Guy first thanks Poetry Magazine for allowing him to hang his work on the wall. He has written over 130 poems (that he's kept), 30 short stories, two one act plays (one of them produced at Lake Tahoe as the winner of a one-act contest), two versions of a children's book and one novella. He is currently seeking a publisher for his novel, LOYAL, and is well into a second book entitled, SKIN WEEKEND.

  Guy Perkins is also a Gold Star Member of PoetryMagazine.com, and you can read more of his poetry on his Member page.

1 & 2

1

Closed

Blithely -- a state of excitement
on the way to Yosemite-like places;
careful flighty notes
rich as drunken honey bees
in clover springs
and other endless succulents;
amazing road signs;
ungathered messages for bullish travelers.
Major deer crossing next 14 miles
Where on the road do sergeants and
privates cross?
How do deer sergeants become majors?
May be the miles they wield crossing our hard paths.
Astonished is another state
noted after or along
blithe's amazing world
of Major butterfly crossings.*

Tioga's closed unrangered gate ends delight.
The high park road needs drying,
us, a week early.
So to condo minded Mammoth
where an afternoon spring economy
offers no camping.

Up road then to Deadman's Creek
and two mountain stacked moraines
of obsidian sides crossing
far yielding acres of cardboard lava nuggets,
lighter and chunkier than purpose.
We must have packed 50 obsidian pounds
of the darkly glassed miracle
to the brook community
that cooed and swirled our tent;
one flow speaking unknowable swelling tongues
whirling permanently around rivulet
balanced rocks and rock garden contours
hunched toward love every two hundred yards.
The dappled local morning
fastened our snapshot residence.




*Unavoidable for miles East and miles West,
they gently popped, pop, pop
against the car.
Their wide air highway embraced
low flight along mountain terrain
and uncovered death:
the weight of each lifetime's
unresolved loose ends crushed.



2

Opened

One week later cold Yosemite,
but dry John Muir favor us.
You should see now, John:
smoke and foreign language factors,
boy scouts and mixed college noise,
skits, songs, pre-wit firewood
at headwater campsites
and choruses of organized, harmonized
screams before dawn.

But John, Pileated Woodpeckers
in Merced groves resist, and guardian butterflies
are dark with risky yellow trim.

I am anybody; you're anybody (every bit as fine)

In a hotel room
in New Orleans, I consider
interior designs for people
knitting margins.
The newly mercantiled
plastic upon the walls,
unobtrusive in a way,
insinuates languid moss,
naked willingness
and J. strained hind part days.

I could be anybody
or any name inside
the moss southern whorls:
paper breastworks
with unaffiliated leaves
from northern hardwoods.
I could be as naked as you.
I could call the hotel desk
for a number - 789436724:
the universal university man,
or partly the back of a woman
or
bloody Sylvia Plath.

I read your last
            saturated poems
and emptied genetics.
I am             the notable identifier,
crawling by         No    numbers.
Yours had                  no clothes.
You and                    
numbers            effaced every clicking word
and lawnmowers                 
        and certainly
moss-like
    credos.

Good Snow

Steel winter's moon,
pull us like tide
up the Carson Valley blanket,
Gardnerville/Minden's yellow/white patchwork
heavy on the Himalayan world.
We've been impatient for wet medicine.

Thousands of meadows and plains
perfectly wait for cross country skiers
to admit they treasure the world -
skis parked upright like horses
in small town berms.

Lead us then down clean edged Highway 50
to used car snow
deep on hoods and trunks
and glittering afterstorm winter's breath
littering true air
on sidewalk dents and creases
loosening the expanding universe.

Laughing Night

They threw us together from the joke:
We would disease each other into thicket's sleep;

We would find aching parts
Weak headed for explosions,

Loving mucus slippery
As fried leftovers.

(The night's framed laugh
Carved moon and shadow neighbors,

Residents fearing our sphere's echoes
And belly suggested genius.)

But we could log a show -
A one act with mighty appended music and spotless words.

We could stop night's cheeks
Unexpectedly, and the laughter needlessly die.

We could make breath's wordy commas
Like skills in light hands and sheets.

We would ignite sick coils and silly walls
And ask no quarter of fresh spirits.

Soon, in predictable Cassandra's sleep,
Hubris would lay arms legwise,

Waking the stricken and unbelieving onlookers' panic
To finish a marginal breadbasket rash.

My illness dream told me this, sweet flower's equal.
Awake, we do not have edgy fevers and arching.

Kitchenart

Garnished skills appear,
artful waste on me:
reflexed canvas studiostaged,
lifted set arranged -
drawers cabinets steel
clay glass coppercloth.

Choirs attend shimmered broth;
dancers vault the stove;
musicians note sweetness here;
actors float a clove.
Flick here, stroke there,
opening closed beyond me:
the crowd watching
seasoned audience done before begun.

Correcting self, swirling self
loves the artful way:
burnished product fragrance judged;
pressing humor stay.