Sunflower River

Along Sunflower River
the dead leaves are drawn into
sufficiently deep cesspools,
spinning around
by the wayside of eternity
where suffering is moss
and the outbound cargo
is scum.

After a storm
the underground grottoes of Naples
are said to back up and rise
five heads above any man
foolish enough to seek refuge
from the sea
in a cave the level of water.
Children never listened.
Strange madonnas of rock
have seen them snuffed under
in the cold eye of a wave.

But between the banks
of Sunflower River the water
cannot run up into a wave,
gather its force in
for a killing.
How many men have gone down
to the river to drown themselves
and all the river would give them
was a b lack eye
or a hard smack somewhere deep
in the mind, unleashing molten gasses
encased for centuries
in shale?

The shoulder blade is Sunflower River,
a harpoon hanging above
the fireplace in the chest,
yet tame
like the stalks of warm sunflowers
swaying down through the legs of lovers
woven around each other on the shore.

I have gone down
to Sunflower River in the night
many times,
stepping over smooth black logs twice
the size of any lightning that ever
fell from any war,
and have watched my mind in
the cesspools
until the sun placed its first pink arrow
neatly through my jaw.
Do you think I like to hear myself
sing?

Poem taken from the chap book Strange Attractors. First edition July 1993. 200 issues. Co-producer: Mark Stueve of Old Erie Street Bookstore Cleveland, Ohio. Front cover art by Harland Ristau. Lettering by Big Web. Back cover art by Dan Nielsen. Text artwork by t.l. & Carolyn Kryss & Hilary Krzywkowsk. Co-edited by Mark Weber & Mark Stueve. Photo of t.l.kryss by mark weber 18may89. (c)1993 by Zerx Press & t.l. kryss, 5016 Inspiration Dr, SE, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87108