Poetry

Marc Jampole

THE FLANEUR’S GAZE

Can you brain-burst a better sun-circle than here-and-nowing
the come-together of people and people movers, skyscrapers
with see-through look-heres in colorful put-ons and take-offs.

The gaze I like to give to glide-by-me objects of desire
floating over the concrete slicks where car-drives meet,
my shoulder in daydream slacking a cold side of bricks.

In a blink-eye, my world-catchers grapple and snag
their head-to-toe, curves and edges, brain bursts
of teasing flesh-reveal and hot come-together.

The sun-high carillons for food-carting bread-girded
sausage and sugary bubbles, consumed while Atlas-miming
the corner, world-catchers still seeking birdy fantasies,

ear-worming hip-hop cha-cha-cha of the here-and-now,
bass beating low-to-high-to-low-to-gone, mind flashes
lashing my what-to-do with could-be lust.

Many happy-face me, but one vibes out assault,
a down lip that transforms my gaze to floating dagger.
without a touch, without vile word-out or clicking freeze.

This great rend-your-garment of she-said-he-said—
this talking-at-angles so words never meet—
captured in a single eye-blink snaring time-treat.

MANNAHATTA MORNING

Light-and-life-giver splashes the earth-turn,
dries the flashy rain-holders in towering flight above
gusts of fish-home air-shakes swaying to iamb trees,

the here-to-there of singing wings, the baked and baking
mud and stone of schist island, churned-down yellows,
blues and whites still flowering or fluttering in petals

on mistless cattle-graze by the trochees of bowers and gutters,
and there we in-and-out the lungs for no other why-it-is
than to feel the yearning flow of here-and-now.

Marc Jampole wrote Music from Words (Bellday Books, 2007) and Cubist States of Mind/Not the Cruelest Month (Poet’s Haven Press, 2017). His poetry has appeared in many journals and anthologies. About 1,800 freelance articles he has written have been published. A former television news reporter and public relations executive, Marc writes the OpEdge blog, which appears on the websites of three national publications. He is president of the board of Jewish Currents, a national magazine of politics and arts.