Platonic Heritage

Plato, some of us
Who follow your tradition,
Desire to have a disembodied blue, a pure blue,
A blue detached from any object.
I desire to have the blue
That is the unique blue
Of her blue eyes, but Plato,
I cannot have this blue
Unless I have her blue eyes.
To have her blue eyes,
I must have her, but Plato
I do not want her.
We are temperamentally opposites.
Also, Plato, she does not want me.
She's a postmodernist, wants
Only my words, the materiality
Of my signifiers.
So, Plato, I'll never have
The ideal blue, I adore.
When I see her walk by,
I shiver.

A Pear

The observer, an old Chinese poet, invents
The pale green pear,
Sitting still in a jade bowl
As the poet takes off the crimson robe
Covering his dark purple clothes,
The pear changes color, changes contours.
If Basho were here,
The pear would be a green minnow
And minnow's pond, a silver tree,
But Basho died centuries ago.
Now, at this moment,
To this old Chinese poet,
This pear is her pale green eyes,
She who died ten years ago.

Marigolds

Every Sunday at two o'clock,
A slender, old man, creaseless
Black pants, starched shirt,
Suspenders adorned
With tin American eagles
Goes to the cemetery
On the side of the white plank church,
Puts a jar of marigolds
On the red clay dirt
Where no one
Has ever been buried.

Dancers

On a strip of white damp sand,
Surrounded by bright blue-green water,
She dances.
Pelican dive for fish,
Never pause to look at her dancing.
She pauses
To wipe sweat from her forehead,
Then repeats hand gestures over and over.
As she seeks perfection,
I turn to watch the splashes
Made by the pelicans' dives.
The splashed water is also dancing,
Doing a very complex dance.

Halos

Sandhill cranes fly low
Over iris-spotted bogs,
Have red halos
As twilight ruffles
Their head feathers.
How different from us
Who to have halos,
Must renounce
The things of this world,
Beat our chests with stones.

Biography

Biography Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in English Renaissance literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, was Poet in Residence at the University of Tampa for over 20 years. Has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander. Is author of 14 print books of poems, the latest is WATCHING WISTERIA ( to order write Vida Publishing, P.O. Box 12665, Lake, Park, FL. 33405-0665, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Since September 1999, he became a cyber poet and started submitting on-line, and since September 1999 he has added to his over 2,000 print acceptances with 1,231 acceptances by e zines. He is also a painter. Now has exhibitions at Thomas Center Galleries (Gainesville, FL) and Tyson Trading Company (Micanopy, FL) Recently a one-man show at Pyramid Galleries (Tampa, FL) Also, a photographer, has had 116 of his photos selected for appearance on e zines. He photographs trash in alleys. Moves in close to find beauty in what people have thrown away. He now lives alone in a two-story decaying house in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives isolated and estranged as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language (some form of postmodern English) of his neighbors. The egregious ugliness Of his neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic efforts of the police force who put bright orange and yellow posters on the posts to advertise the location is a shopping mall for drugs. His alley is the dumping ground for stolen cars. One advantage Of living in this neighborhood, if your car is stolen, you can step out in the back and pick it up. Also, the burglars are afraid to come in on account of the muggers. His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philsophy.]

^