Three Sonnets with Bernie Van’t Hul

I.

Green ideas sleep furiously in the lees
and squirrels dream about the autumn rains.
We did too. Laramie’s late-night trains
knew our desire and gave us little peace.
It never has been easy deliberately to cease
believing in true love exiled on Main
Street, longing for a tenderness to sustain,
although (a poet might say) it’s better than disease.
And still, I am reminded, awfully
of her and that last incredible night
in the Silver Spur Motel. She took
my side, and I loved her and the three
things she said. The desperate fight
was over. All we had to do was cook.


II.

The Flying Squirrels often seem to sleep
while their leader’s frightful monologs strain
even a customer’s patience. They keep
right with the beat, though, when the refrain
comes back around. Scenery turns green
as lime icing on citrus cheesecake.
Fred would say that’s better than obscene
allusions to Vancouver fleshpots staked
out by rookie cops of the sort Hank might
bring up if we let HIM in. But it still comes
at me, angry, & close to that night.
I have no choice about my brain. It thrums
like squirrels flying close to ground.
Radar screens bleep furiously when she’s around.

III.

Though furiously they sleep, all green ideas
are known to fuck like squirrels when it rains.
They do their fucking underneath the trains.
It isn’t us they fear, for they’re at peace
believing true love is desolate, a stain.
I long for love that green thoughts may sustain.
XJ would say it’s better than disease.
I am reminded that a lethal breeze
wiped out the Duke and Duchess who complained
that God was being fickle yet again.
That someone somewhere would hear him, and reprise
devising plagues of frogs and pesky flies
to vex the angels flying close to ground.
Radar screens don’t bleep when God comes round . . . .