The Hot Bath

We poets abhor the empty page, we

cleave to simplicity in difficult times, and

when the mind is dry of ideas, when the well

stinks of sulphur and the bucket leaks, we

poets often find there is nothing better than

the forbidden luxury of a hot bath on a warm

afternoon, and so it is that I draw my bath warm

as blood, step into the blood-warm water

and stand a moment to let my feet, my ankles,

and my lower calves adjust, then lower

my body cell by quivering cell, trembling,

(my mind also quivering and trembling) into

the blood-warm water till body and mind

stop quivering and are pacified and my skin

cells go "aah" and with that behind me I turn

to the task at hand which is, in honor of

Marie Line, to think lofty thoughts, to lift

my poor mind from it's treasonous gutter

to that exalted rooftop hers prefers, to think

of Nietzsche and Sartre, to meditate upon

being, nothingness and existential angst

but all I manage is to mouth silently, while

staring at my toes which I notice I am wiggling,

"there is nothing existential in being angstness"

and then I think of that night some other french

philosopher told Sartre over dinner that if he

were an existentialist he could make philosophy

of a glass of water and why I wonder did he

find that so blasted fascinating that he changed

his career and wrote the most impenetrable

book ever translated into english, but then I begin

to lather myself with blue liquid body soap and I

wonder if liquid soap is superior to oldstyle cakes

and did I buy this particular brand of liquid soap

simply because it promised, right there on the label,

"the ultimate clean" and then I wish I had made it a

bubble-bath and I wonder if the Mr. Bubble t-shirt I

ordered online yesterday will arrive tomorrow as

promised or if perhaps I should have gone the extra

mile and actually purchased a box of Mr. Bubble

and sent in the preprinted form shoved in the box

among the bubble grains, just to be sure,

and for all I know they do give preference

to actual Mr. Bubble consumers over silly

poets who order the t-shirt online and I did

pause to wonder what if I were a clerk at

the Mr. Bubble warehouse would I give

preference to preprinted forms over online

orders, even if I were instructed by the

highest of the high in upper management,

by Mr. Bubble himself, even, and not merely

some cranky middle-aged thorn in stylish glasses

stressed out himself by some recent missive

from the highest of the high, perhaps Mr. Bubble

himself, demanding once again greater efficiency

and quicker shipping of Mr. Bubble t-shirts, and why

I wonder, were the t-shirts available only in white,

why not cyana or vermillion or at least blue or purple,

why must Mr. Bubble be the Henry Ford of logo

t-shirts, and only then, as I notice a stream

of light that strays through the curtain onto my

stomach and wonder if she (not Marie Line,

though yes, her too, now that you mention it)

would find me too repulsive if she saw me lying

in the bath this sunny afternoon, only then

do I remember (and it is too late for the bathwater

has cooled) that I intended to think of Nietzsche

or Sartre or maybe harmless old Emmanuel Kant.

The Hot Bath

We poets abhor the empty page, we

cleave to simplicity in difficult times, and

when the mind is dry of ideas, when the well

stinks of sulphur and the bucket leaks, we

poets often find there is nothing better than

the forbidden luxury of a hot bath on a warm

afternoon, and so it is that I draw my bath warm

as blood, step into the blood-warm water

and stand a moment to let my feet, my ankles,

and my lower calves adjust, then lower

my body cell by quivering cell, trembling,

(my mind also quivering and trembling) into

the blood-warm water till body and mind

stop quivering and are pacified and my skin

cells go "aah" and with that behind me I turn

to the task at hand which is, in honor of

Marie Line, to think lofty thoughts, to lift

my poor mind from it's treasonous gutter

to that exalted rooftop hers prefers, to think

of Nietzsche and Sartre, to meditate upon

being, nothingness and existential angst

but all I manage is to mouth silently, while

staring at my toes which I notice I am wiggling,

"there is nothing existential in being angstness"

