbs my ankles, puppy fond for touch

    seagulls in grey regiment watch the sea

while I step around their single-glitter eyes

    the sun comes on me now like a lover

quietly she slips my body into her embrace

2)

    before me now

dark cloud has marshaled half the evening sky

    it ponders beside a deep edge of stars

    a huge map, land against ocean

        I wander that cloud

        as the cliff-face of a continent

freshening myself in the space-sea at my side;

    I would embark in a ship of lives

        leaving the darkness behind me.

3)

        bowing into mudra

    I enter the silent world

a blade of grass leans within the sun

    an insect crawls across my back;

the other world offers me its noisy thoughts

    highway and plane, chain saw and radio

        but I drift on slow breaths

    to the trees and quiet birds

nature's song sweeps the noises into a corner

        I am the grass

4)

birds murmur gently beside my silence

        as I look into the spring

            the night was cold upon their tongues;

    I roll the air from the purple sea

        inside my lungs, inside my mind's chattering

            a hinge opens

                eyes within eyes begin to take notice

5)

the moon wanders quickly

    this January afternoon

a sidelong sway with the wind

it is nearly full, feet tucked under

a fondness from summer, warm embrace;

something licks down my insides o Moon

        you sail the night sky

            stars booming like pianos

and my legs itch, my ears open

6)

today I walk down leaves and shadows, sun-pools dance beside me

    a fence green-heavy with peas

beyond this a garden waits upon my smiling eyes

I climb some boughs and look to the coast

spray of whales and combers in triangles, moths of the sea

the land is blue: it winks like a mind and curves like a ship;

    now I stand ankles in the air at the summit of my world

what is left but to fly as the aeriest creature of my delight?

7)

the sea moves upon the land like a wrinkling skin

steppes of huge water led by the flying white mares

    combers hungry for the sand and their joy:

        within each of us a continent,

            with all a blue ocean

8)

sometimes the spring visits

    for an hour, a morning

birds merry their conversation and light grows thicker

    the robust crows float aaark's to the sea

and allysum sweetens the air for my drinking

    now the year is stretching in a yawn

        thrusting out a leg

    it is blinking and awakening

        slowly arousing from dreams

9)

I span a streamy sea, a vortex of old

sinews in the rusty blood, arrows driven

down a congregation of whores and tongues

that roll to lick the sheets of winking glass

all hidden underneath the brown and hazing brain

that breaks and thunders in the motor-children past

 

 Yoga Tree Pose -- Donna Walsh

Peter Bollington writes

Ode to the homeless duo

you two, 

with your dogs Sugar and Chobaku 

how I found you 

warm for a moment, side of the road 

bags and dogs eagerly smiling 

traffic sailing by 

by by by by 

your outstretched thumb, the task severe, 

four hours at that stop near the weeds 

pavement underneath your bones 

warming at the noontime long way to go 

cold hills for the night 

sliver of moon

 

Peter Bollington writes

Albert the Gorilla

Albert, you see, 

was my man, my main man, 

though not a man at all of course 

when I was keeper in the zoo: 

was that the human zoo 

named such by Edward Albee, 

but no, Albert was entirely 

Gorilla beringei beringei 

and proud of it probably 

although I couldn’t be sure.

He and I would talk—or I should say 

I would talk and he would gaze at me 

silent, thoughtful, in perplexity 

no doubt 

I mean by what right was I or anyone else 

keeping him there in his enclosure 

and the wire fence between us, 

certainly he didn’t know, 

and I, supposed to be the official caring for him 

kindly, of course, was not sure.

One day I happened to let my plastic gloved hand 

rest a moment too long at the fence 

as though placing it there was a gesture of good will 

he might appreciate 

and he took hold of it 

so there I was, and nobody about, 

holding hands with a gorilla, 

the Gorilla beringei beringei, 

who gripped me firmly and refused 

my persuasion as with Now, Albert, etc. 

holding very firmly and then, 

it must have been a moment or two later 

it occurred to me with one fling of his right arm 

rising up from his shall I say grip that held my hand 

he could rip my arm off and fling it somewhere 

high and over the back of his enclosure 

where it might land as with some explosion 

from a high powered instrument on a jet 

ripping limbs off children in a place like The Gaza Strip 

leaving me, very likely, with a severe condition.

