The Lord: I fold this land as a resigned wife
That falls back for her Lord, that lovely beast
And drive a firebreak in her soothing flesh.
His singer: Foolish huge beast of the water
Captive in the seaweed of words.
The Lord: I give her names as words
I take her with armed hands each morning
And my skin is tight in that holy murder.
His singer: The luring call of a bird wanting to mate
And the airless answer of the unwillingness.
Are names the breath of trees?
And of the freakish folds
Of this landscape you cannot brand.
The Lord: Make poetry as it is hailing
Brand new and murderous.
This land is everywhere filled with furrows
Filled with the trails of him who reigns it.
His singer: The tree is only tree when you rage elsewhere,
Light is his breath
That gives him wings
And is quiet in his shadow.
The Lord: Bah! Not-knowing is the hut of the hermit
His singer: THE POET MURDERS THE WORD
The Lord: HE WORDS THAT MURDER
(K. B.)
ANOTHER CRYSTAL SHIP IS GOING DOWN
for the poet John Keats “ whose name was writ on water”
for Immortal, Timeless Poetry…and the children- for whom it was all and will be, written down. and not forgotten…
“The very music of the name has gone…” -John Keats, Endymion
another crystal ship is going down
there where the violet waters cannot reach the sun
or where, the bargained-over heart
is run aground
no longer feeling anything at all
for the Attic messengers berated and
berated and
thrown overboard
in waters that won’t register the sound
of this bleak sowing.
the moon on bartered waters gives no light.
dim are the trees that used to
green the shore.
jingoistic captains seize the day:
cueing the numb musicians on the deck
for one last, auctioned song
to bear doomed passengers along
cold, flooded passageways.
we’re losing time and memory every day
observing the Grail float by us on the Tides
and willing it all away to starfish
while we just hang on in the frozen waters
to the driftwood prayers
we must remember…
“Our Father…
another crystal ship is going down-
another and another – everywhere -
alive with diamond words…
that must be spared
though we’re – just – ballast – to them:
the odd Ringmasters crowing
at the glint of Beauty drowned
and going down
they’ll claim -but it’s not true-
in Ophelia-coloured waters=
Not – this – time.
for we have heard-
though half-awake
the mist-bright mermaids surging Home
and we may see, half-blinded through our tears-
that when curbed lovely words
disintegrate – they cry out in soft rains:
“Hallowed be thy Name”…
however long we wait, we wait
at the edge of these coiled waters-
clear on their Return on the evening’s tide.
pearl were the hulls
now sinking on their way, so “optional”.
sheer Pearl, the tears of God
who only sent them all
(“Deliver Us From Evil…”)
to save our children
in the glacial days ahead…
treading implacable waters…
18-20 April 2012
(M-A. D)
SPACE
I’m looking for the cracks in the
24/7.
I’m hoping to
Live more lightly
In some clean well-lighted places .
I’m thinking that
By
Condensing years of self-analysis
Into an old man’s
Blunt conclusions,
I can relax
Into my Third Age.
I’m working on
Giving away
What weighs me down
And keeping only
What lifts me up.
I’m assuming
That the long last
Chapter of a life
Includes
Garden chairs and
Battered hats.
I’m counting on
What I know
Being enough
To astonish
My grandchildren.
I’m turning my back
On You Tube sensations
And X Factor winners.
I don’t feel I need
To read the Booker shortlist
Or know the names
Of footballers.
I have my pantheon
Of outsiders, deadbeats
Show-offs, martyrs and
Holy men.
I have hidden my
Thesis and my
Dissertation
Under a pile of
Blank sketchbooks.
I’m giving up politics
As a bad job
(some injustices
You just have to leave
Unjust).
I’m cutting my losses,
Burning my bridges,
Severing my ties
And trimming my shirt fronts.
But love.
Ah, love.
Yesterday I realised
I have reduced
You to a shorthand
When you are
‘War and Peace’
And the study
Of a lifetime.
(N. H.)
TO MY DEARY (while listening to Ahmad Jamal)
In the landscape of mine, when the sun was gone,
behind the sky, without a sign, a gull came
growing, until it was a screen,
on which I could see my own handwriting,
and by each inner batting
of my body and of my eye: those words changed,
and then I saw HER handwriting:
the time stands still
when you sit close to me
your head touching mine
and the silence listens also
and is happy
It’s like Ahmad Jamal
who is playing behind me.
Each new beat changes a word on the screen.
It comes from my deeper caverns
(with all the precious treasures)
each accent bringing up another word,
the hidden message from YOU in me.
I am looking, listening with, looking
with a quiet breath.
I walk with my watcher
in the seascape, weighing each word,
going deeper all the time and:
hearing YOU, deeper under“ no greater love”
and everything is a mastered, but slow love,
soft, giving a driving in the heartbeat,
the afterglow bringing a fresh word
filled with a thriller waking up
my slow, slow memory.
The gulls dance on the screen they made,
I see YOU in the lights of the breakers
whirling in the water, the sky.
You are in me, closer by each after-beat
on the drums, everywhere in the dunes,
in the sky, after the bright light.
my mind and inner eye dance
with embalming tones: you and me,
indeed, the silence listens, involved.
Now I know where I can find you,
everywhere in me, on me, with my inner senses,
a pen and paper, and here I go back to the first line….
…….Gilberte and Kari: the octopus
(K; B.)
SEEDLESS GRAPES
Poems are made with words, not ideas.
Ideas, like dead leaves, clutter
the alleyways of history …..
Poems like this one are two a penny.
What I need is a good fruit breakfast
now and for the next twenty-five years -
prepared for Maria with my own fair hands.
What I want is a cheap ticket to Morocco.
You tell me you had satori ten years ago
at somebody’s funeral. You describe it
so vividly in your one-page e-mail
that I stand at this unknown person’s grave
looking down into infinity. With me,
it’s nothing more than being the right man
in the right place, at the right time,
suddenly surprised by my own existence.
