Peter Greene

madness10 :the  novel

"very   moving , and ,  of  wonderful mahogany"

      "  derogatory , disconcerting - a

                                                          veritable

          burbling". - the   Times  and Quiler's   While    and       the

                Magazine   Of   Splendid   Things

                                         is      featuring my  living  room  - doome

             of     fame    and   failure  - now

                                                          is   the  time

                    for me    tO    inhale  you  :  fumes

                            of   Time   and   vistas      wide  :screaming  hordes,

                      deep   inside

Peter Greene

small hot milk

there is a little tiny man

who cuts up my nutmeg for me

he comes down to my house from the moon

on a tiny pair of snowshoes - silver-stringed

like electric tennis rackets

he cuts up the spice very quickly, into

tiny diamond-edged triangles; much better

than any grater or grinder can make

is the fresh taste of this

that he cuts - but

unfortunately

one night i caught him and squashed him against the wall

burst like a bug and guts -  i

was tired, i was half-awake, he surprized me - no more

will i see the quick crazy half-smile

that would cross his face as he plied his tiny scissors; no more

will i see his eyes glint and glitter in the yellow kitchen light. He was beautiful.

Peter Greene

Aquadynamics and the far dark boom of quarry rock

people do much larger things than I

a blast far away in the quarry con

firms it – big men, three hundred pounds and more,

who lose hands between boulders the size of houses, reaching

for the one rock out of place – com

posing vast poems whose subtle song

of a million million voices

expresses itself in the vast and perfect

           slight tilt

of a barge that will be three years

moving from here to far Dubai – attended

by helicopters, the machine train sighs

across the seas and these vast men merely man it – each, too

exhausted in his turn – the gulls cry screaming

in the wake of the tugs and chains – they, smaller than I

tend this great procession

with far greater knowledge and attention

than I, a poet not too far by

enchanted by booms

and the stories of large men

who do larger things , I reach

for that one detail out of place

that will fix the scene in place, in mind forever

but the rocks roll on today

and I pull back a stump.