April 2006
VOL XIV Issue 4, Number 156
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson;
European Editor: Moshe Benarroch;
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald LeWinter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
Introduction
Jessika Tong
My little doll
Contents
Kelly Clarke
To My Sestina
Little Sounds
Bound
On Following Paw Prints at China Beach
Hero
Swim
Still Form
For M.
The Lie
Michael Meagher
mid March
Yellow-haired girl
The clear mind is a path
The Florist's
Dulled by a depression
Observations: Spring
Old man
Love sequence
Lee Passarella
From The Book of the Dead
Beasts in Their Jungles
The Truth about Myths
Incorruption
Psalm
Sight-Reading Schumann's "The Prophet Bird"
Lindsay Foran.
Canadian Geese
Memory: Uncle's Funeral
Memory: Fishing
Robert Dassanowsky
Palimpsest
To Martin Sharp 30+ Years On
(The Summer of Love Redux)
A Morir
Tantric Middle Class
Under The Sign Of Trakl
Before The Battle Again
Not A Soul, Nothing
Euro
Vienna Is A Woman
Kubrick Descending A Staircase
Robert Klein Engler
CROSSROADS AT GRANT PARK
WHEN YOU HAVE A NEW HOUSE, PEOPLE SHOULD VISIT
BEDTIME STORY
THE RAMPART CAVALCADES
THE VANISHING THEATER OF REGARDS
Post Scriptum
Kelly Clarke
To Be With The Ones You Love
Jessika Tong
My little doll
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(Inspired from Baba Yaga)
I woke just in time to see the third night riding past
With my daughter. Ten years old and she is off to marry her father,
To annoint his hands with her cherub hips.
Her and that knight hauled the day with them
Like a tapestry. I watched the trees tack veils to their necks. One by one
Rolling eyes from their pits. Snuffing out my candles
With their breathing. I was left with my young face, an apple peeler.
First I took off my breasts, my hands, and then my heart.
I ground them like bought ingredients
With my pestle and sent them off, off to the palace
Where my daughter would be turning sixteen. I baked them in a cake
Then I wrapped that cake in bone and hung it
Over the staunched shoulders of my grand children
And rushed them to her bed side, camouflaged as ginger cats.
My daughter will gobble it down, her father
Will adore her and her new classroom of familiars.
Oh, my little doll, my little doll
Eat and drink your mother, wear me in your stomach like
An earring. I will swim, infinitely as a gold fish
Through your legs, your neck and eat out your womb
That is knitting its first child.
You see my mother died as well, and I summoned
The dragon flies to us and they gave me you
All new and wet. My little doll. I fed you so you
Would speak. I pinned these skulls to the gate,
And I impaled chicken feet to the house so you would not leave
Me. I even gave you my bed and took to the stove.
I brushed away the snow so winter could not exist, I let knights
Decide the seasons and put the sun in a shoe box so you would stay
Fair and weave me curtains fit for a Lord.
Kelly Clarke
To My Sestina
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For two years we tried for you.
Maybe my little bastards refused to swim,
(no matter how much we egged them on).
Or maybe she had a caustic womb
that fried my little swimmers - Zap!
Maybe they never had a chance.
Your Great-gramma Ming said we had bad luck,
Made us drink some brackish tea, which I,
Clumsy Canadian, always managed to spill - Oops.
At every ovulation, 'You' floated
at the headboard, 'You' hung over our heads.
Maybe we should have prayed for help from above,
but who knows if He controls what happens below?
I think it's just a "shot in the dark".
That one always brought a smile to your mom's lips.
I figured it could only help to make her
smile. Right? "Swim bastards, swim!"
But 24 times she threw the stick in the trash - Dammit.
And friends, stupid friends: "Do it upside-down - Boom,
you're pregnant. Guaranteed." And my jerk-off
brother: "Andy's boys can't do the front-crawl!"
Of course, his boys are a sure thing.
Three kids - Win, Place, and Show. Us?
Two dogs with sad eyes.
My mother said it was all in my head.
"Too much pressure and stress. Just relax. Ohhhhm."
I was too weak to tell all of them
to stuff it. Instead I conjured you up.
