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Nottiteln Poems, by R.L.Swihart.
Nottiteln #52I.
Stirred by footsteps
from its niche on the stoop
the mouse scurries along the wall
the caprice of its body
being plucked by
Paganini
The mouse is running
before Pound's Tenzone
through the moribund
grass
Whether invisibly nested in stone
or Michelangelo's sleeping genius
the mouse still gnaws
II.
Rolling to forescripted sides
with attendant apologies
(he to her she to him)
they yield to sleep
Nottiteln #53
He has read the apostle
on chastity
An ideal is only
that
The window
she opens willingly
On the horizon is
the recurrent image
Behind his desk
is the heirloom sofa
Frustrated by words
he will succumb
Like the vision
the lapse is momentary
A friend to forbearance
she will conceive
their 13th child
Nottiteln #55
Contending mythologies
are a thin whisper
A threading plume of smoke
limps from hiber-crater
to sky
A piebald mare
glares earthward with
an argent eye
With cat-gotten-tongue
the augur wags
his head
To the end
even our quotidian dreams
have an eternal glaze
Nottiteln #56
She lapses into babybabble
a few months before
her 5th birthday
Her word for him
is Da-dat
***
She is trying
to sort out
simile
metaphor
& personification
Her assigned word
is Sunshine
***
Before bed
she is wedded
to the fate of The Ring
while he sequesters Goethe's
Margarete in the garden
***
O Waterwheel
O Monotonous Mouth
Duplicitous Pleasure
is always itself
yet a relentless
other
Nottiteln #60
The line is there
Free will isn't
***
Once you're in
her petty fiefdom
the trapdoor
opens
the floor
is quicksand
you're gasping
for breath
***
The only rope
is words
***
This is the closest
we've come
to
Love
R.L.Swihart's poems have appeared in Offcourse #13, Spring 2002. He currently resides in Long Beach, California with his lopsidedly feminine family: his wife Ania, and his two girls Katia (8) and Nadja (5). He teaches high school math to pay the mortgage; writes poetry just because; travels whenever he can. A few of his recent poetry credits include: Stirring, Poet's Canvas, Snow Monkey, Three Candles, and Niederngasse.