a fragrant voice,
a merging sound
to gather yellow, red and crowned
in a glottal stop
between the soundings
of the clock.
in a fashion, step
betwixt the puddle
stones and ripples, mixed.
lovers with their grasping hands-
arose, then reached at its command
and cleaved the blood-pricked
thorn, alone
in silence
and in clamored tones.
It is hollow sounding
once struck-
then resonant, tones
that lean and carry
into the next.
Suppressed by pedal
at breathing points,
only to fly in phrasing
and surround-
taking us in.
Suppose we were
to stay, encompassed by
the echo, inside the billow
of the melody
improvised.
How would we know?
After the first note
we breathe its air-
sway in a joined jive
inside the song.
Even led among
the staves, turning
and taking our time
for crescendos
and kisses.
Heading south, I hurried the darkened morning
behind me, and enveloped the sky-
A blush and stretch with her first glance
at daybreak.
A single tree was further down,
gilded- alone among the green and the dead.
It shouted – Hear me! I am magnificent!
The golden leaves shuddered,
and the adjacent pines quivered
and the color cascaded, this moment crowned.
…
Heading north, I rushed to meet the evening
and embraced the waning sun, a yawn and caress
from her last breath of daylight.
In the darkness, shadows stood where trees remain
and I could not tell gold from red or dead from green.
There was no sound,
no opulent style or lonely smile
Only sky and passage into ground.
I don’t speak Gaelic,
and I’ve never been to Venice, either,
she said -between bites of her sandwich-
not looking at anyone in particular.
And I thought:
It must take a long time to get there by rowboat.
The ocean is only half-filled with water,
though there is plenty of time,
plenty of it.
plenty…
It is only 8 miles across the straits of Gibraltar
where the big rock is.
(Well, there is probably more than one),
and they keep getting reshaped and worn by water.
Maybe water can reshape me
or move me out to the sea.
Stones don’t move themselves;
they just get reshaped by water.
Running water.
Falling down.
Breaking it apart.
Lots of water falling down and crashing into crags and crevices.
That’s why rocks crash into the sea.
The ocean is half-full of rocks, I said.
And she nodded with fluid regality
-between bites of her sandwich-
like a queen or princess.
****
Originally published in Soundzine | February, 2011
Knocking about the blue Mylanta bottles
we built forts and cities
in the shadow of a giant.
A bear of a man
– his friends called him Bully-
loud snores elevated
from his vinyl recliner
distant thunderclouds-
our war sounds a reminder.
Matchbox cars in play,
my brother and me,
with little green army men
their guns raised high above their heads.
We stormed the blue bottle castle as he slept.
The laughter of Korman and Conway
floating through the room.
He took us crawfishing once-
and to pick pecans.
He was Santa one early Christmas morning,
and I knew it.
But, I never knew what he liked to do,
or his favorite color, whether it was blue.
He built things,
but he tore them down too.
He helped Daddy build our carport,
but he was drunk most of the time,
so Dad sent him home.
He was just a big grandfather man
asleep in his vinyl chair again,
like a giant slumbering in his lair
in the mountains high above the cities fair
and fortresses of blue Mylanta.
*********
I wrote this poem in 2006, and just recently found it again. I reworded a few lines to make it less prose-more-poem. Relationships are sometimes complicated. My grandfather passed away many years ago- just a few years after these memories. And I’ve found that I never really knew him. But I think of him often.
Beyond the clouds
the red flame torrent ranged
from feature to embellishment.
The recall of a wind stroke
in the waning moments of August.
The resonance of a rain drop
after impact, with cause
to wipe it away – like tears.
Then to bring them
all to bear, in congregation
that wears and chases the dirt and seed alike.
That moment, ignites
the clean and growing rhythm
in the foreground.
All created without a sound.
I find it in the feet of bell tones,
after sorbing the sound as struck and deep.
I see the auric crest at the tip of leaves
in the moments of late summer’s wanton eve.
I feel the arc that bows in honor
of poetry heard, and hopes that won’t cease.
I hear it in the intake of calm
from the instant of lighting, the droning that sleeps.
It caresses the silence just beyond music,
and lingers on fingertips framed in release.
It walks in the tawny remembrance of noon-tide,
and ploys in the finish of our masterpiece.
And sounding the whisper of midnight and morning,
the tolling of hours when time passes, sweeps
away the cache of conflagration
leaving morsels we should keep.
I find it in the feet of bell tones,
with sounds that amble soft and sweet.
Sometimes,
I want to fall apart-
spontaneously disassemble
and disconnect into hundreds
of small fragments,
interlocking of course-
like puzzles of autumn afternoons
just out of the box.
The ones with rushing streams
that leave the edge of the frame
to some unseen bend.
The leaves are gilded and bronzed,
ready to separate
upon the first overnight rain.
And water droplets cling
to porch eaves, just at the crest
when tension breaks.
And we embrace
with a lingered kiss,
and we are knitted to keep from
unraveling.
I stood among you all,
at the edge of the wood,
a place of curiosity, felled
by absentminded fates.
So meant for heartier work
to weep away the runoff – dissent,
the wet and grime that infiltrates
the ground, I’m to abet
and keep your floor unfettered
from labor, a hollow sweep.
Explored and secreted with man’s lust
and beauty, pages turned and creased by hand.
Housing your scoundrel kin,
a respite from the elements, secure
yet open to view the sun
and neighboring vines, their vow unspoken.
And now, the years have culled me in
and I’ve become a part, somehow,
of green and life, of hope and fate
a place of refuge, I have been.
**********
#summerofprompts
I wrote this in response to poet Mary Biddinger’s recent prompt on Twitter, to write a nature poem from a non-human point of view… This is a combination of a nature poem with a childhood memory of a place in a nearby woods from my home.
there is no answer
only trees with spindled branches
that vanish in the beauty of the green
and trails that wander off
behind the distant hillsides, pastoral scenes.
no remedy – with wind between
the spruce’s fingerlings
since moved along to coastal shores and things.
no antiphon in plummeting
in ocean depths – it’s just serene
and emptied of all guff
and echo that there’s ever been.
no pleas as silent offerings proceed
to culminating crests, and heights convened.
and this, the peace of things
that is to be –
the answers all in all, are unforeseen.
Taps and Ratamacues 