Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson
European Editor: Mois Benarroch
Contributing Editors: Michael Collings; Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald Le Winter
Previous Associate Editors: Igal Koshevoy; Evan Light; Pedro Sena
ISSN 1480-6401
INTRODUCTION
Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
Lyrics of the wind
CONTENTS
Joseph Farley
DINNER WITH XU JUAN
CHINESE TEA
LAUGHING AT THE GREAT WALL
BARGES
2ND STREET STATION
Pete's Shoe Repair
A SENSE OF COMPLETION
ASCENSION
Lori's California
Flash Flood
RETURN MAIL
The Mouse In The Moon
Suckers
In The Soup
Mad Music
Jason A Wilkinson
Soapstone Paramours
She
Take Life By The Nut-Sack
Dutch Schultz Bobblehead
Call My Name Through The Fallen Square
J.B. Mulligan
Thermopylae
icon of the sky
the future
POST SCRIPTUM
Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
Red Eye
Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
Lyrics of the wind
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are things that live in the sunless depth
of the ocean and do not miss the sun at all.
There are things that miss the sun. And there are things
in-between. But we turn away, and talk of what
we have never seen. There, wind’s making music
with the brittle branches of the ash tree, its lyric
goes like this, forget your perfect offering, only give
you’re your widow’s mint, every soul has a gap,
and good Adam started it all. But I pay little attention,
for I have more to observe around, the swallows
crowding away against the bright distant clouds,
the dog ripping through the field to get its tennis ball,
the lilac and hazel on the street delirious
to have leaves, drunk with happiness.
Everything flat as an edge
The squirrel holding red palm kernel in-between
its teeth in the plantation, knows what it’s doing.
The monkey nimble in the bush, palming fruits on one hand
and swinging off with the other, knows what he’s doing.
The canary singing with so much heart, all day in the
bamboo cage, singing to her owner knows what it’s doing.
The owner who takes her away from the wind, place her
on his window, knows what she is doing.
I see my neighbour’s child crying in front of the door.
The child knows what she is doing. Her father is giving
her the car keys of his car. He knows what he is doing.
The poet that pictures the rain as the sk0 counting water
for the earth, knows what he is doing. And the foscaster
that says it’s raining, they all know what they are doing.
Joseph Farley
DINNER WITH XU JUAN
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
chopsticks click
like old women knitting,
rice disappears,
melting snow,
but the bowl is filled again
until you are not empty:
pepper, squid,
cabbage and bean.
afterward, fresh fruit:
apples, pears.
CHINESE TEA
~~~~~~~~~~~
in a tall
yellow glass
brown leaves
sink to the bottom
of a river bed,
a taste of the Yangtze
I sip down
a world, a land
LAUGHING AT THE GREAT WALL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
it's huge
and runs
for miles,
keeping out
barbarians,
but not
the sun
which exposes
all the cracks,
shows
the handprints,
sprayed words:
names and dates;
mocks the stone
with shadow
you are
impressed,
so am I,
by its majesty
and power,
but its
foundation
rests on bones
and I hear
only laughter
in the moaning wind
BARGES
~~~~~~
at night along the river
with slow sad paddles
in the water,
somber eddies
in their wake,
the barges go
with glint of gold,
across the water
from the darkness
into the fog.
2ND STREET STATION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Echoes of the river
cannot deter mice
from searching
among the ties.
Gray, they scurry
into drain pipes
and under the eaves
of the platform.
Staring people
miss their movements,
in hope of lights
from a distant train.
But the mice know
long before,
and leap back
from hidden wheels.
Pete's Shoe Repair
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the keypunch card
only says
the business started
in 1/61,
that the account
was late
with his third payment
in 1970,
CANCELLED
the following year,
OUT OF BUSINESS,
reinstated
a year later,
closed again
in 1975.
how can
a card
record
those years,
your father's stroke
when you were
fourteen,
your mother's
illness
in following years
the struggle
that drained you,
propelled you
into early maturity,
already too old
to hang on?
A SENSE OF COMPLETION
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
what's done is done
at least it's finished
no hanging around
waiting to die
now we can look back
the memory has borders
I will always see you
climbing from the car,
back turned,
walking away
I will always know
your dignity of motion,
the pride of movement,
the click of heels on stone
ASCENSION
~~~~~~~~~
Beneath our wings:
the world.
You guide me higher
until we reach
the sun's heat,
feel it
melt the sinews
that bind us to earth
float free, sail,
rocket
beyond all.