She’s sleeping off the long journey from France
and I am cutting seedless grapes in half
with Uranus, planet of vertical knowledge
on my Aries Ascendant. (I had to fit that in).
Madame Shibata’s amazing ability
to put life into perspective floors me.
Easily, comfortably, she looks back over
a hundred years. One day is a lifetime for me.
(M. C.)
A POEM IN THE MORNING -For Ustad Imrat Khan
Hearing a hidden, shy black bird,
I know the sun is coming above the sky-line.
The grass is already waving, whispering,
and all that grows is awakening
the grey is moving between night and morning.
Soft humming is heard as the tuning
of the keynote of a still invisible string,
a song without words…
but filled with a touching meaning.
A red cherry as the beak;
bleu and orange as the sky in its embrace,
colours that court, sending soft kisses
into the ears,
steered from the inner mind
to reddish ears, to fingers, playing in the beds
of streaming water.
Sharp red stresses and soft bleu scrawls
coming from unheard , graceful pregnancy,
becoming a living, breathing song,
ending with an outburst of joy
when the sun rises and delivers the sky.
(K. B.)
BALLANDO E DANZANDO
Ballando e danzando
Dal buio scollando
Una perla di luce
Mi illumina il volto
Mi illumina la mente.
Troppi pensieri passano senza fermarsi
molte certezze si interrompono prima di materializzarsi
spesso timori ingannano desideri di vita
Lasciarsi vivere:
Avolte un tormento
A volte una speranza
A volte una necessità
Per un attimo non cammino,
Un volto perso nello specchio
Nell’immobilità mi sento altro.
Dall’immensità colgo una briciola di spiegazione
Una perla di umiltà mi illumina la via
Il coraggio mi sostiene la mente
Intuisco che non devo mentire
Ridicolizzo la meticolosità
Ballando e danzando tra I pensieri…
Amare e credere :
anche accontentarsi di vivere
sapendo bene che non si sa
dove arriveremo.
La casa della chiocciola
Ci indica il tempo.
Le cicale ci suonano
Le giornate calde.
I grilli ci cantano
Le notti profetiche.
Messaggi scanditi dall’immensità
Si trasportano su carri cigolanti
Che a fatica camminano da soli:
Spesso sono spinti da unicorni
Volteggianti in una concreta leggerezza
L’orgoglio a volte li fa fermare,
Ma non perdere
Ed è subito pace.
(P. M.)
AND NOW, THE COMMEDIA DEL’ARTE IS LEAVING
the bruised reed He will not break.”
-The New Testament
to my mother – Mary Adalyn Young-Douglas
and to my grandparents, Lucy and Milton B. Young
and for Mrs. W.R. (“Addie”) White, my Great-Grandmother whom I remember when she
was 99 and I was 6.
In Memorium
for the long-ago, lost beauty of the earth.
the glory of the skies.
You know the best part: “for the Love which from our birth-
Over and around us lies…”
\“pluck one string, and a Thousand will ring.
-“Pickin’ On a Harp with a Golden String” (old song)
and now the commedia del’arte is leaving
and packing up the wagon with the scarlet wheels
and I’m behind the tempo in the music
and the cotton-candy reels
in mulberry dress socks from grade-school-
in a dress of smocked linen you shouldn’t wear in the rain
unless to water the myriad rosebuds scattered
on the yoke and trailing off mysteriously
in lavish embroidery, pink-starred, into the grass…
ignoring the envious who stare but not the little children
out on their mayflowering spree and
pitching rose petals all the way from the lower grades
to Kingdom Come, and sheared soft marigolds, wildly
on a day- after the day – before the Fair.
“do you have blue ribbon words”
I would have said to any
Peddler on that road-
“or small white-wicker pocket-books
fastened with bunches of life-like cherries?”
for it was a jam=bright day and it seemed possible
to always be reading the Classics twice-over
after the newspaper comics came-and before supper.
communion is over but we’re left dazzled in
polished cotton’s grape-juiced, Sunday seam
(don’t get that all over your dress; it won’t come out)
and now we’ve finished my Grandfather’s golden
scrambled eggs
Grandmother calls “welsh-rarebit”
we think the Easter Bunny invented it.
but we keep it to ourselves
the way children do when they’re sure
they solved the riddle without help
like a shoestring happiness tied.
it’s all in the pronunciation.
“Enunciate,” she says – showing us How.
We Can Now Leave the Table
Having Been Measured For Fullness
By the Grandfather’s Invisible Food-In-Your
Stomach-Level Measuring Machine.
(if you get up too soon he says, “not yet,
you’re only half-full…”)
so we keep asking, “how about now-“
so earnestly, and “now?”, five seconds later-
believing he can see straight through and tell:
“three-quarters full”, he smiles as we fold pink
damask napkins down and skip away…
“Don’t Kill the Goose That Laid the Golden Egg”
she says when she gets tired from teaching us manners,
fairytales and the value of Putting It Back Where You Got
It In the First Place, memorizing the Beatitudes.
after teaching piano all day.
but she’s in rose taffeta for recitals
or playing Liszt like an angel on a wash-day for my Grandfather
tipped back in his leather chair, tired out from working for the V.A.
for whom she’s washing now all the sorrow out of the house with
pianistic brilliance I cannot explain
and no clothes-pins-A Wash-Day Miracle who could improve on.
how soon the glittering hours give way
to pumpkins with the wheels coming off in the gravel.
you know the story yourself, don’t you,
from your own childhood spent looking everywhere for milky quartz
on your own time. not knowing what can be taken and not brought back
while you’re away…just in the backyard.
in spring, my mother died
leaving me the cat from Dick Whittington-
mysterious improvisations
for an imaginary piano:
small yet elegant and just for me with pale
roses scrolled on glassy ebony-a mermaid’s music-stand;
pink alabaster, paper-weighted hearts
a dime a dozen at the world’s finest dime-store
and picture hats, for every-day.
all her poems, tied up with blue silk ribbons…
and lilac swayed by the unseen.
letters with fleecy details
bright and clear as summer clouds.
or stained glass Christmas ornamentation
to put all those cathedrals in the shade.
a lasting love.