Bedtime hair and dawn skin, blue eyes, against the odds.
I manufactured memories: first steps; first day at the beach.
Darling 'You', squealing at the surf
as it sucks the sand from under our feet.
But your Mom never conjured – she said it was unlucky.
She came to me once with a sigh
in her voice: "Do you think we should just give up?"
"You know we can't, not us."
And now, every room is drowned in your wailing,
screaming, red-faced, feed me, pick me up,
change me, insistence that I ante up and be your Dad.
Little Sounds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Petra, arched and inky; slinky-toy cat,
stretched out long, across my Saturday night,
pours off the sofa-back like sweet Muscat,
puddles in my lap, like it's her birthright;
perfect companion for Three's Company
reruns, past demons and social famine.
She sings little sounds that drip like honey,
and I stir them into my wine for one.
My hand slips from her head to her tail-tip,
and she’s patchouli oil under my palm.
She spills herself out, demands my worship,
serenades me through another sit-com,
then slips away to her hiding place
and washes me off her paws, tail, and face.
Bound
~~~~~
Raging Bull with a walker
refuses to let me take his picture
in front of the graffiti wall
where he waits...
and I'm glad he said no,
glad I'm not a photographer,
character harvester,
people collector
I'd have framed him.
I'd have matted him.
I'd have hung him on my wall -
black and white and hung by a hook..
No, I much prefer to write him up,
And bind him in a book.
On Following Paw Prints at China Beach
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alone on a paw printed B.C. beach at dawn.
Where to run to when a cougar stalks you?
Those rocks, that tree, the waves? No, there is no-
where you are faster, more graceful than a cat.
Is this the place?
Is this the place
where you are faster, more graceful than a cat?
Those rocks, that tree, the waves? No, there is no-
where to run to when a cougar stalks you,
alone on a paw printed B.C. beach at dawn.
Hero
~~~~
Yellow
aspen leaves swirl,
and gather at Nameless' feet.
He flies on the river of gold,
sword high.
Swim
~~~~
If
there's
no
shore
to
swim
to
even
the
most
accomplished
swimmer
will
drown.
Still Form
~~~~~~~~~~
My boy's
laughter flits up
the walkway on winged beats
and winds through still-form wind-chimes as
I write.
For M.
~~~~~
I
Your form makes my mind
wind and swing like a tire swing
fling under aspen.
II
Your
form
makes
me
want
and
wait
for
washout
days
in
wound
up
sheets.
III
Your form
makes my mouth want
and water for a meal
of mixed metaphors and open
out doors.
The Lie
~~~~~~~
I looked at him yesterday
as he was driving me
through the city.
All those years
- 21 years -
I've been telling people
he saved me.
I told them -
This man is my saviour.
I gave him credit
for who I've become.
Then it struck me,
right there,
on the corner of
Bank and Catherine,
light flashing green,
a car alarm going ballistic
in some underground parking lot,
the child's voice filling
the back seat to capacity,
and the city sun shining
on my husband's face,
It was all a lie;
I'd saved myself.
Michael Meagher
mid March
~~~~~~~~~
mid March
from a concrete bench-
goths, punks, young daughters
with mothers,
a woman whose sneeze
reminds me of my sister,
an old black man
bundled up
with a knapsack
slipping from his shoulders
who wears an expression of wisdom,
a man whose headphones
dangle from his ears,
a young black man
toothpick-thin with
concaved chest
yellow worker's boots
Nike shirt
jeans far too large,
one woman carrying a bouquet
of pussy willows,
another with a
brown-clad baby
strapped to her chest,
rich French girls,
a cigarette-smoker
wearing a brown scarf
who walks with a
purple-leather jacket-wearing
old man,
the little sparrows
pecking at seeds
in an ice-covered garden,
the sad trees
growing through
chain-linked fences,
the girl wearing black
metal-studded skirt
pink and black socks
birthmark on her thigh,
lampposts, trace amounts of
melting snow
along sidewalk cracks,
torn advertisements,
far-off Celtic music,
a Spanish man who sings beautifully,
a beggar
who wears
bright-green
pants,
several men eating
ham and bacon subs...-
I here and now make a pact
for now and forever,
with Ottawa and with China,
with the moon and sky
and with the animals,
with the grass blades
and their infinite possibilities-
let us make a pact,
here and now,
with beauty
and with
the unity of it all
Yellow-haired girl
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
it was evening time
nearly seven, closing time
the line held several people
but I couldn't take my eyes,
yet trying to be subtle,
off a yellow-haired girl
at the side of the counter
wearing a pink scarf
wrapped gently around the neck
and a black felt coat un-
buttoned torn at the elbow
she tucked few envelopes into her coat
one into the international mail slot
I wonder if her lover left her
for a winter of travel
like a sudden wind gust
she, all covered up,
took to the outdoors
it was a warm January ten below
once again, not even once I'd see her
the clock struck seven
I was third from the register
not a minute ago I,
heedless although half-aware,
noticed him, black leather gloves
briefcase in hand
pants tucked neatly into socks
galoshes white with salt,
cut the line, wearing an air of business
"I think, a..."
