Guest Poet Jim Fowler

Poetry of Jim Fowler

Modern Decameron Tale

Renaissance woman, viola da gamba
and lute sing like troubadours
of your praises. Dark eyes, hair

braided, pale bodice bare.

Head bowed in this life, your skill

and wistful dreams are wasted

on many men. Only in the bed chamber

can intrigue advance your cause.

In this day and age, is it any different?

Tales from the Decameron are spun

the same. Lutes electric speak to your

beauty and the sad story of your pain.

Storefront nuns in secular cloth tell

your tale, words to an empty heaven.

Relationships 101

I asked what the difference
was. Living together within

bonds of holy matrimony.

or without. I didn’t need

some mealy-mouth minister

and the state to tell me of us.

Coffee in hand, slight smile

on your lips, you allowed

the difference

was like the bacon and eggs

we just finished.

The chicken participated

in the breakfast, the pig

was committed.

Even Fruit has Its Secrets

I peel it slowly, undress
its dimpled gaudiness with
my thumbs. Bare now, veiled
pith with tender vents to enter.

Navel exposed, I plunge deep,

sections yield slowly to want.

Secret core emerges, a bud

near the thumb, sweet to my lips.

Eating it makes me want to sing

its virtues in rhyme and verse.

But the truth sadly comes.

No word rhymes with orange.

Atlantic Giant

You sit stolid on the skid,

Atlantic Giant, the Buddha

of pumpkins. Your lifeline twists

wrist-thick through the grate

to the mountain of compost

and brown earth. The patch

of Sugars nearby, peanut sized,

look up at you in awe.

Your shadow blankets all

as the sunset and your final

day draws near. We’ll cut

the cord and carry you

to your final match,

a weigh-in of sumo gourds
soon a half ton of pies.

Conifers and Christmas Trees

They arrived herded in gray rain.
Cut trees, rounded up from meadows,
shipped twine-tight, packed
in cattle-car carelessness.

Hundreds of fragrant balsams, nobles
and grand firs. Slung off the truck,
sorted for size, strong from weak.
Tagged, huddling in a cold wait.

Stood up, shaken, their stumps
are cut jagged with bow saws.
Measured eyes select, buy and tie
onto cars, off to fates unknown.

After Christmas, sparse and spare
they face finality in winter’s fires.

Zeus's Secret

I want to be your drake.

Gently beat your body

with great white wings,

seize your nipple,

lay you back,

enter your

dreams.

Renewal

Our desire is round and smooth
as the skin on your thick waist.
My hand goes there absently,
as other thoughts draw you
near with no words. We walk again
to the bedroom, wrist on wrist,
wrinkled eyes smiling in old bodies.

KY jelly and practiced hands help
the twitch and quiver of wetness.
I look into dark eyes to your womb,
as the knock, knock of the knob
opens the door to your center.

We rise together, tense to the top of there.
There! with a gasp, reborn once more

Despite the Spite

I pined on its passing,
carcass of love long in years,
failed when we weren’t looking.
He, not me, at your body's rub.

You said it was just a passing
connection. Rationale of personal
need raising your hem, laying
you down on his ground.

I’d have touched your elbow,
lifted your spirits, but your
look-away eyes scanned
for new levitation in life.

You implore, but I’ve hardened.
I’ll not kiss his sex on your lips.

Vernal Equinox

The vernal equinox divides day
and night with equal equanimity
An inflection in the S-curve of time,

spring nudging neurotic winter aside.

Winter night, cold all too long ,

sneers with crystalline uncaring.

Bored weather, freezes me with

snows and rains, rent with wind.

I want spring’s shine to bring

winter to its knees. Pale moon

supplicating to the sun, whose fiery

rays ascend in photonic glory.

I need sunny days to lap dance with me,

my thawed sack tightened by spring.