I would have sent her one more superlative
construction=paper Valentine-bright red and
paper doilied, dolled and gliitered, too,- Heart-
if I had just known when
she was going away…
here’s my too-late, unbridal bouquet-tossed backwards
over the shoulder, away from the withering Sun-
of moss-cooled pale white-
violet violets from the Arkansas woods
with a few choice gardenias
overwhelmingly perfumed
for the overwhelming sadness of knowing
that there was no amethyst marquee advising:
Another Crystal Ship Has Gone Down.
“My Mind to Me a Kingdom Is”
so what gave them permission
year after failing year
to diagnose her Kingdoms with no reprieve in sight
for they were lovely…
every one, unique as drops of snowlight. I have the letters and the soul to prove it.
let the question remain
for those who know how to answer
and not in lame psch-pop-while rifling through the files
they cannot own-
with burdens of their own
I must not judge.
as far as making the soul more accessible
to pounding
(or uniform in texture)
tracking it through the System from childhood on, let’s just say
I’m not the one well-schooled enough to turn it all into pies, rolling out the
the “well-balanced” dough in the spic-and-span Normative Kitchen
with the requisite cookie cutters close at hand, copper-kettle all lined up
icing in colors of the rainbow squeezed out, in the end with the same rosettes:
fantastic! Kudos to the chefs whoever they are.
nor will I walk away or just “move on” impressing
whoever’s watching with my own“stability” in a “crisis”
when the heartbeat of gorgeous
Poetry drops dead on any summer day
for any individual King or Queen too suddenly led away and disinherited
from their own simplicity in unending rains-
these are the real and every day occuring crimes against humanity.
visibly sanctioned, oh my God.
oh, but now-
let the blood-orange gladiola sing
though heaped up by God knows who on
the cream-colored Altars and for what reasons-
for her real exit can never be reclaimed.
this paper work’s final.
let Gossip die instead. and not be mourned
by True Believers on a roll all over, dressed in
flowered organza, hats at Eastertime-
and perfect gloves, solicitous and cruel-
anytime that you look up to see them, searching frantically
for the telltale signs in you
they thought they saw in her: pathetic, envious gerbils
stoking the silliest wheels of hell in silk from crown to foot
impeccably finding sickness where there is none-
how did you lose your dignity Christ died for?
leave my soul alone.
un-blessed are you…the murderers of Beauty you gush
you “just adore”…
and unaware that no one listens anymore
when you get up to speak.
May God send you better hobbies!
I dreamed of blizzards for days when she was gone-
but it was still summer, I remember-
when I gathered bittersweet for the table-
trying to make up for the charcoal lentils at supper
{Reading Again, I’m Proud to Say but needing some
Non-stick Cookware, Possibly)
with day-old huckleberry coffee-cake from the grocery
store down the street.
remember the summer they painted it pink and pea-green?
(the store, not the coffee cake)
1960’s architecture…with the space-age arches;
a few same scrubby pines scribbled in on the architect’s Design.
where’s the Tang, drink of astronauts.
everyone thinks their childhood was unique
but who else in the English-speaking world
quoted Tennyson, whenever the dog sneezed,
or the Grandfather-
like my Grandparents did (his sneeze was like a freight
train whistling through enormous echoing caverns
and scared the dog so much-
when she jumped up, it
made her flop-ears bounce and curl anew, almost like Disney’s “Dumbo”, momentarily)
we had hopes she’d fly…
if it just happened once at a 45 degree angle, we dreamed-
it could happen even more dramatically than ever
right there in our own living room
automatically cueing my grandparents, taking turns…
“Blow, bugle, blow-
Set the wild echoes flying…”
until we doubled up with laughter on the Grand Scale
felicitous phrase (the laughter, not the Tennyson)
though I am partial to “now the crimson petal…”
Banner Headline in the Gazette: Local Dog Flies First Time Ever, Beating the Soviets To It
And underneath, in smaller type: new sneeze-propulsion does the trick
And in a sideBar: Unassuming Pooch Makes Good; Talk of Nobel Prize. Dog: “No Comment”
and now they’re singing all on a summer day
for our best entertainment
“Pickin’ on a Harp with a Golden String…”
“you won’t need your cherry shawl, after all-
once you get up here”
my mother called down new
cherry-pie balconies, all her own-
sweetly breaking into my reveries-
“over there! the green house on Monroe Street, 115,”
Beyond all curb appeal now and
floating mystically high atop
lost Little Rock cummulo-stratus, maybe, cirrus clouds-
they’ve drifted far afield
to hover above my current address, out-of-state
“Can you see the Gazette from there?”
I queried-
“can you see me
in the dear old days beyond recall”?
“right now! it’s coming into view…
run down to the store, honey, and get me some cherry-vanilla,:
4 cones, soft-serve swirled for appetizers”; horse-doovers,
Gramp would say, trying not to laugh at his own joke.
but knowing that Grandmother always will…
“we’re having minute steaks with French dressing.
fruit cocktail for dessert, the kind with extra cherries;
and lima beans. save the gooseberries for your sister and the color pink.
then we can say her dessert was different;
we’ll call it: ‘gooseberries in a cloud.’”
“I’m wishing her diamond dresses and whole houses strung
with prisms”
“it’s a start,” my Mama said. “but we’ll need pork-chops, too.
have a strawberry tart. or pink-iced cornbread…”
Angels floated down with them after I chose.
“there’s cranberry Trilby by the pailful, so save some
room and let’s be
Merry and talk in Esperanto,” (M-a-r-y, I thought, to make her smile
since we have the same first name and she can almost read my mind.
she’s paring the potatoes backwards
but who cares:
and singing La Traviata, the whole thing
from start to finish,- filling the greenwood
full of hawthorned song. you know, she can.