So I spoke on, more gently, lovingly, smiling even 

Now, Albert, I mean you have me here in an awkward position 

and surely we have been friends 

I mean I’ve tried to be decent with your food and cleaning your

enclosure 

surely you wouldn’t want to interrupt the relationship 

ah, Albert, 

and it really is, I think it is, Albert, time for, ah, time for . . . 

of course I was sweating and he must have noticed 

he looked at me as though curiously upon some lab experiment he

was conducting 

an animal he had come across to amuse himself with, and why not, 

I mean hadn’t he been the object of amusement now for at least ten

years 

all those humans gawking and sneering, seeking to get him to react 

even throwing things 

so now he has this chance to examine, gravely, one of these same

beings 

treating him to his confinement and destroying his liberty, his life 

and wouldn’t there be justice in tearing off this human’s limb 

for the hell of it?

By this time and oh so sly I hadn’t moved my hand inside the

plastic 

noticing the sweat in there building as well as on my face 

the nose dripping 

Albert cocking his head, he seemed to raise his eyebrows 

but entirely silent, saying nothing 

only I doing the talking 

slyly thinking maybe I could just pull my hand out of there 

at the right moment of course 

his grip was firm but hadn’t tightened and I’d better not give away 

my plan in case he took it upon himself to be even more firm.

Meanwhile I noticed he resembled the human frame, 

the large brow, the nostrils, jaw, and mouth 

I was nodding with all these thinkings, reminded of someone 

some politician maybe although that perhaps 

does not honor Gorilla beringei beringei sufficiently 

in terms of dignity and restraint 

when, yes, the time was coming 

my babble surely boring him, too labored 

I must make the decision 

I must take the action 

I must withdraw myself.

And there it was 

I pulled and somewhere came a mighty shriek 

it must have been from myself 

and he was left holding the plastic glove 

as I backed away howling like a beast 

whereas he made no sound, gravely staring.

He then retired with the glove to a shady corner 

where he examined it meticulously 

turning it, sniffing, pulling it on to his fingers 

and finally, in an act of deliberate meditation 

picking the glove into tiny pieces with delicate precise movements 

discarding each bit below him 

looking back to stare again when I returned, as though unable to

escape 

but not now speaking 

and in his eyes I saw no regret 

only a thoughtful, slow dessication of this thing 

this capture from the human world 

he could now relegate to the miniscule, the irrelevant.

 

Peter Bollington writes

Upon the Flying Bus You Came

Upon the flying bus

    you came

        space-children

of a smiling planet, a laughing age:

    you the troll

        arms bursting above your head

            rolling a language to the roof

            while we O we do palely smile

                        or look away

        your mouth is nibbled upon by your nose

            your eyes roll beadily in glee

    and you wide girl of shadows

        from what corner of the universe

            where fairy girls grow broad foreheads

                and innocent sad eyes

   

    and you man

        head like a squash

            speechlessly merry as the bus highway

                dances on your gaze

            electric joy streams around your skull

        which you twitch as to dislodge

            an invisible threading fly

    and you

        awkward glassy girl of new teen

            face too wide at cheek

                    at neck

        indecisive body

                        now here or here

altogether you are something too innocent

        the non-stop joy you shine

            from slanted eye and lip

        marigolds the white exhausted air

            we mind-tombed others

        expel yet refuse to share

 
Marigold Girl -- Mulysa

Peter Bollington writes

Ploughing

I ploughed the earth 

in winter, 

smokey afternoons 

the hills in rags

dropped blade in soil 

frothing brown and damp, 

acres of sun

I dreamed and sailed 

straw, whirled the dust

I was a minstrel 

of the guitar tractor

I was the Worker 

in the Oven,

three o'clock fall 

mist at five

I ploughed those seas 

on the night wind, 

watched hawks full of wing

now I hear the axe fall 

near the heart, 

fields in silence 

ready but not due

the season rolls away 

to new blue fires 

 

 Farmer with a Pitchfork -- Winslow Homer

Peter Bollington writes

Waittt!

my eyes behind

    you pat my arm to go

        well, you say,

            and you're gone

while my tongue pretends to know this is right

    and we move along

why but well just could

    there is no depth

        I'm in the hole of you, fool!

            can't you tell?

then, hopefully,

    before the sirens take us

     and we lose the memory--

         what?

hopefully,

    I'll find a finger to unknot

        the strangled love I have

        to drop it, gently

    where you can look at it

       as you might regard

            some thing

              I could place there

my eyes shaded

        tongue confused

Gordian Knot -- Drique London