Lori's California
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the valley sizzles
under a blanket of smog
the hills glow
bare yellow
come back later
you say
and you will see
the green
winter brings
the mountains
capped with snow,
over there
is the Grapevine
just seen through smoke;
on the horizon, always
blue skies
perfect weather
to take a picture
Flash Flood
~~~~~~~~~~~
the damn burst;
the river,
long confined,
stretched
its limbs,
washed away
church and village,
washed away
farms and factories,
washed away
the centuries,
the bones
of generations
gone
RETURN MAIL
~~~~~~~~~~~
death has
changed
his address
I suggest
you burn
these letters,
hope the smoke
finds
the right sky
The Mouse In The Moon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
the elixir of life
has been stolen
by a girl
and carried to the moon;
you can see her,
laughing mouse,
serving the old man.
the monkey stole
the pillar of the sea,
kingdom's palace,
and used it
to do tricks
while the waves
drowned his hosts.
what you took
was worth more
than those trifles,
but who complains?
I gladly leave
my treasures unguarded
when you come to steal.
Suckers
~~~~~~~
catfish fed
under the waterfall
glued to the green
stone dam
how many years
since I've seen anyone
catch a fish there?
the rapids froth
with detergent;
the factories upstream
look the other way
In The Soup
~~~~~~~~~~~
carrot, pea,
beef stock:
we're all in the soup
you and I
both
dumped together
with the rest,
raised to a boil
get used to the heat;
we must
watch out
for the ladle,
the bowl, the spoon;
the mouth
that wants
to swallow us down
Mad Music
~~~~~~~~~
God, in a rented tuxedo,
conducts the whole
New York Philharmonic
on a whim.
The music is no better
than other nights.
The baton waves
with the same motions
that parted the light from the dark,
issued forth the waters,
and created birds and fishes
to fill sky and sea.
Odd measures, awkward scales
come from the stage
more ill constructed music,
off pitch and out of harmony.
it's more of the same
sound I've been listening too.
It is mad music, a chaos greater
than mere disorder,
fitting noise for an overture,
or a grand finale.
Jason A Wilkinson
Soapstone Paramours
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She bored a thin hole
in my sedan chair
leaving the silt of forlorn pleasures
in want of sweeping;
the portraits
crooked on their nails
A calypso ballad dangles
from the stereo
wafting its tenuous pulsations
where silent dance
once pinioned shadows
amid tapestry and rug
incense and soapstone
-paramours fused in maudlin grace
The laminated Saracen
discloses an unbecoming physiognomy
from its paper tumulus
beckoning me to Florence
and the vigorous dialectic of Savonarola
chiding the resolve of my study
with taciturn derision
Night-birds crowd the lonesome tree outside,
plaintively musing
the fall of our twilit sentinels
Oft have I heard them
whisper beyond the sill
their gossamer vestments
camouflaged succinctly
under a jade carapace
Though here must I find reverie burthensome
and mephitic
where fixtures became truncated
in the softening lights
so that even my lone steps drifted
among the jigsaw of flown days.
She
~~~
Found words
drew a line
through the vacuum
retracing that isolated framework
with neon gel
Though it is said
that her voice can sear
tracks in the Universe
under glass
waves broken
numerals on a smudged cloth
practice my heart
to chime like terpsichorean bells
Gilt sleeves of tapered jade
blind me in an unhewn summer field
Verdant stiles
between them patching
the cloth of our wingless flight
Paring the down
Where fair skies
drove us from shelter
cavernous, teakwood eyes
piece me together
in the attenuated lamplight
Transistor flickering like a distant candle
through the matrix of wild
flora beyond her impossible smile
Valhalla glimmered tangentially
chained-up counting
the footsteps to Eden.
Take Life By The Nut-Sack
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And run with it until the putrefied bits slip
through your fingers
causing infections to spread
like gossip over them
staining your clothes
Run with it until it dries in your hands
though it were no more than powder
and the hair upon that scrotum
has desiccated beyond recognition
Until you no more notice the stench of it
than that of a dead fly
entombed beneath the azaleas
and pedestrians are obliged to wear protective gear
lest you should contaminate them unawares
Run with the precious nickel bag
twisting every last demand from its host
-bury your nails in supple flesh
if only to exact more and more
Take Life by the nut-sack and wear it on a chain
next to the promise rings and that fake shark tooth
your uncle Dougie swore came from ’a big one’
he caught off the coast of Jamaica last spring
Take Life by the nut-sack and treat it like a prostitute
dragging it through the streets
at the ends of frayed tethers
Use its head for a battering ram
against hard-to-open doors
Take Life by the nut-sack without compunction
or delusion
or the occasional hangover
Take Life by the nuts
and unto those testes
do what Conscience dictates
must be inflicted upon no other.