I would have flunked out on
Pineapple frappe homework, myself-
that winter in home-ec-
if Grandmother hadn’t stayed up overnight-
and made it for me:
aware of my propensity to Drop Things and mix
up the ingredients horribly encrusting the Double-Boiler
gazing into Space (so crowded with possibilities…)-
thus freeing up my time for the Brontes and E. Barrett-
in Chemistry I was excused from experiments entirely-
after a few trial runs.
making it up with essays
thanks to the nuns who loved God-
but wanted to remain on earth a little longer
and not be done-away-with by a 4 ft. ll klutzy non-Catholic.
Day student.dreamy-eyed over the Sacred Heart and far
Too Shy. (says who)
in earlier news…
(“Thank you, Mrs. Young”, the teacher’s note
read that accompanied her dishes home-.
“we thoroughly enjoyed the jeweled fruit
cookies and the pineapple frappe you made for us
yesterday for Angela’s assignment”)
did she have to put it that way, my Grandma said-
reading, like me, the puff-pastry snippiness set between-the-lines-
derailing a pristine thank you note on flowered, scented paper,
perfectly done- put a fork in it.
but how could I not take heart-
despite the C minus
living as I did in a household
where people were apt to break into
the “jitterbug”
while a capella singing
“Flat-Foot Floogie with the Floy Floy…”
whenever they were even moderately happy
And Right in the Middle of the Living Room
In Front of the Picture Window with the
Drapes Open
and the girl-scouts walking this way, up our street…
so unsuspecting…their sashes chock-full of cooking badges
earned in the wilderness-
“Great-Grandmother, burned the toast again,
letting the preserves boil over on the stove.
But nothing really boils over Here.
She’s out back eating strawberries by the bushel
and we can’t stop her.” Mama laughed
just like before, while vacuuming the clouds.
“how do you think she lived to be 99?
it had to be the strawberries.
not the heavy cream. at least she could crochet. and ride
horseback anywhere-“ “I’m right here,” said Sweet Adeline
“feeding the chickens “ in a dress that swept the ground, fringed with the Pleiades
we peeked through the sugar glass end of the Panoramic Easter Egg to see
the chickens eating strawberries, too. bye to the jelly.
and Addie reviewing her sepia inscribed autograph album-
the one I used to look through on the family bookshelf
because it was sealed with Victorian hands clasping the sweet peas
fervently…
“don’t pack your sweater,
Angela,” Grandmother whispered
“not even your Juliet-cap.
Bring your books –“
out-guessing my second-guesses
like she used to, and
slipping me a Hershey bar
through the luminous crevices in the ceiling
“have you dusted lately?”
“I didn’t imagine you’d inspect the ceiling.”
“Don’t eat that Hershey Bar all at once – but
Square – by – Square-
it’ll last longer.”
as though I were home from School and 6 years old-
all set for the Mickey Mouse Club on TV at
49 Belmont Drive-
or Shirley Temple Theatre’s
sequined programming shimmering
beyond what the heart could even sigh over-
even in black and white on NBC.
I’m still Unmapped like the Land of Green Ginger.
I day-dreamed over my shredded wheat-the last shred left=munched slowly
“Fools Names and Fools Faces…don’t dawdle over your breakfast”
-“or your Christmas presents.
“and you’re still eating your oatmeal every-day,
aren’t you,
with its little lake of butter and cream
poured nicely from a milk-glass pitcher, hobnailed?
are you practicing? Reading John 14?
I’ve planted mustard-seed for you
Where the cobblestones shine like honeycomb for the Lord
even without sweeping…
I met Charles Lamb on Friday (your time) and we had raspberry sherbet.
‘Be good sweet maid, let those who will be clever.’
(no wonder, I thought; you quoted him so much-
did he say, “life is not a bowl of cherries,” too?’)
(I heard that, Grandmother said rather parenthetically-
-I forgot she could do that-)
“I haven’t seen your home-etc. teacher yet-
but then, there are many mansions-
maybe I’ll drop by there with some pineapple frappe…
or pink-lemonade cake I didn’t make from scratch…
N00o, Thank You, Betty Crocker.
we’ve started living in that old house
with the fan-tailed St. Cecilia window.
when the light of God pours through
the chinaberry tree it filters-
(I’ve only “seen” a chinaberry tree in Conrad Aiken)
there’s fine little pools of amethyst and rose
all over everything, even the throw pillows-
the ones we got with the Green Stamps
you pasted in on Saturdays with your sister.
and the dog gets petunia-colored, too,
as she’s heading home like the cows used to-
when we had that dairy and delivered milk
in a surrey – over in Prescott
-to your Grandfather’s chair and
five times fluffier than you’ll remember…
(I’m starting to get sleepy and confused-
like Alice in her Wonderlands – Did we have fluffy cows?)
Does Somebody need a nap…and a Danish wedding cookie or two?
with nothing else to do until we want to-
we’re sipping Coke Floats thickly
through peppermint-striped straws
and eating pink Divinity by the handfuls.
(“3/4 full, now…”)
“we just go on from glory to glory…
what did you say? Did I bring you some Lily Fields perfume?
Well, that’s for me to know and you to find out“
she smiled, handing me a package wrapped in a star
or candy-bar silver foil;
as I said, “Thank You, Grandmother.”
“don’t speak with your mouth full, child-
sit up straight“-
so I munched happily still, on
bread and butter pickles, Vienna sausages
and endless Milky Ways- but
as we spoke between the worlds
I saw the deep clouds roiling in,
trying not to worry…we’d all lose touch this soon, again-
“You aren’t sugar, you won’t melt”
(now how did I know that line was next)
I heard her in the next room over
Rummaging in her dresser drawers
“Now where did I put these…”
for gold-wrapped chocolate coins in a
net more golden leftover from some Christmas, years before
and fresh as ever (you try one).
