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Of What is Real

By Richard Tagett b. 1936 Richard Tagett

I like to lie with you wordless

on black cloud rooft beach

in late june 5 o’clock tempest

on clump weed bed with sand

fitting your contours like tailor made

and I like to wash my summer brown face

in north cold hudson rapids

with octagon soap

knees niched in steamy rocks

where last night’s frog stared

at our buddhist sleep

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen . . .

I like to go down vertical mountains

where lanny goshkitch

meditated

crashing poplars

sap sticky arms flailing

as thermosed green tea

anoints sneakers

and blood soakt brow I taste and love

myself a split second

and I like to feel my own full scrotum

as I horizon the whole crisp linen earth

in my beatitude waiting miguel-like

in maskt fantasy for christ-like

you—

whoever you are

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen . . .

I like to look at books howl

haikus of the seasons

of the mind

that I might know the knowing

and the simplest to think of all of us

taking turns at catching each other

in the rye

and I like to taste cold absinthe

on hot hung sunday mornings

discussing orgies symposiums

and sounds with hoary headed poets

in upstairs jazz club

in Japan

but most of all I like to see

the morning happen when k and ike still sleep

and only the denver night riders hum contrasts

to orient jazzy feather beasts

in the dewy garden of real earth

where I can sink my naked feet

cool

Source: Demodulating Angel (Ithuriel's Spear, 2011)

Biography

Richard Tagett was born in Ashtabula, Ohio, and moved to New York City in 1960 after serving four years in the Air Force. In New York, he studied poetry at the New School for Social Research before moving to San Francisco, where he became acquainted with poets Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, and Jack Gilbert (whose seminar he attended at San Francisco State College). Tagett founded the journal Manroot with Paul Mariah in 1969, . . .

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