"horsefly" poems
Dry land,
quiet land
of night's
immensity.
(Wind in the olive groves,
wind in the Sierra.)
Ancient
land
of oil lamps
and grief.
Land
of deep cisterns.
Land of death without eyes
and arrows.
(Wind on the roads.
Breeze in the poplar groves.)
Village
Upon a barren hill,
a Calvary.
Clear water
and century-old olive trees.
In the narrow streets,
men hidden under cloaks,
and on the towers
the spinning vanes.
Forever
spinning.
Oh, village lost
in the Andalucia of tears!
Dagger
The dagger
enters the haert
the way plowshares turn over
the wasteland.
No.
Do not cut into me.
No.
Like a ray of sun,
the dagger
ignites terrible
hollows.
No.
Do not cut into me.
No.
Crossroads
East wind,
a street lamp
and a dagger
in the heart.
The street
quivers like
tightly pulled
string,
like a huge, buzzing
horsefly.
Everywhere,
I see a dagger
in the heart.
Ay!
The cry leaves shadows of cypress
upon the wind.
(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping.)
The whole world's broken.
Only silence remains.
(Leave me here, in this field,
weeping).
The darkened horizon's
bitten by bonfires.
(I've told you already to leave me
here, in this field,
weeping.)
Surprise
He lay dead in the street
wit ha dagger in his chest.
Nobody knew who he was.
How the streep lamp flickered!
Mother of god,
how the street lamp
faintly flickered!
It was dawn. Nobody
could look up, wide-eyed,
into the glare.
And he lay dead in the street
with a dagger in his chest,
and nobody knew who he was.
Soleá
Wearing black mantillas,
she thinks the world is tiny
and the heart immense.
Wearing black mantillas.
She thinks that tender sighs
and cries disappear
into currents of wind.
Wearing black mantillas.
The door was left open,
and at dawn the entire sky
emptied onto her balcony.
Ay, yayayayay,
wearing black mantillas.
Cave
From the cave
come endless sobbings.
(Purple
over red.)
The gypsy
calls forth the distance.
(Tall towers
and mysterious men.)
In an unsteady voice
his eyes wander.
(Black
over red.)
And the white-washed cave
trembled in gold.
(White
over red.)
Encounter
For you and I
aren't ready
to find each other.
You... as you well know.
I loved her so much!
Follow the narrowest path.
I have
holes
in my hands
from the nails.
Can't you see how
I'm bleeding to death?
Don't look back,
go slowly,
and pray as I do
to San Cayetano
for you and I
aren't ready
to find each other.
Dawn
Bells of Cordoba
in the early morning.
Bells of Granada
at dawn.
You are felt by all the girls
who weep to the tender,
weeping Solea.
The girls
of upper Andalucia,
and of lower.
You girls of Spain,
with tiny feet
and trembling skirts,
who've filled the crossroads
with crosses.
Oh, bells of Cordoba
in the early morning,
and, oh, the bells of Granada
at dawn!
5.9k
There’s a bottle of my mother’s love
Sitting on the kitchen table
It’s gone sour
It’s Sunday morning,
In the piercing comfort of a place
I once would’ve called home,
And the world woke up and walked out on me
The aftermath of July grows right outside my bedroom window
While I sit on a desolate strip of imaginary sand,
With my head in a water cooler
As significant as an ill-fated horsefly
Apr 26, 2022
Apr 26, 2022 at 3:13 PM UTC
Teeth, rib cages
Hearts, hipbones
Broken thrones
The enigmatic victory of horsefly contempt
Condemned fireflies in midnight sky
Social butterfly and awkward moments
Forced to live with baited breath
Exhale, inhale
Suffocate withering strands of hope
Embellished livestock
Wall street cattle
Compulsory impulse
Genetic malfunctioning solitude
The zenith is reached
Downfall is all that’s left
Watching with wonderment and sealed hearts
Apr 23, 2012
Apr 23, 2012 at 8:12 PM UTC
Late spring. Early morning.
Horseflies in my dream,
dissonant church bells, legless pigeons
I wake to the light’s sharp angle
that cuts this day open.
A breeze stretches its wrap
Lying here, dawn is brief
like a banner slowly raised
then dropped abruptly
Rising from bed
I slump
a prisoner waiting for a beating
The chilled air, a sword
stuck into my skin
Through the blinds
a snap of sun
my eyes rollback
colors pop
I stand barefoot
and become the sum
of a legless pigeon
a horsefly’s faint buzz
dissonant bells
I think of my dream
how it called me
inward
closer to the core
a caravan of pine coffins
lined up in the streets
a future template
Suddenly, church bells,
a fly dead on the sill,
a mournful pigeon’s coo.
--------------------------------------------
from my sixth book-length manuscript
©dah / dahlusion 2015
all rights reserved
"Horseflies Pigeons Coffins"
was first published in 'Secrets and Dreams Anthology'
(Kind Of A Hurricane Press)
Feb 25, 2016
Feb 25, 2016 at 9:16 AM UTC
Each cold wave was starting to slap
me in the face and the grayness of morning
wasn’t lifting as the sun rose. Goosebumps
had made my legs slim sharks, heavy and rough,
so I swam to shore spitting out icy water.