“here, honey, you might need these at least until
your Food Stamps come, to tide you over.
you’ll never guess, the Commedia del’arte just showed up
by the snow-ball bushes in the yard
with Life Magazines! and all the flowers heaped up,
leftover from Last Spring-“
“it must be winter now, - Outside…” I said,
as soft as snow and almost, to myself-
“I knew He’d never let them go-
Now they’ll be beautiful, forever!”
she smiled her most artistic smile and said-
while through my tears
her sherry earrings sparkled:
“Angela-mia-
that’s Some Story.”
14-18 April 2012
(M-A. D.)
A PATCH OF BLUE
Enough to mend a sailor’s trousers,
A patch of blue above us
On our way to the sea;
And this once I feel a melting in my heart
As finally the fresh air of childhood
Rushes in;
For long long ago when I stood on Windmill Hill
In my hand-knitted jumper, pausing
From a game of bows and arrows,
The integrity of the world
Breathed down on me, cool and blue,
As if it would be my fortune
For ever.
(N. H.)
THE GOOD LIFE
You will not see me passing:
Only as ash from a cold grate
And clinker to make the garden grow.
For I’ve found a place to live quietly,
to tend the living flame and end each day
With the soft touch of off-peak electricity.
(N. H.)
TAURINE TRILOGY
- SPINNING WHEEL
Long, long after the death of this unknown poet
the moon will go on shining in the wide open sky.
I acknowledge her majesty with words of ink
that crawl like ants across the page.
Three twenty-one. Glass reflections of the glittering orb
follow me into the kitchen.
She tangles in the tree of heaven. Maria moves in her bed upstairs.
Bending forwards slightly, like an old man,
I catch sight of her completely naked.
Round and wonderful, perfectly empty
as a side-plate before a meal.
Sovereign! Serene selene! Unimpressed
by the ullulations of street owls!
How great it feels to be back in the nineteenth century where I belong,
to sit on the kerb of a pavement in Paris,
untying the laces of my worn-out boots
knowing, as far as one can know, that the beautiful battle
is nearly lost,
that Dawn will come like a thief in the night
and steal my inspiration.
This war of love is almost over and out.
I was always a bad loser,
an unthankful opponent, a grumbler.
What is that lump of light, but a cheap tin mirror reflecting the sun?
04.10 a.m.
- PLENILUNE
After shining all night
the moon now disappears
behind an ugly building.
The black roof
bites a big hole
in the moon’s white belly.
Up on my own roof
I could watch her sail away
until tomorrow.
This room’s a prison
where I serve a sentence
of labour for life.
Full moon of Taurus!
Queen of Africa!
Cemetry of love!
Wat betekent the word ‘moon’?
Why must I lie on the floor
defenestrated
Biting the carpet?
I think I have seen a ghost.
I think I’ll stop thinking.
The moon takes a train
to Germany, Italy
and France – the milk train,
Train without tickets,
stopping nowhere on the way.
The moon leaves the sky
in peace, to shelter
the sleepless and the homeless.
The moon doesn’t care.
05.10 a.m.
p.s. If the moon gets dressed
in time for work, she can do
some of my typing.
- A NOBLE ATTEMPT
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be hungry.
I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be tired.
I stretch out flat with my face on the floor
Utterly and unimaginably uninspired.
The poet’s life is a lonely commitment.
He’s unused to the glamour of glittering lights.
His days are spent in correcting and typing
The tangible texts of non-sensible nights.
Some write from the heart, while others have minds
That embrace Mother Earth and her life-giving crust.
But we all come down, at the end of the day,
To boring realities, handfuls of dust.
What is the use of a nightingale singing
When nobody listens and nobody hears?
The bird flies on, but the music is gone,
Not even an echo remains in men’s ears.
Only emotion endures (EP). The rest is a mix
Of change and of progress, of people present and past.
We turn on a smile for the Christian cleaning lady,
Ignoring the hours of valuable sleep we have lost.
Showered and shaved, I finally face up to food.
I read what I’ve written with hollow and haunted eyes.
My wife’s in the kitchen, making her lunch for the library.
I’m ready to go to Sweden and capture that glorious prize.
(M. C.)
Beminnende
Zoete geuren stromen uit hun lichamen,
Prikkelen elkaar vol overgave,
Zoekende naar één.
Warme kleuren vervloeien tot een ei-geel,
Waarbinnen begerige, gladde handen,
Elkaar strelende.
Blinkende sterren rond zwarte planeten,
In hun ogen die als magneten,
Zuigende van genot.
Zachte tintelende zuchtgeluiden,
Verspreiden zich als golfjes,
Elkaar verwarmende.
Een verhit verlicht gevoel binnenin,
Stijgt naar hun hoofden,
Elkaar bevrijdende.
Verstrengelde handen en lichamen,
Slapen zij in hun roes,
Elkaar voor altijd beminnende.
Love-making
Sweet smells streaming from their bodies,
tickling each other as servants,
searching for one
Warm colours flooding to egg-yellow,
in which longing, smooth hands,
caressing one another
Shining stars around black planets,
in their eyes like magnets,
sucking of pleasure
Soft licking yearning sounds,
spreading like waves,
warming each other
A heating hightening feeling within,
released in their heads,
freeing each other
Entangled hands and bodies,
sleeping in their glow,
Loving each other for ever
Matching cigarette and lighter
Verborgen in je jaszak
Wachtend op mij
De eerste woorden
Ze zijn al voorbij
Haal het boven
Streel het voor mij
Wacht niet te lang
Of ik ben al voorbij
Doe het branden
Praat met mij
Niet te lang
Want het is al voorbij
Matching cigarette and lighter
Hidden in your inside pocket
waiting for me
the first words
they’re already gone
Get it out
Caress it for me
Don’t wait too long
or I’m already gone
Make it burn
Talk to me
Not too long
Cause it’s already gone
(M. B.)