and then I think of that night some other french

philosopher told Sartre over dinner that if he

were an existentialist he could make philosophy

of a glass of water and why I wonder did he

find that so blasted fascinating that he changed

his career and wrote the most impenetrable

book ever translated into english, but then I begin

to lather myself with blue liquid body soap and I

wonder if liquid soap is superior to oldstyle cakes

and did I buy this particular brand of liquid soap

simply because it promised, right there on the label,

"the ultimate clean" and then I wish I had made it a

bubble-bath and I wonder if the Mr. Bubble t-shirt I

ordered online yesterday will arrive tomorrow as

promised or if perhaps I should have gone the extra

mile and actually purchased a box of Mr. Bubble

and sent in the preprinted form shoved in the box

among the bubble grains, just to be sure,

and for all I know they do give preference

to actual Mr. Bubble consumers over silly

poets who order the t-shirt online and I did

pause to wonder what if I were a clerk at

the Mr. Bubble warehouse would I give

preference to preprinted forms over online

orders, even if I were instructed by the

highest of the high in upper management,

by Mr. Bubble himself, even, and not merely

some cranky middle-aged thorn in stylish glasses

stressed out himself by some recent missive

from the highest of the high, perhaps Mr. Bubble

himself, demanding once again greater efficiency

and quicker shipping of Mr. Bubble t-shirts, and why

I wonder, were the t-shirts available only in white,

why not cyana or vermillion or at least blue or purple,

why must Mr. Bubble be the Henry Ford of logo

t-shirts, and only then, as I notice a stream

of light that strays through the curtain onto my

stomach and wonder if she (not Marie Line,

though yes, her too, now that you mention it)

would find me too repulsive if she saw me lying

in the bath this sunny afternoon, only then

do I remember (and it is too late for the bathwater

has cooled) that I intended to think of Nietzsche

or Sartre or maybe harmless old Emmanuel Kant.

The Hot Bath

We poets abhor the empty page, we

cleave to simplicity in difficult times, and

when the mind is dry of ideas, when the well

stinks of sulphur and the bucket leaks, we

poets often find there is nothing better than

the forbidden luxury of a hot bath on a warm

afternoon, and so it is that I draw my bath warm

as blood, step into the blood-warm water

and stand a moment to let my feet, my ankles,

and my lower calves adjust, then lower

my body cell by quivering cell, trembling,

(my mind also quivering and trembling) into

the blood-warm water till body and mind

stop quivering and are pacified and my skin

cells go "aah" and with that behind me I turn

to the task at hand which is, in honor of

Marie Line, to think lofty thoughts, to lift

my poor mind from it's treasonous gutter

to that exalted rooftop hers prefers, to think

of Nietzsche and Sartre, to meditate upon

being, nothingness and existential angst

but all I manage is to mouth silently, while

staring at my toes which I notice I am wiggling,

"there is nothing existential in being angstness"

and then I think of that night some other french

philosopher told Sartre over dinner that if he

were an existentialist he could make philosophy

of a glass of water and why I wonder did he

find that so blasted fascinating that he changed

his career and wrote the most impenetrable

book ever translated into english, but then I begin

to lather myself with blue liquid body soap and I

wonder if liquid soap is superior to oldstyle cakes

and did I buy this particular brand of liquid soap

simply because it promised, right there on the label,

"the ultimate clean" and then I wish I had made it a

bubble-bath and I wonder if the Mr. Bubble t-shirt I

ordered online yesterday will arrive tomorrow as

promised or if perhaps I should have gone the extra

mile and actually purchased a box of Mr. Bubble

and sent in the preprinted form shoved in the box

among the bubble grains, just to be sure,

and for all I know they do give preference

to actual Mr. Bubble consumers over silly

poets who order the t-shirt online and I did

pause to wonder what if I were a clerk at

the Mr. Bubble warehouse would I give

preference to preprinted forms over online

orders, even if I were instructed by the

highest of the high in upper management,

by Mr. Bubble himself, even, and not merely

some cranky middle-aged thorn in stylish glasses

stressed out himself by some recent missive

from the highest of the high, perhaps Mr. Bubble

himself, demanding once again greater efficiency

and quicker shipping of Mr. Bubble t-shirts, and why

I wonder, were the t-shirts available only in white,

why not cyana or vermillion or at least blue or purple,

why must Mr. Bubble be the Henry Ford of logo

t-shirts, and only then, as I notice a stream

of light that strays through the curtain onto my

stomach and wonder if she (not Marie Line,

though yes, her too, now that you mention it)

would find me too repulsive if she saw me lying

in the bath this sunny afternoon, only then

do I remember (and it is too late for the bathwater

has cooled) that I intended to think of Nietzsche

or Sartre or maybe harmless old Emmanuel Kant.

