Here and Now

Stepping to Art

Stepping to William Wordsworth

I call to you
Out of the sandpaper scuff of my boots on the sidewalk
Where I come to its cantered edge,
I step down the curb side and walk across the width of that coastal street,
Munching construction gravel under foot
And stare down into the aqua wash of low lands of a California
Morning
Briskly brushed over raptap cottages and electric-blinking monoliths,
And the worth of words to describe this wonder does not yet appear—
Even you would have been wordless.

--

Fall Impression

In that loud shout drenching our senses,
Sun-jaded trees ungreened and thundered color

Reverberating the world--to 'Gogh' over the limit;
They left tremoring rainbows burst earthbound, and shingled

In that wind--melted yellow, orange, and maroon,
Fingerpaints jagged, leaved in black wrought branches;

Then wild strokes of northerly gusts rogued down,
Zagged etchings counterwheeled in swirling emotion--

Hacking our senses, hueing our minds until glazed--
And so reeled sideways down in that kaleidoscoping
Monet


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in The Write Side Up
--revised

--


after

all my nerves torn loose
in the streets dancing jangles
staccatoed electric wires
ripped loose from my telephone-souled
dangerous lightning night


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in Mad Swirl

--


walking night

saplings blacken along
our sidewalk against the misted night
a refracted light sky over
wrought iron candelabras on stands
lamping the coasted evening


-Daniel Wilcox
First pub. in Writer's Ink

--






In the Light of Beauty,

Daniel Wilcox