BREUGHEL
1
Once it begins
You want it to go on forever
And to see with his eye
The parallels
Yet the procession might just as easily be the massacre
And not everything remain safely within
A tidy definition
Yet what else will you want or look for
Where the river extends into possibilities
As historical as they are speculative
As if history was not a fixed narrative
But a story you might tell yourself
Or anyone who’d stop to listen.
2
Already everything has been said
And nothing else needs be
But we are human and continue
Warding off consequence and death
Or trying to with a pronouncement
As vivid as those strokes stretching
(Without effort) from incident to consequence
And implication –an over-view so much theory
Holds as useless to our condition but we are human
And find that not everything has been said
As it might be in a better way or a way to take us beyond
Procession and massacre
3
And now a Platonist comes to tell me
I have understood and misunderstood
But that he will set me right
As if I needed his guidance to find a way
Through the troops massed about the village
When in truth I want no way out
No way to avoid what must be faced down
Because we are what we are –who by remaining
Prove, if only to ourselves, that we did not look the other way
When we should have turned the other cheek.
4
And the water of a brightness not from the world as we know it
And the landscape as known as it’s loved
Where if he falls under the weight of raw wood we are edified
Beyond the landscape so as to be true to its intentions.
It’s as simple as it’s complicated but simple because
Acknowledgement comes as easily to the eye and lips
As it comes to the heart –or to the soul on seeing him fall
And wanting to rush forward even if we hesitate
As we might in a museum affording us time and safety
To gather our wits about us and retire to the colloquium
About to be given on Vision and Consequence
5
Everything has been said
And yet our speech must exonerate us
From accusation and indifference
And by a word step into the frame
And take the slow procession
Where the landscape is as unavoidable
As the future we walk towards
Wishing it were otherwise.
(m.b.)
THE RIGHT KIT FOR THE ROAD
For AVT
No Bible, no Koran,
No Boys’ Book of Jungle Skills,
No smartphone, no iPad,
No deeds of property, no statements of account,
No foundations, no rooftops,
No snappy little runabouts,
No cash, no plastic,
No builders’ tea, no bacon rolls,
No Oyster cards, no tickets outta here,
No beer, no fags,
No other substances of which we shall not speak,
No brow bars, no Grecian 2000,
No Jesus saves, no loyalty cards,
No Nectar points, no watch nights,
No Elvis, no Dylan, no Yoko and me,
Only the smell of Spring on the wind
And ragged memories like holiday snaps,
Only his word on your lips
And on your shoe, this speck of dust.
(N. H.)
THIS HAPPENED IN REALITY
Unknown people
brought us in the green country
to a sweet hamlet with grass
“A hamlet is never closed”,
an inhabitant said,
“but it is a circle,
a ring that never closes”.
It was between the sunset and the night,
inside the little houses there was a sweet, calm smell
and everybody moved slowly
and talked less,
grandfather did as he was asleep,
but the fire in his pipe was alive.
The looks of their eyes
went in their own mental innards
sitting as they simply were
as almost sleeping owls
in an unspoken unity
without the shade of “played” superstition,
or foolishness of invented magic
as the day sank behind the skyline
and the air was as human
as the free living minds
and after a long silence
mother said: “ switch the light on “
and the spell was not broken,
no remains of magic felt from the walls
and each moved in his own being
that was open as their
hamlet
was open for a new smiling night
in their houses, that were not a jail at all
but loved and loving silence.
“Tomorrow we can see the green
of grass again”, one said and added
after while:
“I hope I’ll see the red butterflies
laughing in their beloved green,
for the night brings life
to live in the day.”
(K. B.)
IT WAS THERE WE CHERISHED THE MEMORY OF STARS
“what a beautiful earth-turning”
-remark on a sunset by a character from a book I can’t remember the title of…(on my Grandmother’s shelf)
it was there we cherished the memory of stars
carnation crisp, delineated-
in the ice-box next to the lemon ice-box pie;
geranium pink of kindest skies
and all the cooling winds-
apple-pie divided
“a la mode”
for summer days ahead…
in almost crepe- de-chine.
”Peach Melba is the best dessert,”
she said, for musicians.
flowers fade last on
the purple sides of hills and
neopolitan ice-cream
still has everything
to recommend it…
I still know the time by the
crimson clock with snowy numerals…
the “Plan Ahead” sign with its
cramped last letter…making the point.
the Psalms in my grandparents voices-
golden cherubs chiming candle-lit
around the angel-abra…
I hear the ice-cream
bell in fudgesickle-rhymes, running out with my sister;
dark blueberry popsickle wish just granted
in blueberry dusk
by my Grandfather’s swift-hearted two dimes for us.
His bright amber pennies flung into
the wishing well of the world…
remember the chill chimes of pink and green
watermelon non-pareill
I’m dividing the scent of cut-grass,
cut-glass shining evenly, to be fair
for the future of Light-
split everywhere by those unkind-
and Christmas days jangled
link by link on yellow-gold
charm bracelets-
that pink-cake, swirled;
orange pomanders with cloves and other things glistening-
leading up to the one Star’s unimpeachable finale,
oh far charm in the sky of
His Nativity-
these cannot wear out faithfulness.
the day wears gauze
embroidered in small rosebuds
tiny bells on the hem
doll mirrors stitched there…
I’m only naming
all Your past miracles of sweet design-
so may I ask oh what is time?
is it the kaleidoscope you keep
shaking that never breaks down
that it does not fail to launch into further
expositions:
candy-apple or cathedral- spun;
the snowflake on your lost pearl mitten
still crystalized, incognito-
where it dropped from your hand
is it the small rubber ball that rolled
under the furniture when you weren’t looking
never found again
not even in the Dog’s mouth pried shut as if
by taffy-
or is it the shipwrecked histories of dolls, unchronicled…
the sudden fires and fevers
a few legalized captivities unprolonged
that took the antique
babies straight into God…at once
and unmistakably-
while the angel cousins looked on…
is it in pictures on the wall-
the remaining souvenirs:
a something eternal showing through;
the malt-frothy clouds in the painting
still may show ever deeper shades of
green-blue, peach, pale
yellow-
when the Strawberry wick of afternoons
dissolves like jams on the toast of a sky or
is pink- glassed -momentarily- in the china cabinet…
reflected, reflecting-
etched, carefully:
the yearning rose faces
leaning in
of long-ago children
admiring the teacups endlessly;
beyond sorrow now
if not, Beauty-
14=15 march 2012
(M-A. D.)
