Jack Foley, Two Poems

One by Mary-Marcia Casoly, one by me, in response. Happy holidays.

WINTER MUSIC

Bring long-term countless relief.
Send it send it.
Be relentless.
Rescue diversity this very hour.
Windowpane treasure, spark osmanthus.
Buy osmosis. Unorphaned, unrelinquished, unadorned.
Tick quiet bright comforter
Warm and deep filled silk worm cocoon.
Your envelope has been addressed upside-down.
Don’t ask why. Season’s greetings!
Foxtrot kiss, rejoice, tapioca pearls big dipper.
Everywhere you look find remaining
Potpourri. Chinese swifts fly in,
Build their saliva-mud nests inside my
Brain. Much easier to make birds’ nest soup
This way, than scaling cliffside caves. The soul has been so...
Misty bonsai, yellow feathers, tiger leaping gorge.
Hold out wishing riots--such are
Our tumultuous lives. Wish excelsior. Stay tuned anew.
Drink winter accipiter tea. Happy safe travel blessings chickadee.
See you see you see you
a charm of colored lights makes out the arbor.
Quick, spend a long time,
a very multitude without end.

      --Mary-Marcia Casoly
      12/1/02

WINTER MUSIC
for Mary-Marcia Casoly

Bring it along
(we need it)
How darkness
threatens
and the lives that
depend on us
suddenly vanish
leaving us
with this
dark
music
these
chords
of
visionary
response
in the near
new year
“Our tumultuous lives”
bring us over into
“potpourri. Chinese swifts”
Your words
mingling with mine
How far away you are
in almost everything
yet these tongue-sounds
(your verse and my “goddoggerel”)
make a kind of music
(wintry, to be sure)
We touch
in sound
“See you see you see you”



Jack Foley