Category Archives: Memory

Layering

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First, lay down a crumble of moments in a dish,
childhood memories and first visions evoked –
if you have them – mix them with a butter
sauce of retention.

Smear a layer of simple exuberance – whisked and sweet
over the base. Linger if you must, smoothing and spreading
a zestful meringue until it glistens reflected light.

Next will come chunks of a weightier kind.
Dropped upon the dish,
they will indent the surface.
They will disrupt your coated enthusiasm
with texture, and by themselves, will be unfulfilling.
Do not allow them to cover in total,
but position them throughout – they will later add contour
and context to your beginnings.

Prepare a lime gelatin containing your favorite morsels
of triumph (and defeat)-
One cannot come without the other-
Spoon it over the patina of your past until covered.
Cool and let it set for a time- until solid.

When removed and sliced, savor the different
complexions – the marrow and the substance in between
and within the continuous and smooth.

Add layers.

The last ones

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Where the omegas light
or the zebras graze
coming to a sundown at the end
of a day, with the hues just finishing
at the edge of the page.
Come what may.

Trek down to bottom
of the waterfall,
the pool that collects and swirls
and spalls. Shapes majestic rock
to a minor crawl.
You’ve seen it all.

Walk away from
blood and tears you’ve shed,
The memory maybe still fresh,
and living in your head. Not
worth the pain or the dread.
That’s what they said.

The last ones take
a moment to decide,
to conquer and reign in the now,
the meantime. It’s true what they implied,
yet often untried.

While

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I spent the morning reading my old poems
and realize they feel like memories.
The lonely ones that desire a second (or third)
reading, the triumphant ones
that trumpet their arrival,
the amorous ones –
they pull me into a corner by the collar and linger,
the nonsensical ones that twirl and wheel
about the sacred and profane, the love or disdain.
The obtuse, they wander.
The linear, they gander.
The poems, I gather to mind
and hold to abide in warm embraces.
They all have their places.

Summer in Chelsea

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There’s a summer in Chelsea,
a lazy, flush sunrise –
a dew, with its mettle
at morning, then stripped of its guise.
Full glow and blushing
in the mid-day, with nothing
borne except the breezes
that prattle and patter the leaves
and the warm air that settles,
the ardor that thieves.
Just before rain-drops
and thunder arrive on the scene
to swirl and knead everything
before the employ
of the night,incandescent,with hushes
and wants. Pooled sweat and twilight
and intimate haunts.
Indeed, a summer in Chelsea,
and she beams nonchalance.

Thoughts on epiphany

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I have decided that music
bears witness to the scenery around us.

A woman wearing a bunny eared winter cap
can listen to “Wild Thing” and “Always a Woman”
and still be focused on serious world issues.

The sounds of Professor Longhair and Dr. John
refresh a winter day of Epiphany just as well as Kings College
at Christmastide.

A conversation with a beautiful soul
can ignite a fire – for warming a dulled
and calloused heart.

Walking on salted sidewalks
leaves a rhythmic pulse in your brain
with bodhran and guiro contributions.

The sparkle of lights in the darkness
of early morning never grows old. The silence
makes them shine.

The end of the day lingers when you drag out
the last light from inside.

Concomitant

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There is a slight twinkle
near the sun, and it brings a magic notion
down to one. There is a water droplet
near the stream, and it doesn’t bother
or even seem to care if it’s apart-
the teeming, rushing flow reprieves.
A single green leaf among the red and golden sheaves
and fading starlight, tropes in morning dark.
Waving grasses, stand in endless fields
beneath the doleful skies of clouds with daylight, now concealed.
Wisps of raven hair that battle with the breeze,
as eyes (that smile) seek out the day’s reprise.
And this, a thought to consort with the one,
the charm that twinkled with the sun.

 

Passage

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October leaves me in thatches,
between the warm beaches
and pale wintered branches.

I remember the autumn,
the slow scale of mornings-
the decorative fallen.

I see her in color,
the amber-crisp sunlight
that touches to cover.

For moments, I tarry-
enveloped and yielding
to her fay and fairy.

I reach for her hand
and she vanishes,
my visions are damned

in the moment between
burgeoning summer
and winter’s pale serene.

non-sequitur moment

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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

Building

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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.

Notions

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In a gift for someone that I once knew-
A few moments wrapped
in crisp paper with string.
each one a mating of calm and called.

Intent on these penetrating emotions-
they are patterns of poetry from memories
underneath the neat taped corners.

They could be jumbled and incoherent,
but I prefer them pressed and bound
and self-contained.
Thumb-pressure creased,
Holding the pieces
firmly together.

Notions of affection
convened for her disposal
will be mailed
in the morning.

***********
A reworking of a poem that I first wrote in 2006.