Robert Mueller | Winebibbers Go Home

Winebibbers Go Home

 

 

A crimsoned valuation

picks the motors of pentaculated

runners on a field of display

a hoax or an alarm.

 

It used to be the columbine

attracted hummingbirds and star-clipped

in a summer’s hottest tranche.

Now wintry spotter’s net

must catch a feathered red

 

to charge against the wickets

of a ghostly bricolage

a breach to ease the canted branch.

If weakly cardinal in cold

well stretches light’s delights

temptation ardently to spar

with gloom’s adherents snipes.

 

Where seeking bred of seeing’s heart-

flash if a stranger to an anger

braised the coals the scarlet

sparks not in the day played in the dark.

 

A tang to spin the spangled manger

underlay the helicopter hats amid

the gladiolas and poinsettia.

They drew the straws but kept

away the cats. A sanguine sprat

 

could stir the faintest blush

so let us taste the lips’ best rush

of comfort in the common claret

all ablaze and brandishing the fadeaway.

 

 

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Robert Mueller is the author of Hereafter Knowing in Sonnets and Their Similars, an adventurous undertaking in literary history and critical interpretation under the signs of philosophy and theology. Other recent writings to his credit include a poem in And Then, poetry of an unusual stripe in Home Planet News Online and, in Spinozablue, a group of poems focused on the topic of our precious wetlands as well as an essay titled “Petrarcan Naissance.” Robert has earned multiple academic degrees, a PhD in comparative literature from Brown University, an MA in classics from the City University of New York, and a BA from Yale University. Among his major publications are essays and reviews found in Jacket2, American Letters & Commentary and ELH.

Geer Austin | Bird of Paradise & October

Bird of Paradise

With green spears
crested orange flowers
& bird beaks
I’m a showoff
a show stopper
an in-your-face
specimen of a plant.
Some say I’m pushy
like a rooster, a brilliant
tropical thing screaming
my name at sunrise
keeping you from sleep.


__________________________

October

My face is a jack-o’-lantern a couple of days
before Halloween. The oak trees in my yard
bear 24-karat acorns; squirrels break their teeth
on them. I smell a cloudless blue sky, but it’s raining.
I’m staring at my laptop. Alan Cumming is trying
to sell me stuff on Instagram, but I’m not buying.
I can taste the money those gold acorns will bring me.
Okay, I can’t really taste money & acorns
aren’t palatable. So I munch a Macoun I bought
at a farmstand the next town over. My neighbor’s kid
tells me to chillax, but if I follow her advice I’ll forget
to vote. Her mother tells me about pif paf pouf. I say to her
this insane bench of stoicism is not a comfortable perch.
I ogle the orange blossoms that attracted hummingbirds
last summer. All of them have flown to Ecuador
where they work a gig entertaining tourists. I remember
their wings whirring next to my face while I read
novels on the deck. I always flew after them
as they rushed toward their next flower. But Chucky’s
saying that’s not true. What does he know?
A honey-drenched butternut squash opens its interior
for me. Cinnamon sweetness splats my taste buds
& I think about dinner at an agriturismo in Sicilia
one year ago. An acorn lands on my head & black squirrels
scramble up tree trunks. Pretty soon it will be November.


_______________________________________________


Geer Austin’s poetry and fiction have appeared in Poet Lore, Manhattanville Review, Big Bridge, Plenitude, BlazeVOX, Boog City, and others. His short story, “Stuart Livingston Hill,” is a recent episode of the podcast A Story Most Queer. He has served as a judge in the PEN America Prison Writing Awards and the Bisexual Book Awards. He is the author of Cloverleaf, a poetry chapbook (Poets Wear Prada). He lives in New York City.