"Sorry, sir, you looked to be
browsing through the chocolates
I really am in great hurry,"
he said, approaching the counter
I fall in love, I thought,
as the woman took out the CLOSURE sign,
each day, over and over again
love, nor his rhetoric
kept me closed within myself
but, rather fear, the fear that
one day, I just might have to
involve myself in this world
The clear mind is a path
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The clear mind is a
path; this path
is one lucid thought.
Others gather, if forced,
around, untouching, this path.
Although loitering of will,
they are irrelevant,
indescribably non-existent.
It is like walking focused
through a crowd,
each insignificant individual
clearing the way
as you, unnoticing,
make your way along your route
The Florist's
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The florist's
is of a different world
than the one outside-
the discouraged sighs
and heaving chests
from the crowds;
its panhandlers
and
its car horns:
it's not the shop's pungency
or its warmth
that makes it different:
its temperature could stand at 15 degrees,
and its tables could be holding
stone flowers.
A sheet of glass
held by mortar-
this is what makes
these two worlds
distinct
Dulled by a depression
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
dulled by a depression
and numerous hangovers
for sixty days.
now I'm reborn,
and with my senses, too.
Dragging feet, pink lights
on Wilde's,
faces sunken and swollen,
laughter and jazz music
on the corner—they
all startle me,
like I've been deaf to these sounds
and blind to these sights
for so long,
so that I twitch nearly.
i'm reborn, and it feels good:
from the grey, like phoenix,
I've risen with body whole.
Observations: Spring
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
early March
old dry leaf
rests on bus shelter
floor. crushing it
to light brown powder
with foot,
yet its veins remain
intact
*
20 minutes ago,
a man angrily cursed through the streets
the whole city went silent—
I wonder, where is this man now
and what, at this moment, takes up his time
*
for two hours
from a concrete block
I’ve watched people
for those repeating faces,
what has elapsed
between visits
by my eyes?
Old man
~~~~~~~
You are so much wiser than me,
it's odd to call you a friend;
and I love my father.
We usually talk sitting down.
It’s odd when we continue our talks
on our feet,
you looking up at me
from six inches below.
*
You, oh wise man,
stand nearly a head shorter
than I.
Let us talk:
I will sit
and you can stand:
I feel more comfortable
this way
Love sequence
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Before the last time
I left her
I made sure
to take a good look
at her fingernails
and lift her shirt
as I hugged her,
touching her lower back,
feeling the electricity
of our flesh
one last time
*
The world's words don’t matter,
our families and our struggles
don't matter,
the walls and the ceiling,
the cars outside
and the bombed villages,
these things begin to die
when locked in our embrace,
in the solitude of your room,
our pure and absolute love
matters.
*
The minus thirty wind
is biting,
but don't think for a second
that I wouldn't take my naked hands
from my pocket
to hold your hand
in the icy cold
*
Don't pretend,
by drowning yourself in another man,
in your science work,
by denying me,
by denying us-
don't pretend
we're not meant to be
*
I'm reading a novel.
Frankincense and myrrh it reads.
