SONGS OF ELSEWHERE
1. Ladle Days
2. Lame Drops In
3. What's at Stake?
4. Valvatex
5. Excelsior!
6. Life Story
7. Phantom Bays
8. Pathrow's Thirty-Six
9. Song of Night
10. Oneiric Synonym
11. So Pins Removed
12. Song of Crime
13. Invisible Song
14. International Chimney and the Matyiko Boys
Ladle Days
Grim codgers curve the days alongside
shelled bunters weary of their highchairs
hauling a pair of salted umbrella bakers
fretting, mauling the dunes for
silent sarsaparilla strokes
Yearn up the weighing on the cool side
speaking of soupants supping dovetops
tapered to stoops of breezy greetings
to clearer seasons, all bleeding bores return
at end of day to sleep
slip on a dream
Ladle days come with the fatal jays
bays are moved into a cradle
aching steps attack the latent depths
only to remain unheard
Battle caps included with the naps
after taxis in their twilight
having stepped en masse for tragic vets
scrapes deduce a touch of grain
Stable ways will bustle thousands by
mussels wash up through the sidewalks
ladle days contain the fatal jays
bays are given up to sleep
Yes, now I remove your little coat
fat in hand to shell the haze
Lame Drops In
Lame drops in again to wend
the corners of relief and finds the
sun withdrawing from its battered
clue. In ten years’ time the logic
falls and drapes the few remaining
stumps from tragic view. Along the
coastline watchful eyes seem to be lost.
Nothing can be straight when shadows
link up in full view of restless
stones. Removed from all the world’s
lakes, where must they go? In light of
breaks in every panoramic
view, sleep tries to hide its stripes but
waits to see if any covers move.
What's at Stake?
Diners will find a relief on their path
and the saucers will cough and awaken at last
fine grinding closets a futile repose
that is dashed when the tearings are
flung to the crows. Wielding a fork and
a claim to success it’s no time before
swervers are given recess
Salad ferments and the wall may collapse
but Old Twinings can memorize yards of attacks
usually found to amuse the refrain,
lunch is best when it flies on the
hood of a grain. Shielding a cork and
a clam from a guess it’s the limey core
servers bar, living regress
Steaks thaw at Tate’s Askwhat
Taste hawks at Thwakata’s Eats
but what’s at stake?
Tan diving pears away French on the hold
until yokes bait the life of a barrel of mold
ontook too late, Basil fought by the doors
leaving little to hold up the
ceiling of chores. Yielding a stork and
a frame of the dress it’s a fine galore
hearders are driven to stress
Valvatex
Look! Trays of foaming ants!
Please leaves go away
and stand up for the salt jacket
fitted for the stain of absence
and slipped over a piano
when a shed of unrented notes
is said to be saying
will you get rid of me?
avoid sloping signs
until every cold reflex
simultaneously exclaims
valvatex!
Excelsior!
Today I feel so
glad to be alive
I feel so glad to be me
on this day
Swans are just around the corner
Life Story
Born into braces balanced in trials,
aged over water with every motion.
Sculpted in likeness of wedded balkers
in time for tempest points in winter’s veneration.
Lone before the peat hauled in the
replica of athletes. Long in metal shade
found by the stone once turned by hand
Appointed matter hangs up the diVerence
not budged by swimming in angry hours.
In the wreckage of spilled attention
the air is lost for what intends to guide the sentence.
Limpid poses, stacked beside a
mutilated statue, ranking without thought
of eyes to see the palest rose.
Lining is prone to release floating cards
from the bat’s only hand. Five-fingered ferrets are
played with the chops of an alphabet band.
Hollering pieces float down from the hub
of a storey or two. Flightless attire descends
on the raft of an organized view.
Grouped with the anvils in crimson fetters,
decked out in foldings of sick erosion.
Beside the skiing that tickled feathers
lay in the dark a newly disappearing ticket.
Now or later on the mirrors
resonate with languor seldom found outside
the realm of elongated dust.
Phantom Bays
Phantom bays light the moonript grays
above the cold air staggering nude shores
are mounting fissures on pointed light
as the spooks swell and the windows slip away
Bantam staves lose their wanton graves
when Snore-At-All raids all the old railroads.
A vanished spade bites at ghastly crates
rendered potent by the permanence of ink
Bands of cranes make the dormant creases
wake only as a steep falling into
rain check lakes. Funny how the banes
swiftly shunt to all the piers
Hampton crays of the sanded plates
climb through the days on their rosy bones
while towing harps over misted strips
in the floating shade of disappearing dimes
Pathrow’s Thirty-Six
Everybody’s letters burn
to align the whining curves
we will run up and grab
Stan’s alibi sheets
we will slay the beast
Streamers float on dwindling time
as the honor goes to show
they want Pathrow to find
his thirty-six fine
it will be arranged
Coaxing water from the mimes,
keeping ongoing lions thin
as the new gloves arrive–
publicly pure ones–
well, at least they’re plain!
And the ghost is out of line
and the moon scoped out for spores
we will run up and grab
Stan’s alibi sheets
we will slay the beast
Song of Night
Tumble down from rest dwindling away
the eve in the eye of night raking
themes for the hour of implicated
darts to stray along evening stains
Singing of night isn’t going to shoo fish
stinging on sight. Fins shifting into nothing
sight thinning ghosts going
into night's fog to fight hogs
Strains of need heed long days at the darts
of underhanded relapse swiftly
teeming with quakes so small they might be
dreamt to raise the bid mumbling down
Go in tonight, shifting soot so it fits in.
Night is so oft not too soft in its sights of
infighting hosts tossing
gifts of soft figs onto thighs
Ignoring the Dovex Milk Law
he did what he wanted
Rumbled fleece thieves all day from the carts
that cry outside every door, rolling
swiftly from halls exclusive in the
ferns that cross the bridge undeterred
Oneiric Synonym
Trying to put
a hair
on the wrong
side of
the street
So Pins Removed
So pins removed
from danger zones
may find rest
Nicked a myth
in virile beehives
melts to flirt
Soap in hooves
dumb manger bones
lay mind west
Song of Crime
Into the lantern climb up
past the banded tin raccoons
lime-lit to lift the grazing
sales above a likely candor
Haul it up the almond spire
in the light of public view.
Line a pocket with swift peelings
destined for the hungry door.
In tandem with coots;
in revery for one eye doves
Nothing less than the Grim Codger
standing against the tax valve!
Condors to raze encroaching
glass and make way for the heat
forthcoming steadily to
curtain in on telephoning
I’m shot!
Great aches of clapping mesas
pounding from the floor
Invisible Song
If you can get this
you’re already halfway
out of the egg
International Chimney
and the Matyiko Boys
Though the fall breaks all over town
the lights are never dimmed
the flag retains a thrill
in the silence of uncanny posts
forsaken all along the line
for what must be
Anything that gets out of time
corrects itself on top of sandy bass.
By the shore it takes at least a month
to move a lighthouse due west through the wind.
Early kicks though appearing rash
succeed in freeing plates
from cracking up in vain
meanwhile over at intelligence
the wind is cruel to a job
that must be done.
Rivets hang, erasing tiny stains
from every singular movement made.
For opposites decide on leverage
with planks in mind pivoting on massive slabs.
Crushed stone will move
miraculously along steel beams
a single step could send beauty
rumbling down toward good luck
Samuel Andreyev 2001