The Gravity Well

Seven months of no rain and his ranch
drifts on the wind into water-starved trees,
drifts on the wind across the water-starved hills.
His truck-garden is sick. His sheep
have no vigor. They suck
the mud from a vanished pond. He walks
his land with an unbent divining rod,
morning to night, morning to night,
oat husk morning to coal dust night.

But now is a day like any other: the dry soil flies
across the hills, the garden withers, the sheep thirst
at noon. His divining rod bends. It bends, it bends,
his hands, his forearms, his shoulders clench,
the rod's tip dips with unbearable longing,
the rod's tip tugs till he stumbles and tumbles
head over heels down a gully to a dried-up stream.

Shivering as he digs, he digs and digs furiously,
shovelfuls and shovelfuls of dust tossed
in clouds and piles and piles and clouds,
three feet, eight feet, sixteen feet deep,
he digs and digs furiously, shivering as he digs.

Something moves.
Beneath a conclusive crust of dry sediment
something moves.

He raises the shovel for the coup de grace
a dustcake mask on his face and clothes
and now and now, "oh god dare not forsake me,
give me life, give me life-giving water, give me water,
give me life", the shovel falls with all his force, yes force
yes force is what he gets. A vortex spins,

whirls and spins out of the hole; a tornado, a maelstrom,
a cyclone of gyrating energy, spinning gravity, whirling energetic
gravity that hauls, pulls, drags, till the haul, the pull, the drag
sucks things of all shapes and sizes into that yawning abyss:
sheep, withered corn stalks, barren berry bushes
sucked into the abyss, planks of wood from his barn
torn to splinters and sucked into the abyss. He clings
for life to the trunk of a tree, the roots of the tree cling
for life to the earth and inch by inch are hauled from the earth.

The sucking maw hauls with unbearable longing.

But wait.
A granite chunk,
dislodged from the gully's bank,
larger by a diametric foot than the well,
rolls onto the well and seals it.
The earth is still. The wind is still.
Dust settles in piles

and clouds

the underground stream
discovered by the boulder's surge.

Donny Davis, July 2007

The Girl and the Butterfly

a butterfly rides on her fingertip;

slowly she glides by a stream, past foxglove

and iceland poppies, a passenger ship

captained with focus and helpless with love.

Myths are made of less. Her bare foot must probe

the bare earth with each step lest she waver

so he flies again, lest the forest's robe

of mantilla sky reclaims his favor.

Donny Davis, June 2007

The Foxy Minister and the Apocryphal Communion

She extends to me that morsel of bread,

the body, and to my indulgent tongue

reaches near and nearer. I've never said

I desired grace -- though I'm no longer young

I cry not for salvation but for that

apple I see now in place of bread, held

in her sublime hand, the hand a placemat

for the body. It's her body I hold

in my heart, my unoriginal sin

is craving, for communion, for the taste

of the body whose fine hand now extends

the body to my tongue. Wafers of toast

are but tasteless bread and bear no more grace

for me than now shows in her sober face.

Donny Davis, August 2007

The Acorn

I sleep with my door ajar so

the ghost of Lao Tzu can slip

inside and inhabit my dreams

An old woman at the bus stop

was chewing acorns.

How does that taste?

"Foul" she says, spitting

a half-chewed acorn at my feet.

"but

I remember when

I was something

the wind blew through.

Acorns are not so bad."

Tonight as I slip between

my cool, clean sheets,

and read a poem before

I turn out the lamp,

as I sigh in the cool,

clean darkness,

I remember how

this afternoon

a hummingbird

green as a june bug shell

sat on the sweetgum tree

and winked

(I swear he did)

I remember also

that other afternoon,

how I ate an acorn

to see if it would

really stop

the wind.

Donny Davis, September 2007