Merryland

The problem with half-serious is that
the train rackets ahead of the train curves.
While the many lights bleat or twinkle.

Soon it will rain on someone's eastern city.
That's not clapping but a bout of static.
Not static but the many languages of wind.

The radio says: "I'll write myself a letter
and pretend it came from you." (As easy as
warehouses loiter above the river's glaze.)

Part shoulder in dark part rectangular.
A wilderness of crooked white shades
and their old-timey finger strings.

Idle telegraph shop: idle benevolent ass'n:
idle stone church: a place aside apiece.

If the scenic heights even if the valley
never numbered its vanishing points.

Radio tower and the houses dot, dot, dot.

Copyright © 2006 Daniel Gutstein All rights reserved
from Lilies and Cannonballs Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission