Four Poems
by Peter Fortunato

Peter Fortunato’s new book is Entering the Mountain, from which these four poems are excerpted. Fortunato lives in Ithaca in a house he and his wife the poet Mary Gilliland long ago saved from ruin and restored near Six Mile Creek. His web site is www.peterfortunato.wordpress.com. Entering the Mountain and Late Morning: New and Selected Poems are both available at amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.

How the Solar

Static electric hairs of her crown,
hair of the calico soft, very bright.
Eyes note at the window bird steps and flutter
outside twin panes. Eyes in my head
whose trigger the sumptuous sunlight is, so
sumptuous married to this, this syntax
observing words also begin where
my hand can caress that warm fur:

in the very sun whose command of her sight
sends the cat after birds who crack seed.
She who eats too as I do cuts of liver
the butcher sends.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOAnd that is how I see
those bloody fingernails: he is a butcher,
the son of a butcher, smiling.

I tell my friend, my friend, my butcher
whose office is surrounded by ribbons
of white and red meat, how the solar so
particular is as my sweet cat
crouching on her pillow of light.

 

Matters Less

Matters less than equivocal, the thrush
for instance, whose song recalled
promises vernal twilight and dawn.
Or is it sorrow local, reciprocal:
love pains you too because you cannot hold me.

The signature says one thing, the performer another,
so that I love you measures a tempo over the rain,
won’t tell me your secret. But add the mockingbird
and the fact of his song, another twilight,
kudzu and honeysuckle on the air
ambiguous once,
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOyet by this notation sweet.

The thrush we buried hand in hand grieving
killed by the cat innocently, uneaten made us angry.
Remember borage blossoming, the garden
where we laid in such humus the body,
its song.
Matters less certain do not pertain.

Recall the death of a friend before Christmas.
More than one friend.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOThe iron tree blooms
white feathers dazzling on the blue flaming sky.

 

Martellato

Hammered molto, one might even say troppo.
The musical equivalent of the hairy,
a keyboard artist hitting black and white
with precision. This trope then.

But can it bring them back, they who wander?

Learning the names of birds, of flowers, deciduous
trees where we live. Larger than the hairy
the pileated, like a pterodactyl among the ashes,
hammers his poetry out. Prehistoric headed
into the grub-pot of decay
he shrieks with joy, white worms
sliding down his throat.

Score this a metaphor. A man like a bird,
effortless playing, keeps returning, bearing his gift.
Homely economics: the perforated ash
gives itself to further infestation by the beetle,
whose offspring in turn become food.

And what became of the thundering lizards
who slid their skins who maybe
rose on wings like the phoenix?

 

Flight Money

Exceptional wren, the song torqued
ululation troped: the bird is not a bird
but a bit of feather on the protein chain,
song rising up, announcing its arrival.

Nest egg equals money equals common human
aspiration, ordinary courses, events inhabiting
five figures with grief.
OOOOOOOOOOOO Outside, not necessarily,
the bird chirrups happily.

Adoption not necessarily an option.
Nor for that matter the papa’s shoes filled
with dollar bills waiting by the door one morning.
Overcoat rustling, rattle of French panes
in narrow wooden sashes. Inside this departure.

And from an elm stump home
can it be called a warble? Tail up, shrill
castigation, angry as a wet wren.
Rich as a paycock.
OOOOOOOOOOOOWho is more the beautiful
male for his devotion?

Capital knows no patriotism and
large sums do migrate with criminal stealth.