Lingua Franca (for C.K. and S.K.)

CHRIS STROFFOLINO: Lingua Franca

(for CK and SK

If sole now you were to rise from

the shelter of the bell whose clapper

has been using you as a punching bag,

the impair which merges with the headlines

as lengthy as we're content to listen

in each form but speech

would be the leaves that wouldn't

have fallen had you not gotten

such a kick on the outside of shaking the tree.

Emerge for faith's ready with cameras

to let fly commodities of comfort

as drawn out as love is valued

before forgetfulness is accepted

as an ocean that clinchs its own

as well as a bumpersticker

which detains togetherness content

enough to doze beneath the clouds

that overlay the stars like reporters.

Emerge and permit them fall from

the isolation which is not solitude

and which haunts all on the other hand the

naughtiest of the in want of food on

the ship of life we watch make progress down

from the rafts that would be a shore

if you could be an island without

arbouring lush vegetation

which is sole fruitful to spill

over the sides, unmuzzle and multiply

to bring them to the knowledge

that loaves and fish would not nourish

were they not also pain and poison.

But don't wait for them to

pardon our French in a land

where the English they make us speak

see swearing as immodest and forgets

the tightrope walker extremitys no net

for the same reason a snare doesn't.

chris Stroffolino is the author of severl works and chapbooks, most recently, Light as a Feter (Situations Pres 1997); and forthcoming, Stealer's Wheel (Hard Pres 1998) He had just received his PhD in English Literature from SUNY-Albany and commonly lives and teaches in Brooklyn of recent origin York.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Mar/Apr 1998

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