An old lover comes up
-one who's love
I still pine for-:
when we shuffled through
the old ruins of Pompeii,
stopping, giddy with love, to search through
barrels of perfumes and herbs.
i don't at all recall the smell
*
on the public transpo
a smell
it takes me back to my lover
it must be the young girls
that stand in front of me
their perfume...
but, from my right,
it comes in waves-
a man chews gum
beside me
Lee Passarella
From The Book of the Dead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The coroner's world is
well lighted as underworlds go
but as monochrome
as a catafalque, a winding sheet-
some appurtenance of the dead. Gurneys,
tables, sinks, lockers, scales: everything
chrome steel, endless steel.
He is the great god Anubis of the place,
judge of the dead.
He has no use for the ankh,
the key to human life. It is the key
to nothing that he needs to know.
But like Anubis, he weighs the heart.
His Desk Reference says,
The human heart weighs between 250
and 400 grams and is the size of a clenched fist....
...he weighs the homeboy's heart
and the apoplectic merchant's heart
and the pimp's heart;
he weighs the jaundiced bag lady's heart.
He weighs the raped and beaten
and cut-up housewife's heart:
318 grams, it says. This heart is true.
Beasts in Their Jungles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The pines groaned all last night,
staggered by an unseen weight
fretting old, parched joints.
Fur of our Shih Tzu
as I walk her frames her wise face
in a gust-blown ruff.
She jumps at the skirr
of ghostleaves on macadam,
bobs her head-hangdog,
listening for the thrash of limbs
as the beast that stalks us
shoulders aside the undergrowth.
I come away pitying her
animal terror: I see myself
as I slink in, at cold first light,
hunched at the entryway
to waking, salving
last night's ancient wounds.
The Truth about Myths
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shih tzus make excellent mothers, the handbook says,
and she is one, down to tongue-disposing of the very
waste that's dribbled from their nubby little spouts.
Five pups, all males. And when their pre-dawn
scratch and clamber wake us, she jumps up
into the plastic wading pool that is their home-
within-our-home to stop the racket of their paws
and mouths. Night or day, they cry out to her
in the voices of some other species-weird ontogeny.
"The whales!" my wife says, half asleep; then, whales
and their songs it may well be. But litter of piglets,
pack of rats, flock of shorebirds, even, comes to mind.
Finally, their racket becomes our dear dog's pain
objectified: battering ram, siege cannon to the ear,
the heart. On milk alone, they grow from an once or two
to a couple pounds, their jaws the powerful siphons
that fuel their always-neediness. They ring her dry
as an orange squeezed down to the pulp, until her belly
sags from her like she's been flayed, the dugs gray,
limp and pendulous as garden slugs hung from leaves.
The rasp of her spine is intricately there, underneath
the straitened skin. I think of that myth about the pelican,
how it's presumed to feed its young on the meat
of its own breast- a noble little lie she tells me
has more than a crumb of truth. More of truth
than I have in me when, absently, I pat
her head, toss her the ritual bone Good dog.
Incorruption
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Untroubled by fate as a sleeping
infant, the Heavenly Spirits breathe....
-Friedrich Hoelderlin
The dead do not want us dead....
-Jane Hirshfield
This photo of skeletal remains
on the Wilderness Battlefield,
May of 1864, could be a friendly monitory,
a Jolly Roger hoisted as a caution to the landlocked
and the deadlocked, to the foot soldier who
is the blood and sinew of any war:
the crossed long bones, the interrogatory skull
complete with mock furrow to its brow
(though incomplete as to the grinning mandible).
It might, in small, be the vision
of a bombed-out city from our own century.
Here, the vacant eyeholes of houses
stare back at us, the broken arches of busy bridges
no longer busy, and bridging nowhere.
Over there, the flying buttress
of the pelvic bone buttresses its nothing,
the cathedral a ruin, the master builder
in comfortable retirement somewhere
where the dead leaves don't pile up on the lawn,
winter after winter.
Psalm
~~~~~
1.
The sky is writing letters to itself,
bleak missives torn from an endless pad.
They whirl, in black eddies and vortices,
around a door framed in light
that offers sole escape from this house
of cozy self-recrimination the storm has built.
