Twoem #3: The Orchards of Desire

We had another twoem, or poetry jam, on Twitter last night. I got in a few tweets before I disappeared for a while, but @llbarkat, @arestlessheart, and @poemsandprayers hung in there. And @mhsteger made a cameo appearance.

To frame the twoem, @tspoetry used lines from John Poch’s book Two Men Fighting With a Knife. Below, whenever you see a line in quotations, it’s taken from the Poch book. I’ll take the credit (or the blame) for the title.


The Orchards of Desire

By @llbarkat, @poemsandprayers, @arestlessheart, @mhsteger and a couple of slight things by @gyoung9751

“Pater Noster
What can we learn from a 1913 toaster?”

"Through the sunflower field (the off-yellow
pollen fallen onto, staining my shirt)..."

The texture of toast

Is better now
Than years of 94.
I am drawn to the flavor of serene;
The smock of Van Gogh
In pollenish paint
Mimics the swaying sunflowers.
Pollen toasted,
Roasted to bronze
Would feed my love
For painted days.
Serena was her name,
Her hair a flavor of plums.
Pollen fallen,
Pixie dust staining swaying breeze,
Sunlight scattered.
Summer dies;
Sunflowers,
Serene,
Flavor the plums
With golden light.
Light filters through gold,
Pollen through wafts of scented air.

"...the violet glass that must have once adorned/the windows of their houses..."

She slipped into yellow dress,
Breathing plum-sweet,
And prayed her crimson lover
Home.
My breath hanging in mid air,
I catch myself unaware
And whisper.
Violet pixie
Scatters summer;
Plums fall,
Smash, paint earth.

"Hungry, you call me by your name. Under
Barbed wire and up arroyos I come crawling..."

"When the eggs hatch,
The nymphs drop and crawl through vetch."

Must adieu ,
releasing the call, though hunger
Lingers sweet;
Crawling beneath sheets for little love
And sleep.
I plum smashed them eggs
Like glass;
Go ahead, call me;
I am left hanging by the wings.
Adieu restless heart
Drifting like pollen
Over the face
Of night.
It flows like yellow hot wax from a flame.
If plums had wings,
Would they fly
Past arroyos,
Teasing coyotes
Purpled with hunger?

"...our fathers gone,
our mothers scrubbing through a collar stain..."

"...MADE IN JAPAN
with wood shipped from the USA and back
again, the lamp is worn with years of smoke..."

There is hunger at every turn; the sheets will burn and swim.
Life worn like wood/steals labels to explain:
Made in Japan,
Made in the USA,
Preshrunk,
Keep out.
A change of mind;
The room spins like a long, long tale.

"Her purblind eyes the pearls of memory"

Whad'ya mean
"Made in Japan?"
I never heard 'a
Such 'a thing;
Plum, ain't all sheets
Made in China?
Pearls spin
Past pain,
Burn my eyes
With sheeted
Memories.

"... the doubt
of history extinguished with a mirror..."

The luxury of clear thought of blue marbles in glass jars,
To be aware of sunflowers touching the sky
And not care why.
Blue pearls
Smashed like glass;
My thoughts
Careen and
Flee.
Smoke and wood,
Haze and sun.
If sunflowers
Touched us lightly
As pollen on a
Blue day,
Would we not
Care, again dream?
Lamps to light the night.

"An unscathed apple under the pines like a cone
Stopped me. Buoyant in my hand, it shone..."

Apple, plum,
Pine.
What would it
Take to rouse
Your heart again?
Taken from the shrine,
It shone like pebbles on the beach

"The screens were torn--we woke to insect needles..."

Build the shrine,
I told him.
Build it with apples,
Plums, pebbles.
Light a flame
Torn from the
Flowers of my
Heart;
Replace the falling star in the blue of night.

"I leapt at the walls like Mars in love with Venus."

What is night?
Mars, Venus,
The promise of torn stars,
Falling.

"We need nectar: this orange tree, this jasmine-
hung patio. Look how an orange has veered..."

Jasmine, orange,
Plum,
The bowl tips
And I stain my fingers
With nectar-scented
love.
Collect the scent of the burning leaves,
Paint a picture of the stars looking through the trees

"Imagine me applauding
Your skirt and loving the suspense”

Trees embrace
Cobalt night,
Drink starshine
As if from
Burning bowls.
Imagine
The scent,
Your skirt burning
Jasmine
Like flowered
Stars.

"crackling the whistle of a darker darling,/beak yellow as cucumber flowers"

Wrap around me your warm soft jacket with the scent of autumn.
Jasmine would not
Crackle; it is too soft for that.
Whistle it might,
A sweet song of
Goodnight.
Bring to me the gift of time upon a sapphire pillow.
Life is a thief;
Its victims defy number.
Scotland Yard and FBI miss their mark.
You mustn't slumber.
The wind whistles above the pine as the fire crackles and burns;
Toward the east, the poems are silent within a dream.
The words travel west and swirl around in the dusk and land at the foot of the pine.
The apple drops to the ground; the words no longer make a sound.