De waanzin van de passie
‘Ik ben het slachtoffer van jouw passie.’: zegt ze met een zucht, terwijl hij naar haar naakte billen staart. Hij draait zijn hoofd om, wijst naar achter en antwoordt: ‘Nee hoor, mijn passie hangt daar veilig aan de muur. Die is al lang geleden gevangen door de grote liefde van mijn leven.’ Nu kijkt ze nieuwsgierig omhoog naar de achterste muur in de slaapkamer van zijn huis, waarheen zij altijd in zijn zwartgeruite sportauto in alle anonimiteit mee naartoe gaat. Ze kijkt recht naar de kop van een zwart, katachtig dier met scherpe hoektanden. Ze huivert want ze ziet onmiddellijk dat dit een restant is van een overwinning van iets duisters, iets dat niet in vrijheid mag voortbestaan, een trofee van een strijd op leven en dood. ‘Wat is dit voor een dier?’: vraagt ze, terwijl ze langzaam het overblijfsel nadert. ‘Niet doen, ga terug liggen of ik moet geweld gebruiken.’: roept hij.
‘Laat mij kijken’: dringt ze aan. De helgele ogen van het dier hebben een hypnotiserende werking op haar. Daardoor grijpt hij snel naar het glimmende pistool uit de binnenzak van zijn lange, leren jas. Terwijl hij het tegen haar mond houdt, duwt hij haar op een stoel. Vervolgens blinddoekt hij haar. ‘Waarom doe je dit?’: roept ze met bibberende lippen. ‘Zwijg en ik
zal het je vertellen.’: sist hij in haar oor. Hij plaatst zich op een stoel naast haar en begint zijn lang bewaarde geheim te vertellen: ‘Lang geleden leerde ik mijn vrouw kennen. Het eerste wat ik van haar zag waren haar mooie slanke enkels en haar nieuwe witte pumps waarmee ze rustig de schoenenwinkel op en af liep. Maar vooral haar diepblauwe melancholische ogen trokken mijn volledige aandacht. Ik volgde haar vanuit de winkel tot enkele straten verder waar ik haar tegenhield en vroeg wie ze was. Eerst aarzelde ze om over zichzelf te vertellen, maar diezelfde avond zat ze al in mijn auto om mee naar mijn huis te gaan. Het duurde niet lang of we waren verloofd. Mijn passie groeide elke dag als een groter wordend vuur. Zij werd
als een drug voor mij en ik wilde elke minuut van de dag en van de nacht bij haar zijn, haar voelen en proeven. Mijn vrouw kreeg echter het gevoel aan mijn passie te zullen verbranden. Op een dag confronteerde zij mij hiermee en zei: ‘Als je wil dat wij als koppel overleven, moet het beest in jou dood’». Vervolgens duwde ze een stratenplan waarop een route stond afgebeeld in mijn handen. Dit zou me volgens haar tot het beest brengen. Heel die nacht lang lag ik te zweten en voor mijn ogen verscheurden vreemdsoortige dieren elkaar tot stukken dood vlees. Een gevoel van angst vervulde mij, maar ik raapte mijn moed samen. Vlak voor het opkomen van de zon laadde ik mijn jachtgeweer en mijn grootste jachtmes in de kofferbak van mijn auto. Ik volgde de route die op de kaart van mijn vrouw was aangeduid en reed voorbij vele ongerepte rivieren om uiteindelijk aan te komen aan een bos. Daar parkeerde ik mijn wagen aan de ingang en gewapend met geweer en mes liep ik het donkere woud in. Het zoog mij als het ware naar binnen. Ik wandelde al meer dan een uur tussen de waaiende bomen, toen er plots iets bewoog in het gebladerte. Twee glimmende ogen in een zwarte kop staarden naar mij. Het kwijl droop uit zijn bek en zijn gegrom weergalmde door het hele bos. Met zijn krachtige lichaam maakte hij een boog door de lucht tot vlak voor mijn voeten. Ik greep dus mijn kans en schoot met één kogel door het hart van het beest, waarna ik zelf onmiddellijk flauw viel. Toen ik wakker werd voelde mijn hoofd zwaar aan en ik wist niet hoe lang ik daar had gelegen. Het dier lag nog steeds naast mij en was doodgebloed. Met mijn mes sneed ik zijn kop eraf als bewijsstuk voor mijn vrouw. Toen ik naar huis reed zag ik dat de heuvels en bergen ondertussen onder een witte sneeuwlaag bedekt waren. Aan mijn vrouw toonde ik de buit en zij liet het op een houten plank vastmaken om op te hangen in onze slaapkamer. Ze pronkte er jarenlang mee. Maar zoals een roos verkleurt, uitdroogt en verwelkt, werd mijn vrouw ziek en verouderde snel. Tijdens haar laatste dagen zag ze overal dode dieren om zich heen. Vlak voor haar dood staarde ze naar het plafond alsof ze in het aangezicht van de duivel zelf keek, met opengesperde ogen, open mond en een bleek gelaat. Sindsdien is dit overblijfsel hier blijven hangen en heb ik haar beloofd dat geen enkele andere vrouw het mag aanraken.’
