Merrill Gilfillan - The Bark of the Dog - Flood Editions

A brand new book, suggested by G.C. Waldrep:

Merrill Gilfillan

The Bark of the Dog
FLOOD EDITIONS


SAGE IN SEPTEMBER


Sprigs for sunrise,
sprigs for Taos, and soldiers
on the steep blue sea.

The slopes of Taos,
true south, building, firing
to the aspen smoulder-golden—
sage for the cello in its breeze.

Sprigs for small things
rousted, on the run, Septembered.
Flocks of longspurs slipping down
the continent by night. Sage for them,
moving through the mesh
of the dangerous starlight.



FOR LUTE AND TROMBONE


Darwin's deep-set monkey eyes
sad as sand. A woman,
then a man, go door to door
through Quercus City, all
the thousand oak jokes
falling off the bone. Blackstrap:
a pack of curs
the kind we like: rounds
of beer: to the death of a seer—

      Word from
      the bobolink think tank
      left at the gates
      of the town.



MICHAELMAS SONGS


I. Piano Practice

I used to dream
          of men like deer,
painted yellow,
          painted green,
one leg green, spotted
          like a frog,
the other yellow
          flecked with black
or red (hail, small suns,
          or eagle-bees), maybe
a slice of dentalium
          through the ear.
It made it difficult
          to focus on the keys.


II.

Who wants
to walk around as if

there were no dawn, no noon,
no Tallahassee?

No driving in to Tallahassee
from the sticks?


III.

The blue jays have a call
in late September
jibes with both extortion
and remember.