From newel to eaves, and eaves to cornice,
vortices that catch dead scraps of leaves
in a slow, gray dance: cloud on purling
cloud. A fugue and double fugue
of cloud. Then the door opens, unfurls
like a white rose, calyx and petal.
2.
The Lord made for my lord a footstool
of his enemies. Of which, O God,
I am the most recalcitrant, the most stiff-necked. Lord,
I am the grubbiest of Thy many footstools.
But above me, a wild sky leaves its tattered past
behind, strewed like old newsprint.
3.
God in three persons: Father, Son,
and Holy Telegraph, Holy Wireless:
an ceaseless dialogue-stars, clouds, sand
harangue each other back and forth across black chasms.
Forgive me, Father....
...against...thee only...have I sinned....
...and it shall be forgiven....
Go, and sin....No more.
The stars eddy, swallowed in a whirlwind.
Yet from this black sky, not snow-the manna
of God's irony. Instead, petals falling: frail white shells
small as a grain of sand. As a nascent hope.
Sight-Reading Schumann's "The Prophet Bird"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Against a sky as slatey as the topside
of a pool table, the robin sits her crooked
mast of yaupon holly like an Ishmael
contemplating the infinite ocean of the self.
Her beak set toward the gale known as March,
she rides her nest as if she'd fight you
for each millimeter's weave of pinestraw,
leafscrap, looking out to the horizon
of her own small soul, to that avian equal
of the thousand-eyed Krishna. Or the white-
hot Christ transmogrified, flying the image
of Elijah like an ensign in the blue over Palestine.
She devours her avian edition of the Gita,
the Bible, the Koran. Tells her rosary over
and over and over-each fat blue bead.
Lindsay Foran
Canadian Geese
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
With the first frost
I fly,
they fly away.
Migrate to Florida
and when they left
I felt
I could no longer stay.
In your chair you wait
patiently
staring out the window,
bird seed straining through fingers.
I laugh and talk - you don't notice.
"The geese are home", you comment.
"They'll need me to feed them again".
The nurse has left,
knows my schedule.
I have landed to retell your life,
show you old pictures,
share our old memories
and hope that one day
you will think of me
as you remember their return.
It was always the birds
that led me back to you.
Memory: Uncle's Funeral
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uncle died, you were only
thirty-eight, I was thirteen,
never seen a dead body before.
The funeral parlour reeked
of stale flowers and freshly
vacuumed carpets -
thinking they can
suck away the scent of death
the stain of tears,
the heavy footprints of the living.
Mom and I sat at the back,
casket closing, you standing alone,
mumbling the prayers
you forgot you remembered.
That was the first time
I saw you cry,
bottom lip, quivering, tears
flowing down your cheeks
gliding over lips and dropping off
your chin onto the carpet.
Now you only cry for the geese,
desperate when they leave,
anxious when they have been
gone too long, thinking they have lost
their way home.
Memory: Fishing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
We went fishing every summer
in the river, at the bottom of the road.
You would hook the bait – I never could –
refused to watch as the hook pierced
its wriggling, rubber skin.
We mostly caught sun fish,
their scales sharp and unappetizing.
I always pleaded to set them free –
"It's just a stupid fish, enough of them already".
But when you thought I wasn't looking,
you carefully released the hook,
placing the fish in the river
watching as it swam to freedom.
I never told you, you never spoke of it.
There were never any fish for supper.