‘Mag ik mijn blinddoek afnemen?’: vraagt ze na een lange stilte. ‘Ik beloof je dat ik niet naar het beest zal gaan. Ik zal er zelfs nooit meer naar kijken.’ Hij laat zijn pistool zakken en maakt haar blauwe ogen vrij. Terwijl hij haar veelvuldig in haar nek kust, kijkt ze stiekem naar het beest aan de muur. Haar blik is alleen nog op hem gericht. Plots slaakt ze een kreet en springt achteruit. Lijkbleek wijst ze naar de muur en roept : ‘Zijn ogen,…Hij keek recht naar ons. Je passie is niet dood. Ik zeg het je, je passie is niet dood.’. Daarop rukt ze het wapen uit zijn handen en schiet recht op de kop, die door de kracht van het schot naar beneden valt. Ze grijpt haar kleren bij elkaar, trekt aan zijn schouder en roept: ‘Laten we weggaan van hier.’ Hij blijft echter levenloos en ontredderd staren naar de nek van het beest waaruit een plasje bloed druipt. Dan zakt hij door zijn knieën en valt bewusteloos op de grond. Opgejaagd grijpt ze de bloedende kop, houdt hem stevig geklemd tegen haar naakte lichaam en rent naar buiten, de wilde natuur in. Velen hebben haar nadien nog zien lopen tussen de bomen, de vrouw die gek werd door de passie van een man.
(M. B.)
CINDERELLA. CENDRILLON…
On the memory of seeing Mary Pickford’s “Cinderella or the Little Glass Slipper” on a children’s toy projector one silent film childhood Christmas; the companion piece was a Mickey Mouse short feature; my father was driven to desperation every time he was asked to thread that impossibly small machine (and we asked him a lot).
to my mother and father for separate beautiful reasons -
feather-stitching these glass shadows
silent frame by frame
how could you help but wonder
later on
what all the shattering was for?
then you were telling us stories
in the dark green garden chair…
let it not be said
that is where the story ends…
Cinderella. Cendrillon.
though it may not be magic-
how could they blame you for
storms on a distant sun when
I’m the only one who sees
those
sunspots seeping through
the mystical rustling in the orchards?
where did they come from?
where did you?
here are the crystals, sequined- still-
in my lost hand; you may find missing
from your gown, your head, your heart
soft lemon afternoons like the ones in Renoir.
somehow, it all gets scattered in the dark
and you wonder where to stand
in a flickering brilliant language seldom used
except in a few newsreel half-projections
on the wall-the year in semi-review-
whose year was that?
it wasn’t mine-
though it might be said
and surely was, that
music was her last diadem,
even when she fled
leaving all Enchantment behind her-
so they said-
and her bright skirts swirling
like the dream of Light itself
in a receding universe
and tearing her pale
raspberry satin hem-
it must have been that colour…
on every hazel twig in sight
barely above ground…
God lives in the remnants
so she smiles, opening her birthday gifts
of clocks that never chime;
putting in water the bunches of violets
that last and last…
you cannot fail to notice, even now,
that earliest sparkling is best and the
last to leave the party under the trees she says to
her crystal children on the breeze
the one with the paper lanterns
no longer living.
my darlings, don’t get lost
beyond the pink glass frosted
fawn on the walnut what-not…
so we promised not to-
and to live on where rose curtains swayed
Cinderella. Cendrillon…
shine out of sight, yourself, alone-
you’ll know more than angels in
the end for you are good-
the best clue in all the kingdom
after a lifetime spent
rinsing out your pale peach
print again and again
hoping not to be found but just to be left
here dreaming…
and slipping the slipper carefully
into an apron of cloud…
9 April 2012
(M-A. D)
THIS IS NOT POETRY
Now I follow the wording
in the other direction
where words wrangle in our world
and voices fight in the mud
that is cleansed to hide
filthy lucre
hidden for the cameramen
where the meaning is clogged
where the meaning is disguised.
The clever listeners
closed their hearing and understanding
but became thus empty
and losing the good wording
of a healthy speech.
Where beauty was covered with ARTificial plastic.
So the real thing that is imitated
contains the word “art”.
I could write more but words are
moving to an artificial world,
which is not the whole that lives.
So I go backwards and shall look for living germs
and honest words.
(Of course this was not poetry,
as I am silent now
in a plastic veil).
(K. B.)
THE WALL OF WORDS CRUMBLES DOWN
Drums please
the quivering ferns
as the twinkling morning
of the sky tuning the ponds
whose brooks tease the hill
skin deep the humming daybreak.
Fingers wake up tickling the body,
hence trying the uttering of the first word
coming out of the bushes
but bringing all the hidden,
all to the happy craft
of daring but aware as a helmsman.
Delight in me as in what I’m aware of
In my uttering.
(even if it’s stuttering)
(K. B.)
GEMINI MOON
Happiness is a warm Gemini moon
that stays up all night and goes to bed at noon.
Happiness is a cousin in Peru
you meet on Facebook when your day is through,
a pot of Pascal’s splendid blended tea,
a cosy car-ride to the Belgian sea.
Happiness? I know I shouldn’t say it!
To get the bill and know you cannot pay it,
to stand enraptured as that moon goes down,
bound for a poem in a different town.
Happiness is the lucky stone you carry,
the man you’re mad about, the girl you marry,
exchanging patchwork, postcards, seeds and plants,
finding your needs are equal to your wants.
Happiness is OK. Happiness is good fun.
The Beatles called happiness a warm gun.
(M. C.)
K. B. –Kari Bert, Flemish Poet/Painter
M-A. D. –Mary Angela Douglas, American Poetess
M. C. –Marcus Cumberlege, English Poet
P. M. –Patrizia Morotti, Italian Poetess
M. B. –Mira Borghs, Flemish Poetess/Painter/Actress
N. H. -NORTON HODGES, English Poet
m.b. –Martin Burke, Irish Poet/Playwright