Dutch Schultz Bobblehead
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I crane my neck
stealing fragments
of the rubber song
pinioned, obeisant lamps
masticate cigar plumes
-time immemorial
consciousness is revisited
on the floor mat
in a lukewarm Black Russian
glasses
pale skin
The dance floor is naked
planks along a broken hall
voices muffled
soporifically to refrain
This is a tennis ball silencer
dropped among excrescent
coppice verdure melting
there without ceremony
lawnmowers graze menacingly
between the heavy stones
Rosewater Braille
taunts the air
;peregrine incense
receding unnoticed
liquids
I limp from the dashboard
exhibiting amid other qualities
of less obvious repute
a propensity to roll
under the seats
where churchyard plastic
bathes my corpulent
skull with music.
Call My Name Through The Fallen Square
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Where quietude is manic
hail me
through iron-clad forests
past vagabond mansions
Let your voice
echo among those solemn relics
Kneel down along a fetid brook;
there rivulets simper
but do not flow
-whose black metal skin
glimmers indifferently
among palsied flowers
Look for me
neath the upturned flame
the misplaced extremity
Bent pike heads
loiter in dejected clusters
as if in speechless commune
over the workless days ahead
Faded placards
lean helplessly
above them
hiding
in a memory
Call me through the middling haze
its lingering engagement
beyond quondam parvenus
the ether is hemlock
Feel me in the closing requiem
of Jupiter and Narcissus
guiding
like a faraway excrescence
Touch me
until the pall catches fire.
J.B. Mulligan
Thermopylae
~~~~~~~~~~~
bloodbirth splatter and tear
worlds are born among spears
and arrows in clouds a sky
of crows for kings and soldiers
paths spread their tendrils
the peacock of the future
flaunts but sometimes
paths cross weave a knot
which holds or looses
and loses a future in a day
and such a moment less
than a blink in the burning
of any sun's celestial coal
holds reality up a pale
disk burning and purely
there as an apple is there
with a specific skin and tang
in the eating of it that no
other apple could ever share
this or that apple falls
from this or that branch
in this or that orchard
and miles and years away
crowds mill in a marketplace
or fall screaming in flames
or are not there at all to fall
or mill are an absence in wind
howling over a landscape
miles from a sleepy town
where people wander or howl
or ponder the sacred past
which gave birth to sacred them
the blunt impregnating sword
shines bloody and high a moment
before arrows swoop and feed
that moment is a metal point
driving into the flesh of a future
brutely and totally other
which the children of time
will brush against a near
and hungry beast
avoided long ago
the meek inheriting dirt
bow and grumble
stand in a landscape
and thank shattered seed
the womb ripped and gone
the distant mother sleeping
a role for a warrior to fill
icon of the sky
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
aquamarine afternoon
chips of marblecloud
loosely piled what
to build from this
from the earliest
it saw itself in the sky –
no – too many eyes
for just one – no –
just one eye, see
something was there
and if eyes couldn’t see it
they would build a tower
to summon the earliest wave
of sound color force
the lost semenegg
exploding into us
god would come after
light let there be
what the day was about
was always us
for good or bad
for the watcher-praiser
for the death-in-night
to be dispelled
for the first morning
to return
one eye held it
and that was good
there was something there to hold
statues rose in huts
in towns in cities
wooden metal
binding the sky
reaching the arms of a child
the arms of the many-armed
the arms of eleven dimensions
always about us
what was there to reach for
always the answer
as if we were the question
we are
icons built of sky
to the sky
while busy insects lean
against the various horizons
to topple this icon sky
dispelling the gods
as the gods pray to the gods
who pray to god
no truth no fact
can hold what is
still the icons pray
though their songs fall short
of a true and further sky
spin
the world spins
a man dies
a woman loves
a child cries
birthdeath dontmatter
a second passes
and everything is gone
through an old door
to a new room
light like grass
tilts in time's wind
slightly
the same blade
the same lawn
the same wind
just time changes
shadows tilt slightly
lengthen or shorten
the world spins
a man loves
a woman cries
a child dies
th'intoxicant spin
happy or sad drunk
stumbling through time
tripping over furniture
falling asleep on the floor
or looking out the window
at light on a lawn
surrounding a house
where somebody lives
or dies
the blinds are drawn
and a faint light edges
as though the house
squinted into the night
or day
the world spins
a man cries
a woman dies
a child loves
everywhere the light
is spinning, the eyes
spiral into it,
time changes shadows
