You wore gold eyeshadow
in fall, and green in spring
and in winter you wore
no eyeshadow at all.
In summer, you wore the sun
and all year, my love, my love.
Author Archives: Adam
Nature Nymph
One crisp spring morning
you went out into the garden
in your underwear and my boots
to dance among the early shoots
of tulips and hyacinth: a nature nymph
in love with the air and the earth.
Lecherous Sun
You walk towards the surf
and the lecherous sun
reaches all his gold fingers
into your hair, under your skirt,
across the bridge of your foot.
Today I am jealous of light.
Prometheus Appeals To Zeus
Isn’t the eagle a little
unnecessary?
I mean,
Maui did it too,
and no one gnaws
his liver.
You know as well as I do
that my gift is more a curse
than anything.
So I gave them fire.
Yes, they can bake bread,
and that offends your
sensibilities,
but they’ll burn their daughters
too,
and soon, their smoking world
will smother them.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
The Leopard and the Moth
You’ve got snow leopard eyes.
I’m an oldwife underwing
perched on the last wheat stems,
sunning myself
before the cold world sleeps.
Frostbound tigress,
prowl under the bridge of trolls:
The toll is a knife in your mouth,
and I’d break my heart on your headstone
if I could just find the perfect
elegy to sing for you.
The ice on the reeds
at the river’s bank
melts beneath your breath.
I want that breath on my neck–
sandpaper tongue–
and teeth to reap
the red grains from it.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
The Boys of the 39th Come Home
The train is not far
from the station now
and finally
we chug on home.
The sergeant says
there will be pretty girls
to hug our necks
and kiss our cheeks,
there will be old men in hats
to slap our backs
and say “Welcome home, son,
good job, good job!”
There will be ticker tape
and a big brass band
and a parade right through
the center of town
but this train is
so much emptier than it was
when we left for the trenches
and none of this fanfare
will fill it up again.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.
What Happens To Me When You Laugh
What happens to me when you laugh: my lips desire
your laughing lips; my hands desire your skin beneath them;
my mouth all of your playful mouth.
Your laughter unwinds the knots in my limbs,
it softens the hardness calcified on these poets’ bones,
your laughter shushes my nervous belly gnawing.
You laugh and all the worries of my world fall away.
Sevenling: Waterfalls
I want to take you to all my favorite waterfalls:
the two cascades of Multnomah, the trickle and basin
of Fall Hollow, Falling Rock’s downpour and cavern.
Let me love you with crush and spray,
with crayfish playing in shallows,
with sips of light filtered through limestone.
Climb with me; bathe with me; love me.
Sevenling: All The Things Birds Do
I thought of all the things birds do:
they nestle down together, they preen together,
they swoop on eddies in the air together.
They chirp good morning and croon goodnight,
and sometimes, they flash their feathers at each other
and say “Come on over, let’s have some fun.”
I want to be like birds with you.
Cherita: Stars
You probably think I made a pact with the stars too.
But I don’t know why they fall.
Maybe they are visiting their lovers.
Maybe they tired of their lovers.
Maybe the stars get wanderlust like you do.
Maybe they are trying to light someone’s way home.
This poem was originally published under the pen name Gabriel Gadfly.