Robert Dassanowsky
Palimpsest
~~~~~~~~~~
Enlightenment
ruins of classicism
Venus of the rags
goddess of reason
a chant in memoriam
a fetal position
a tree of constancy
a color smeared by
effigies
the eternal fixated
cunningly dashed
over and over
enlightenment ruins
the abdication of ecstasy
To Martin Sharp 30+ Years On
(The Summer of Love Redux)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Scrape my skin with women
Loosen my tongue with meth
Stuff my nose with virus
Coat my eyes with imploding virtuality
Fill my ears with crap
Stick my legs in Levis, once again
I'll tell you nothing about Iraq
A Morir
~~~~~~~
Cartesians along for the ride
find little to do
sitting in the wildflower meadows
thinking of flesh
Often it flows
with letters not sentences
often in falls
in wheezes of consciousness
Find me a thief
find me a thief
to s(t)eal that door
incoming fraternities
Tantric Middle Class
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Overloading majesty
glibly he conquers effigies
things fall off the sky
cleaving, and cleaving still
slam the quick-cams
find a shot of purpose
as a ludic gesture
He scratches his arm
mindlessly, his wife ignores
him in her book
the images that fall fool
no one in an armchair
Nothing is red but
blood outside
stare and look back
the membranes have permeated
it augurs a different kind
of darkness
Under The Sign Of Trakl
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mirabell Gardens, Salzburg
1. Finding home is never the battle.
2. A sign points the way and commemorates.
3. The gardens rip at history.
4. A child sets an altar of pebbles
and petals at the well tended
grass verge.
5. She claps her hands once
moves on, looks back at her
motherland.
6. What religion is this?
7. Finding it again is.
Before The Battle Again
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)
Moving the statue
of a riderless horse
to expand the street
to let the traffic flow
Kissing the dead
stealing souls with poetry
Ten millions are your father
creating ready made salvation
The news report relates the
wisdom of small nuclear bombs
less an offense to large targets
In the swoon of a dance
We prepare to brush the ashes
Into the grout of path stones
To raise them again
for small victories
Brocade shreds, libraries burn
Even smaller, even smaller
Like bursts in an artery
like the ash, like the shriveled
of forgotten trenches
like the atom.
Not A Soul, Nothing
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She presses her
face against her
partner then onto
the frosted window
I’m going to see
if I can see
a tree
she tells him
I flew a plane
this small before
we were hit by
lightning
She hums, shifts
presses against
his jacket then
the window
Its so important to
find the little things
He pulls her and presses
his lips on her cheek.
she glares into the cabin
outside, the desert
Has veins that are dry
the plane banks
her face pressed against
the double glass
Eyes searching for driveways.
Euro
~~~~
Bits of wood pressed
to a great thinness
unite, promise
elevate and bridge
Treaties break and mend
paper burns, more trees
fall, scribblings end lives
books fail and rot
Bits of wood into
wrappers, paper rolls,
boxings, parchment
seals fate, heals wounds
Under glass, ink fading
long lines form to see it
in trade, less can starve
more can own the centuries
Trees are felled, trash collected
dyes examined, imaginary gold
weighed, millions embraced
bridges carefully etched
With new tint, continent unites
the wounds heal, bridges
drawn, money is sent for
survival of distant tribes
for separation, for detachment.
Vienna Is A Woman
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She has rings that are
her streets and a Gürtel
endings in A and soft
madonnas cloaking stone
Embracing the polyglots
the hordes who come
and violate and foster
After tens or a hundred
years they die off but the
children are always hers
They stay or scatter
father, return, die
She is never mentioned along
with the grids and the towers
with the capitals of man
London, Paris, Rome, Berlin
She sits roundly, womb
emptied, not forgotten,
sutured, covered with lace
Her city skirts tugged on now
by orphans, she often aches
from the missing at her breast.
Kubrick Descending A Staircase
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a trivial poem
elevated to great sagacity
All that you read here
will be undercut
by your hunger
by your lust
by defecation
The flaw's the art
as these marks stare
coldly into your iris
The wisdom of the
ages, a flourish
the apocalypse is
rock, paper, scissors
And nothing moves
slowly
Robert Klein Engler
CROSSROADS AT GRANT PARK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The trees fan bare branches against the cold
air of this late, March morning. Some say they
are dead, others say they just sleep their old,
arboreal sleep, and wait, the way saints wait,
to later have their gowns of green unfold.
Such mysteries appear to the solitary soul.
Sunlight pulls up the tulips and hyacinths,
or do they push like sores from down below?
The flesh on my bones is as soft as yours,
yet my motives were bent to father zero.
I see you ahead, holding hands with the shade
of love, counting coins of grief to measure
what candle to burn. Like you, I held a comrade
who's gone to earth. We worked hard, too,
but nothing much remains of what we made.