into light, and light
into more light,
and everywhere spins
the world spins
someone is reading
this poem somewhere
while somewhere else
someone is not
and the old man's cat
chases a bird-shadow
outside a house
where someone is dying
or being born
birthdeath dontmatter
just time changes
nothing else does
the great ship
shadowshape
broad broken
knife of the new time
slips into
deep dark home
bubble-and-steamgush
trailing it
widow’s hair
eyes/mouths of portholes
this whaleghost
plunging blind
to silent whalehell
and its mate
in long glide
black waltz of hull halves
and from them
bright bubbles
a school scattering
through the shapes
of drifters
dark stars in black skies
arms and legs
tentacles
eyes/mouths of round shells
calling out
in silence
large and small starfish
collision’s
limp debris
all the best-laid plans
the blueprints
torn and thrown
into the current’s
waterwind
ice shavings
sliding and melting
curious
as little fish
that dart close and back
distant minds
examine
sifting for lost gold
dressflutter
jacketwing
and the maddened hair
jellyfish
octopus
what kind of creature
flies this way
darkplunging
liquid dreamlessness
faces loom
moons hiding
light of the lost sky
reflected
waterglow
that burns with no fire
snow and ash
slowfalling
to the shadowplain
sandy drifts
the desert
accumulation
voyages
always down
and broken apart
the binding
essence gone
melted to current
watersky
the dark flock
is always above
and always
the new time
school/storm of the dead
the future
~~~~~~~~~~
The dogmen, strong in packs, No, they’re human
cold with the moon, you and I.
The pure hard knot of hate
they use in place of a heart No - the heart bleeds - bled -
shining in darkness, the old pain is new,
the stones of their eyes the sons of victims kill,
shining with semen, seeding sons of victims
the bullets of vision and the shriek of rage,
putting out sight blade of an exploding star,
of their own shaking faces. ragged and sharp, where the world tore.
Babi Yar
Beirut
The rain falls The rain falls
on untouched land: far away.
The sun heats Droplets run
the swelling bodies down the window of a train.
for flies and reporters.
The dead are buried The riders hold up
under politic stone commuter tickets;
that states the crime the conductor punches
as dated fact, tiny printed cards.
the dead lie nameless,
graveless in sunlight, The train rolls on
the rubble of homes through the slums,
in a city of rubble past factories
not very far and fields hinting at spring,
from the Mountain of Christ. to the Mortgaged Land.
Babi Yar
Beirut
Auschwitz
Beirut
Men in dark suits, white shirts Young girls in distant lands
and thin dark ties - shrug - cry uselessly
and loudly proclaim cry because their tears
their helplessness. are useless.
These things happen. The pain they feel
It’s nobody’s fault. is only their pain:
The dead can’t
Similarly suited men feel it now
condemn the actions The seed of a solution
of another land. swells in their hearts,
a flower
There will be demands. in insufficient soil.
They will talk. They weep.
Buchenwald
Cambodia
Belfast
The larger lands The earth waits,
wait, knows
the kings examine pawns, that it will be
the shift and flexing soon and again
of hungry giants what we call fed.
echoes in the hills The hills are covered
where missiles await with gentle grass.
what they were made for. The graves are smashed
The game goes on by the slow tender hands
‘til all sides lose, of those eternal lovers,
then starts again. time and the wind.
Sand Creek
Carthage
Jerusalem
Each side is right Each side is dead
because each side can kill. because each side can kill.
Each side is dead Each side is right
because each side is right. because each side can die.
The armaments pile up What is lost
like a miser’s hoard, is what we have:
the precious coinage the will to peace.
of our ruin. It’s there,
We are rich with death. waiting the believing breath.
We can pay our own way. The seed is there.
The earth is there The soil is there.
to be taken or gained. The rain is wanting.
the prize is hard And wind is blowing
at the edge of our fingers. down from barren rock.
You can feel it: You can feel it:
it’s there. it’s cold.
Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa
Red Eye
~~~~~~~
The Siberian apple tree holds its fruits
even when the frost is three meter deep,
is the red eye of the question mark staring
at me, asking me, what are you thinking now?
I can’t say, nothing. So I pause and rewind.
But thinking begins where the wind begins
and ends where it ends. So my response is
the things I know of the ash tree. It's the last
to blossom and the first to shed leaves.
Its brittle branches are no abode for the
trush, the goldrest, the warbler, the Dunnock,
the swallow, and the skylark, no matter
how sweet and sonorous are their songs.
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 - 2010 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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