Amateurish in the Best Sense

In the sense that so is the spring sun newly risen
Battering lives most prized for their inability to be
Anything but human. Why do we see hollyhocks
As a drawback to our experience? Why do the pine barrens
So ultimately feel alone? I make no claim for my love
To overtake you and shake you so hard you can’t
Feel your feet. But they rise as you follow me
Into the town, my blizzard-like claim causing roadblocks
To go up around the high school for fear that oak leaves
Might interrupt the youth of tomorrow’s ongoing
Conversations about the benefits of tractor versus paper,
Acetylene versus ink. I had my doubts about quietude as well,
Thinking it better to be the kind who is loud all-around
From the first shriek of the garage until my head
Went down on the vanilla-cream pillow in slumber,
But now that the landscape—an extension not only
Of the heart but of the very last refuge of executive
Privilege and courtesy (itself thought lost somewhere
Between Dollar Bay and Tarpon Springs)—has shown me
A thing or two, I’ve changed my ways almost entirely.
Almost. I’m still one to wonder about the weather,
Is it worth it to risk a step outside when the rain
Would rather be holding both sky and man hostage
For the week. Even the waterfall, which would
Normally be abused in such an awful setting, has come
To mean much in the course of our generation, if only
In the most moronic terms. Mystery should not
Surprise us anymore, and many make the claim
For just that, while still unable to understand
Its gentle simplicity (some would say necessity, but
I am not one I am many) backed out of a emergent state
Of flags and federations, predicaments that only
A river can untangle us from. The black ships
That come into the harbor are a blessing,
Frozen music suddenly moving under the thunder,
Under the snow that greets us when we land.

Here's another from the Schiavomeister:

Regrets of an Impresario

Age becoming one of the most lackadaisical
Elements in the whole study, I began to appreciate
How dandelions could hold out for as long as
They do. The quality I find most attractive
In a woman is bitterness, the failing to understand
Love when love does not care if it’s understood
Or not. Maybe one day the sea will rise up
To consume her and I’ll not have to worry about
Her waking with that sense of dread.
Or maybe the wilderness all around us
Will find a hole in the bottom of the bucket,
Paint it green, and carry it back toward the cottage.
In time, the very festoons of our romance
Will find safety in history, will make upwards
Of a thousand dollars a day reeling in suckers
To listen to the story. It’s not in the gray columns
Of morning that we find ourselves hopeless,
Nor in the banners that night drapes over us
That we find the proper dream, but rather in
The glance of one to another, the examinations
At intersections, the respectful watch from
Passenger sides into the park, where most of us
Would rather spend our time anyway: a clutch
Or two of carnations, maybe presented in a bowl
From farthest lands (though eerily provincial)
Brings us back to our days of hay and waffles,
Of unprofitable pronouncements that we thought
Would last forever, floorboards creaking as we
Get up in the hours before daylight to relieve
Ourselves. I’m not trying to candycoat the situation
Or my actions, because everything I ever did
Was charged with the very mutton of love.
Unpleasant an example as this is, I ask you
Did you ever have less fear than when I was here?
Ever feel that better living wasn’t so impossible?
But that was you to me. No deity can compare
To the sensation, a breeze evolving eternally
Into this game we’ve set in front of the curtain.
The more you try to whitewash the language,
There’s less and less chance of you negotiating
A way out of it. I can’t ask you to change for me.
But you can change the way you think of me,
Of yourself, the vastness of what lies ahead.

And here's one from Jeffrey Morgan, whom I've published in La Petite Zine and also have some poems in the pipe line for UES.

Amateurish in the Best Sense

The only thing he was ever good at was ambivalence.
Its rub and its bright glitches. Its sneaky flattering
mouthful. There’s no such thing as progress, he
often thought elliptically. But he’d eaten too many yummy
first courses and sauces and he’d done the out-of-body-thing
long enough to see himself, graceless and amateurish and fearing
reflection’s insane facial hair, he climbed back into the death machine.
Even if he half-pretended not to have been there. He had been there.