Adelaide Caron Dyson: Favorites

I

Drag your child dreams across my teeth
and hold your army at the gate.
A thousand pikemen 'neath the flag
Now reign within the court of sleep.

Their hands wrapped round oaken shaft
their mail a-glittered in the sun.
Shields all bared 'gainst mortal pain
To raze and conquer, one by one.

They hung the king and in his place
Poor Yorick sat with crown and mace.
And we vassal's question deep
The choices fools will make and keep.

O sky awash with blinking snow!
O land drowned in golden light!
No force will come and claim the day.
No end to this, O sleepless night.

Drag your child dreams across my teeth
and trace the Ande's over skin.
Release the Marquis from your eyes
to sovereign now my realms of dream.

II

Drag your Child-dreams across my teeth
And run your pistol dry.
Bite into the ears of hope
Now feast upon the flower.

I ran my taste across your lips
and draw a fire with my tongue.
the Y of sin;
Staccatto on your neck
with the silence outside;
Audience to Reverie.

The Verse we sang
With child dreams dragged across monster teeth
hold this holy, once revered hand.
Lay your breath on heaven's gate.

III

...she dragged her child-dreams across my teeth, the edges and tip rubbed me on the range. Her fingers groped for the discarded uniforms of youth, now a size too small.

The white and stark reflections of the passing car-gaze illuminated the comfortable moment for what it really was. She didn't know it yet, she had no idea.

IV

I glanced upon the holy mound
awash in evenings light.
The dew smelt like memories
soaked in pollen.

A black sun yawned between the hills.
Then the earth began to quake
when the river was dammed and its trees deforested.

While all the while
She dragged her child-dreams across my teeth.

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Questions to an antique wall

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

Questions to an antique wall

There are creeks which shade made lesser cracks of
That spread as hands and ants up antique walls.
I brush those holes and think:
What breath have you spent?
What death have you seen?

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

They doused the lamps...

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

They doused the lamps...

They doused the lamps
and sent the realm into darkness.

The purest black we did ever see.

No street, nor home, nor lovers eye burnt.
Nor did the stars or the keenest minds
For they both shone dark.

And the realm sat hushed-
Silent and revered
Round the patter of words
that came as rain.

As the beat of rain
came as poetry.
And the realm sat round
the new fire.

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

In the summer

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

In the summer

In the summer
we will walk
the narrow
antique
streets.

The city sound
with midnight jazz
stolen and soft,
like the wind.
Cool and soft
as the wind,
wrapped its arms around us
the way I wrapped mine
around you.

In the summer
down the narrow
antique
streets.

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

The Huntress

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

The Huntress

The huntress emerged
swathed in fur
a thousand coins in her pocket
from every distant coast.

Gold capped and exotic
stones beneath her feet,
the scent of blood she did smell.
Once more into the fray
Once more she roamed.

I wondered at her meaning
and how she came in furs.
Was the huntress laying her sight
next upon me?

Would she penetrate the penetrator
to watch it sink beneath stagnant waves?
The blood and whiskey feeding fish
as she once more emerged
swathed in fur.

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Bloodbound

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

Bloodbound

Is it your blood
that crawls with art?
A bold union
that cries when the distant
sounds of Bach wisp from there.

I wonder if you were called
by the sudden beeping that
resembles the stain
on a rusty coin from a long buried culture.
America perhaps, but also Caesar.

All the while, we weary wounded
stumbled through charisma and over altars
pristine in silk and lace;
the holy plateau where snow falls only;
amidst this shipwrecked coast.

And above us all
waving and trembling.
And below us all
stains upon the snow
as charmed blood ran deep
to the ghettos of art and science,
collected in this Hermetic vessel
sealed but for a hole
where beauty alone caused tremors
to rage and spark in fires.

And you alone, bound by blood
saw through the night,
through the forest of dreams
to the stars.
Not being burnt by their light
was your cause; bound by blood.

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

O Caesar

Dec 2011 Adelaide Caron Dyson

Lysander Gray

O Caesar

Time and the sea stripped gold from his face.
Caesar lay in ruins on a burning velvet bed
round him danced the debutantes and believers.
His sullen chamber lit by his burning velvet bed.

Through his window, mottled amber and blue
passed as shades long lost. All that remained
of Caesar, as gold was stripped from his face
now framed by a brilliant half moon;
A memory sent foreign on bitter tides.

An ode to America.