Western Suite with Five Themes
for Jim Dine
red robe
teal mallet
yellow-handled saw
blue hammer
Tricky Teeth
Nancy was appalled
red heart
a pair of gloves
onion no. 12
black eyes
New York City
Heliogravure
Rose and Grey
I’ve felt this way
all the way along
Western Suite with a Green Sun
for Etel Adnan
Green sun
orange sky
meets blue water
at the horizon
just beyond
the foreground
yellow
—
Blue sun
yellow sky
meets blue water
at the horizon
just beyond
the foreground
salmon
—
Blood moon
Gregorian chant
meets blue water
at the horizon
just beyond
the foreground
endless debt
—
Pink moon
probably
on its way
running a few
minutes late
just beyond
the foreground
nostalgia
—
Prussian blue
television set
closed captions
for what does not
bleed yellow
just beyond
the foreground
pink stupidity
—
Clear wind
without technology
perplexed canyon
purple in last light
just beyond
the foreground
lost futures
fiber optics
—
Blue son
shades drawn
silence
just beyond
the doorway
a deserted beach
and an ocean
that does not
move
Western Suite for an Agricultural Scene
Little blue horse
in an open field
the shape
of jazz to come
an entire world
unimagined
a complete history
of possibilities
and a future of
what if would be if
to know the being
of “thoughts”
might build
a new factory
for kindness
overnight
no matter how deeply
resonant the objects
of this particular place
have become
they aren’t a part
of the world
in which the song
sings for you
Western Suite as an Annex to the Aplohavet
An empty lot at the edge of the atmosphere an etymological disturbance in the satchel of a Tuvan throat singer an undiscovered aleph, carefully wrapped in Jack Hirschman’s red scarf an entire language in his pocket, the edges of each letter light as they turn over in his hands like coins a language which begins in silence and ends with a mouth full of wings lifting into a night born of neon filling its space with the marine layer of his voice