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The Web Poetry Corner

Eli Romanov

of

Elk Grove, CA, US

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White Gloves

by

Eli Romanov

My unexalted faith is just
Stubborness, And arguing that
Of others only makes them sick,
So I don't.
So much for largess,
For tolerance,
For the value of mission.
Conversion of self and others
Is the same
As abolition and enlargement
Of ego are the same.
It slips into its false-bottomed box
Until next performance.
The miracle is
In misdirection.

Just Typical

by

Eli Romanov

Oops! there, you've
Wandered away again.
Must've seen
Something shiny,
Or heard what is in
My heart: I love even
Your indifference,
Even your rejection.
We are perfect for
Each other.
Goodby!

Autobiography Of Jack Shit

by

Eli Romanov

I am born,
Know nothing;
As I grow, know
Less and less.
May've been named
After offal, demerol,
Or some very bad cheese.
Ignorance is made of these
And all certainty.
We stop thinking, declare
Complete our purpose,
Birth. In stone carve
Names of who we thought
We were, and leave
Earth, hollow,
For all the little
Shits who follow.

In Praise Of Feral Women

by

Eli Romanov

To know you
Is under childhood,
Beyond caducity.
Old man, young man
I variously am,
And you, the
Excluded middle,
The timeless divide
Are a siren inferred--
A forming glow
At peace, wild--
Ahead of mere thought.

Gooseboys In Mist

by

Eli Romanov

Predawn: Necks
Black questionmarks
Over foot-high fog,
Alert for gulls, dogs,
Each other. Hysteria
Contained, conjunctive
High notes in poor
Cupless ears.
Here the field fills
With light.
Interrogative over
An end of night.

Something The Light Did

by

Eli Romanov

Here is each hour unfolding,
And I can close a gate against
The course of other things.
Its own green timepiece,
Planted to perfect the past
In mystery, encloses grass,
Those roses, these easily
Illuded eyes. Each hour,
However cannily planned,
Includes surprise.

Twenty-third Pond

by

Eli Romanov

Revealed in embryo,
A magnetic field --its
Coreline drawn--
Across gravity, time.
It had eyes,
Saw,
Worked its raw way
Into eternity.

Waterstrider across
Reflection --skims
A catalogue of Heaven--
Remains over its own,
Attached, all fingers,
To what is known.

But we are in conclusion
Always, ahead of fact.
In touch, eyes, ears,
Become mind, leading,
Leaving always waters,
Earth, Heaven behind.

Pocket Walk

by

Eli Romanov

This little path
Up the levee sags
Into sandgrass and finds
Footstones over decades,
Easiest angles and
Million minor adjustments
Where tree roots serve
As stairs, paw prints
Swerve off under berries.
There is a prospect where
It gains the road:
This little path up
The universe is connected
To the levee.

Dark Express

by

Eli Romanov

You remember me better
Than I do. Who
I was, under a hat:
Another magician arriving
In station echoes--
A late train, smells
Of cigarettes and steel.
An overcoat
On a cold night,
For an instant seemed solid,
Right and just, more
Than invention in
Shadows, dust, down years.
Here, you touch glass
That stops a place where
Steam is,
Clear a squeaking
Circle and
Remember me.

Speaking of Pies

by

Eli Romanov

I knew when that summer ended
Even without air going gold
And sharpening atom by atom.
It was in voices, bells
Became clearer, pauses
Shorter with thought,
More thought in them. I could
Smell apricot in old
Neighborhoods, sidewalks
Cracked under nut trees,
And some confusion
Overtook bees at screened
Windows. Echoes collected
In laughter, called kids
Inside. And in each cooling
Autumn kitchen, pie.

You, Peace.

by

Eli Romanov

Command myself not to stare.
Rare people. Rarities with
Quiet in them-- unsudden surprise,
Like littoralis inland or
Dream remembered-- I like those.
Something seen when they look
Down, and eyelashes shade
A private whisper of world.
Then look up, a little embarrassed,
Smile of a cloud sunlit and
Caught thinking. Is it
Ocean or wind in leaves one
Hears? Such people.
The difference disappears.

Forest Pilgrims

by

Eli Romanov

In the woods I saw
White shirts, robes,
Skirts, a haunted sun
Caught in cotton, white
Full of dark girls and
Leathery men. Sound of
Ocarinas ringed in jingles.
Many tapped at tambourines.
I asked the leading marcher:
Whatever can this mean?
He quizzically looked behind
and said: Now there's
A Goddamn coincidence
For you.

That Blue Thing

by

Eli Romanov

Spilled downhill, darkness:
Shadows stretch from under
Trees, and earth turns me
To stars. I locate Venus,
Mars, and that blue thing,
Then head home.
Day is west, then east,
Waking another round of
Idiots. A little rest,
At least, until
I get what they
Screw up tonight.

Fission As A Second Language

by

Eli Romanov

Plenum burning, embers set
Jewel-like in turning gas,
In dark where immortal pieces
Pass, soundless, out of light.
Tonight we read these things
In our geometry of days,
Fictitious forces, In gravity
Feel the dark ways and
Endless courses, shocking antiquity
of matter seeking life.
After us, others--
None so near the beginning again--
Will live and hear
Its roaring end.

Johannes Hardware

by

Eli Romanov

I prefer the gentler
Old locks that turned
Easily and never
Ruined, like Brahms.
This new hardware
Erases him: superfluous
Parts; devised in paranoia,
All catches and complexity.
Yet, here is the world.

Remembering Dreams

by

Eli Romanov

Travelers hope.
Space, span enclose hope
Enroute to better places,
Better times.

Through all, us,
Of each
A subatomic question:
Have you any idea
What you are?

Can't be helped.
Old gardens are
Monuments to eccentricity.
Creation astonished
Is always

A dark gasp that spreads
Stars and soil.
What emerges hopes.

Freedom From Speech

by

Eli Romanov

A defining fire:
Carbon remains;
A curriculum derived
From a test of lives,
Escape velocities,
And tusks dropping
To the ground.
After which,
An absent sound, made
By startled birds
Replaces words.