August Kleinzahler: Two poems

American Poetry Review, The, Jan 1995 by Kleinzahler, August

THE OLD SCHOOLYARD IN AUGUST

The welling of cicadas in the green

afternoon before the storm

catches on some inner ratchet along with the leaves

so dark and dense in the fading light

their color washes into surrounding air.

And when the first drops pock the dust

of the ballfield next to the school,

it is not a piercing aria

or iridescent jellyfish parachuting upwards

but darkness

spreading, troweled across the diaphragm.

Every breath drags through it,

bringing in its wake a bewilderment

of firetrucks and galoshes,

the taste of pencils and Louis Bocca's ear

torn off by the fence in a game of salugi.

A GLASS OF CLARET ON A DIFFICULT MORNING

The snipsnap worm has made eggs

and worse

in the night

six crucial bolts spent their threads

holding fast

your cargo of antibodies.

Spirochetes drop from the rafters

with the poise of hawks.

Your crop of jellybabies is lost.

As you round the Horn, denied

all succour, not

scurvygrass, not even ale

remember what the Captain said

off the coast of St. Lupe,

his face raddled from port:

Across the dish of the world

from the broccoli and squab

to the mysterious chowders

keep your bib snapped tight

and no stain will come

to your peregrine shirt.

If breached hie to land

and wait for the camomile.

Meanwhile, eat light, swim

close to shore

and steer clear of the locals.

August Kleinzahler lives in San Francisco. His most recent collection of poetry, Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow, is forthcoming from Farra, Straus & Giroux in April, 1995.