Some say our rest is just eternal night
where dusty fingers scratch the lids of dust.
Others marvel how the cold air turns bright,
ready to be broken again. It is as easy today
to carry emptiness as it is to carry light.
WHEN YOU HAVE A NEW HOUSE, PEOPLE SHOULD VISIT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is a hint of spring in the January air.
The long arrest of winter has its way to go,
but today it relents--sunlight is everywhere.
The hour is warm, even if it reflects off snow.
She left the old house for a new one, but still
lives alone. It was difficult to leave behind
articles of faith. Next, she must let go
her dry skin, the stiff demand of love and
then the shadow of her scattered bones.
Snow and dust are one beneath time's mill.
Yet, in the radiant twilight that her days allow,
she can forget the fields of ice below the moon,
and imagines living long with him again and how
it will be all right to plant flowers, soon.
BEDTIME STORY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mother and father are calling me.
Beyond the sky, across the sea,
mother and father are calling me.
It's not to supper that they call,
it's not for cake or playing ball,
nor dancing in a mirrored hall.
"Away, away," their voices say,
There is no time to pout or stay.
"Just follow us, we know the way."
Their echoes call from out the deep,
to warn there's nothing more to keep
and soon we join them in their sleep.
For all that blooms in time will go
where worries melt like April snow.
Don't be a stubborn child, let go.
THE RAMPART CAVALCADES
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Knobs of colored lights and chrome,
Pendant baskets spilling over with flowers,
A wall of TVs, recombinant images:
None of it works. I still think about him.
Why did I come to a bar crowded with men
Who offer their ice to pillars of salt?
Smoke another cigarette.
That click, scratch, flame from a Zippo
Is a complete ritual. Damn,
Wednesday I go for my blood test.
Have another drink. Right now,
I am not above stealing what I want.
Today, all the way up the brick wall,
Hands of ivy begged alms from the sun.
On this green screen I saw his face.
Our defeated desire is begging like ivy.
How else will freedom happen except
The days of the world bring it about?
Across the city marriage plans are made.
Ropes are let out. Knots tied. Ribbons cut.
I am willing to take from him the way
Another took from me. What will we do?
I hear the glass music of blessings break.
Where's mine? The nomads move on.
Searchlights play metronome on the sky.
The stars are washed away by a bright haze
From the city. For some reason, God gave
The boy at the table next to me a crippled body.
Still, it is good they found each other -
The world lives another day.
A new generation is knocking on the gate.
I look up from my coffee, and see them,
Full of life, their hair strung with light.
They give their bodies to one another
Carelessly. So, why am I still sitting here?
Because I was paralyzed by a kiss.
Now is the rush hour of the gods.
Buddha chants to bass guitars.
Boys whiten their hair, they want to look old.
Lead us by our rings to oblivion, they pray.
So, the cry goes out, rave, rave,
Rave against the dying of the night.
Techno-trash children lounge in doorways
And stare up at me like prisoners for sacrifice.
I am on my way to meet him, wondering
If the right words will fall in my lap.
They tell me a new community is being born.
Look, neither their clothes nor their ideas fit.
The ghost of Heidegger rides with the ad
On the side of the bus: be once, be always,
Just be. Madison Avenue's plea for
Authenticity. Clever, by saying it you
Deny it. Church bells clamor - think of
The man who digs a grave for his child.
In a dream we are swept up from the street
By soldiers and forced to wear striped suits.
An old woman behind a curtain hands me
A coat. I refuse it, and hide my papers.
We are separated. I find him. We go underground.
He is atop me. His key unlocks my mouth.
From a gray, malodorous drop to a dusty box,
That is the course of man's life under the sun.
Yet I am still here arguing with my body,
Arguing with my age - love tastes good,
But the memory of love gone is wormwood.
Doctor, how many specimens need you collect?
One did not believe and was trampled at the gate.
Another was excluded for muttering names
Over wounds, yet I write his name,
And say it in the street, hoping he hears
To offer me the light of his face and hands.
Say it slowly, add the letters, the sum is, yes.
Time's brass pendulum cuts off ark after ark of air.
