Lisa Jarnot

On this most perfect hill with these most perfect dogs are these most perfect people and this most perfect fog In this most perfect fog that is the middle of the sea inside the perfect middle of the things inside that swing In this most perfect rhyme that takes up what it sees, with perfect shelter from the rain as perfect as can be, In this most perfect day at the apex of the sun runs this most perfect frog song that is roiling from the mud In these most perfect habits of the waving of the trees, through this imperfect language rides a perfect brilliancy.

for Thomas From the five good emperors I have learned that there were five good emperors, From the lemon tree I’ve planted now I know that leaves unpummeled yet will drop, From the clock, the time, it’s five p.m., from the sun the length of day, From Quercus borealis, the queer names of the leaves of all the trees, From burning I’ve learned burning, from the aster family chickory abounds, From hawkweed of the colors bright, from sleeping, of my dreams, From mosquitoes, scratching, from fishes, fishing, from turkeys how to run and how to hop, From erect perennials I’ve learned to reach the shelf, from my cats to lick the dark part of the tin, From the sparrows I’ve learned this and that, from Germanic tribes, to gather thoughts in herds, From the window blinds, from the sun decayed, from the heart, a brimming record braised and turned.

O little fleas of speckled light all dancing like a satellite O belly green trees shaded vale O shiny bobcat winter trail Amoebic rampage squamous cock a Chinese hairpiece burly sock A grilled banana smashes gates and mingeless badgers venerate The asses of the winter trees rock on fat asses as you please Be jumpy or unhinged with joy enlightened fry cakes Staten hoy.

That there are things that can never be the same about my face, the houses, or the sand, that I was born under the sign of the sheep, that like Abraham Lincoln I am serious but also lacking in courage, That from this yard I have been composing a great speech, that I write about myself, that it’s good to be a poet, that I look like the drawing of a house that was pencilled by a child, that curiously, I miss him and my mind is not upon the Pleaides, that I love the ocean and its foam against the sky, That I am sneezing like a lion in this garden that he knows the lilies of his Nile, distant image, breakfast, a flock of birds and sparrows from the sky, That I am not the husband of Cassiopeia, that I am not the southern fish, that I am not the last poet of civilization, that if I want to go out for a walk and then to find myself beneath a bank of trees, weary, that this is the life that I had, That curiously I miss the sound of the rain pounding on the roof and also all of Oakland, that I miss the sounds of sparrows dropping from the sky, that there are sparks behind my eyes, on the radio, and the distant sound of sand blasters, and breakfast, and every second of it, geometric, smoke from the chimney of the trees where I was small, That in January, I met him in a bar, we went home together, there was a lemon tree in the back yard, and a coffee house where we stood outside and kissed, That I have never been there, curiously, and that it never was the same, the whole of the island, or the paintings of the stars, fatherly, tied to sparrows as they drop down from the sky, O rattling frame where I am, I am where there are still these assignments in the night, to remember the texture of the leaves on the locust trees in August, under the moonlight, rounded, through a window in the hills, That if I stay beneath the pole star in this harmony of crickets that will sing, the bird sound on the screen, the wide eyes of the owl form of him still in the dark, blue, green, with shards of the Pacific, That I do not know the dreams from which I have come, sent into the world without the blessing of a kiss, behind the willow trees, beside the darkened pansies on the deck beside the ships, rocking, I have written this, across the back of the sky, wearing a small and yellow shirt, near the reptile house, mammalian, no bigger than the herd, That I wrote the history of the war waged between the Peloponnesians and the south, that I like to run through shopping malls, that I’ve also learned to draw, having been driven here, like the rain is driven into things, into the ground, beside the broken barns, by the railroad tracks, beside the sea, I, Thucydides, having written this, having grown up near the ocean.