Monday Poems: "Of What is Real" -- by Richard Tagett

I like to lie with you wordless

on black cloud rooft beach

in late june 5 o’clock tempest

on clump weed bed with sand

fitting your contours like tailor made

and I like to wash my summer brown face

in north cold hudson rapids

with octagon soap

  knees niched in steamy rocks

  where last night’s frog stared

  at our buddhist sleep

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen . . .

I like to go down vertical mountains

where lanny goshkitch

meditated

  crashing poplars

  sap sticky arms flailing

  as thermosed green tea

  anoints sneakers

  and blood soakt brow I taste and love

  myself a split second

and I like to feel my own full scrotum

as I horizon the whole crisp linen earth

in my beatitude waiting miguel-like

in maskt fantasy for christ-like

you—

whoever you are

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen . . .

I like to look at books howl

haikus of the seasons

of the mind

that I might know the knowing

and the simplest to think of all of us

taking turns at catching each other

in the rye

and I like to taste cold absinthe

on hot hung sunday mornings

discussing orgies symposiums

and sounds with hoary headed poets

in upstairs jazz club

in Japan

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen when k and ike still sleep

and only the denver night riders hum contrasts

to orient jazzy feather beasts

in the dewy garden of real earth

where I can sink my naked feet

cool

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Richard Tagett has published three books of poetry—Breaking the Silence (2005), What Were Yards (2008) and Demodulating Angel (2011), in which the above poem is printed. He lives in San Francisco.