In this world some fruit falls before it is ripe.
Pages drop in the river of confusion that flows
Past my door. Where is the current going?
They say, in the world to come, this assembles
To a city with jeweled walls and gardens.
Silver trains transcribe the bridge,
Black and white reflections write ripples
On the river, flags stretch and then relax.
Light flows down the long canyon
Of streets from a window in the clouds.
His voice calls open what sleeps in me.
Day after day I read the wrinkled mail.
So many desperate scribes pecking away
Like chickens at the scattered corn of words.
A continent of blank pages waits for a rain
Of letters to end the drought, to write on them:
This is the name of what you love.
Yet is not today about being tender
And sewing up wounds with the glory of hands,
Is it not about trusting one another in the dark,
Is it not nights and days, is it not offering
Our clotted words, is it not the light
Of a companion shining in the darkness?
Stones only know the weight that keeps
Them down. For them, love and wisdom
Are the same silence. Joy is not to move,
And death itself is a kind of motion.
Do we wound stones when we lift them up?
Wound some men and words pour out.
What cannot change in me is made like stone.
My love is my weight. I have been warned.
It is like warning a pillar. Read these
Inscriptions. They rest on the bedrock
Of childhood: father, mother, book.
Here is slate, here is chalk, here!
Born nervous into a morning of clouds,
I listen for the gallop of far-off horses.
Could I take a part from the men I love
And put them together to make the puzzle
Of desire complete? What is missing?
Father, his kiss is such tenderness.
He dislodged something loose in me, and now
It is falling, falling the way a stone falls
To the floor of a white canyon, falling
The way a dancer who leaps falls.
We wait and listen, the feather pauses,
and when it hits, silence explodes.
They wandered in the desert for forty years.
There were no gems or gold to bring home,
Only dust from the well of words. Take it.
Make a tent. Make an alabaster dome.
Make a cushion in your heart, pillow my fall.
This is all the wealth I have to share.
On the eve of the ninth of Ab, these are
Forbidden: the joy of study, scented oils,
And the pleasures of love - so it is written.
Carry my desire out of the city in a coffin.
In a room filled with light from high windows
A man touches our prayers to a piano.
Before the poet there is the dream hunter.
The sky is everywhere and for the taking.
I watch him sleep. His pulse follows the dream.
The black hood of the falcon is removed.
There is a flutter of wings like breath.
He rips raw vowels from the bone of love.
Across the harbor white boats point to the wind.
A black lace of rigging scratches the sky
And deltas downward to a forest of masts.
Is it not likely the dead will rise?
If you look at letters long enough, shapes
Appear: sails, chariots, who knows what?
Such is the pardon my letters buy.
Do not be afraid, I write as if poems were
A proposal, when they are simply sign
After sign, rose after rose, an apostrophe
In place of pain. Maybe it works!
Draw the shade. Light the lamp. Write.
THE VANISHING THEATER OF REGARDS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She asks me if I still love him. "Yes, I do,"
I say, "but it's different now, he doesn't
Live here anymore--since we were in school,
He's moved to fortune and forgetfulness."
All our particulars have bled away and just
A shell remains--it is as if an auditorium
Were imagined evaporating, metal gone to rust,
The gilded hall, full orchestra, silk screens,
Breastplates and battlements, hum by hum
Diminish; violins, trumpets, tambourines,
All fade away, there is a dampening of drums.
The curtain turns to threads, and melodies dim.
All that remains is a song without words,
The bright, magnetic music of a seraphim--
As radiant as the high, cold light April leaves,
Luminous behind these almost greening trees.
Kelly Clarke
To Be With The Ones You Love
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The long hallway longer-when-you're-seven hallway leads
to sounds of past tense parents and friends and guitars
strumming humming half tunes into the night time is the right
time to send me to bed time stories still sound in my head
becoming lyrics for the first song I ever wrote a note to
Daddy asking him to come home from B.C. to be with me
and here he is folks the best guitar player ever never a no-
show like George Jones was his favourite and he's my
favourite too even when he doesn’t show even when he
does show and tell me to go to bed like a good little girl.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2006 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://www.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
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