I was thinking about coffee,
maybe crawling into my sleeping bag
and listening to loons’ far-off howls
until breakfast, and I reached the splintery dock
when I choked –
tried to struggle backward, without any splash
which might wash her in with me.
Dock spiders swim. Did you know?
They fasten long ropes of silk and dive
for their prey, something big since no horsefly
sustains a spider the size of a mouse.
This one was monstrous, motionless,
spiky black legs jointed white at her knees,
face-level to my wet bobbing head. She gripped
an egg sac, papery and white, marble-sized.
It held hundreds of tiny hers. It looked heavy.
I had come to her panting but now the water
or inertia maybe pushed my face close
to that enormous silent mother so I fought harder
to stay away, though if the lake had been still
I might have treaded at a distance, stared hard,
dared her to scuttle and disappear in the cracks
in the plywood-patched dock with its rotting ladder
and a dozen more spiders, probably,
white sacs strapped firmly to their bellies.
I flopped like I’d hooked a lip, gasping, desperate
for rough open water where depth
would deter any diving hairy creature.
Somehow I struggled to remoter shoreline
where I slid over boulders’ upholstery of algae,
shivering, legs frog-splayed, stringent and numb.
I never felt it when I scratched my legs crashing
through buckthorn, the way to the cabin, though I saw
the lines later when I put on soft clothing
in a warm inside corner where spiders are smaller
and at least have the kindness
to keep out of sight.
Jan 12, 2010
Jan 12, 2010 at 6:44 AM UTC
Season of love, or so I was told.
Day of Saint Valentine, spurn my sorrow;
Dozens of red roses, bouquets of blood.
But you’re drunk as a horsefly.
Claim you’re an oldie, but only a kidult with an early retire.
Climb on the mattress pad, ruin the moment,
you could have easily slit my throat!
What’s left is only bittersweet;
I think only of the best that we could have had;
The borders we could have hiked;
And the babies that we should have had!
Now I’m cold and afraid, willing it all away.
What’s the point of writing these poems
if you’ll never read them?
Oct 21, 2015
Oct 21, 2015 at 10:48 AM UTC
Can you remember before we tripped and fell out of stride? Over-paced, the human race, our twelve-hour clock wound up tight with our world moving two days too fast.
Can you imagine a world with dirt roads and infrequent cars? Silence from the propellers of planes with air so pure, crisp and free from the fumes of exhaust and burning fuel that continues to fill our atmosphere at an extraordinarily fast-paced race to the end before we can even enjoy the beginning?
I dream of going back to such a place, building these dreams and grand illusions in my mind from the stories of my elders and great ancestors of old times.
When working was nothing about sitting at an office desk or making the most salaried income in this hectic life of no rest.
When mornings were spent gratefully tending to the fields and afternoons to the flocks. When in between, you let your eyes rest as you lay on fresh hay bales using only the sun's shadows as your clock.
When nights were filled with belly laughter and passionate kisses creating harmony with nature's own chirps of crickets and coyotes making sweet symphony to the skies; to Mother Moon herself and to the Great One hidden from our eyes.
A time of ease and inner peace amongst our day's hard work. Where the silence of zen in utmost meditation's only disturbance is of nature herself... A dragonfly zipping across your line of view... a horsefly buzzing around your ear... The bark of a pup or the sly movements of the cat as he makes his way into your garden to mess with your plants...
A world where your surroundings are as vastly colored as the most glorious sunset sky of orange, fuchsia, peach and yellow rainbow-dipped flowers, sending their love in sweet floral aroma as you breathe in; lifting your head, heart and chest in joyful adoration as your eyes glance in reverence to the heavens up high.
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 8:04 PM UTC
Dedicated to the ones who mock us
saying that they haven’t lost anything.
We flaunt flypaper photos,
hoping for horsefly quick fixes,
but I’m no longer
the person in my pictures,
but a spider.
Now, my red eyes burn–
boiling tears whose salt
cannot sustain me.
It’s also evident that
I’m gracelessly aging
as time flies faster;
I’m not having fun.
I’m not having fun.
He– external introspection:
embodiment of possibilities just out of reach.
He– the very visage of perfection,
anonymous, at least to me.
And here but an hour ago we were we.
Garrett let him in through the front door.
“I’m here to see Victor.”
“Sure, let me take you to his room.”
I’ll get questions tomorrow
for which I’ll have no answers or lies,
so I’ll tell the truth:
I poured my heart
into seven heavenly minutes,
only to find it unscathed.
Love is blind lust until
it suffers.
He leaves and I wait for confirmation
that we’ll never speak again.
And it comes.
And I think:
He might have been a pre-med student.
His favorite color might have been yellow.
He might have been able to sing.
He might have been living poetry.
He might have loved Jesus.
His faith in Jesus might have been unshakable.
His name might have been Bradley.
His best friend might have been his mother.
Nov 10, 2013
Nov 10, 2013 at 3:20 AM UTC
Tonight
The air is ******* its cheeks
& surgical--
Whilst I walk through the tufts of mottled grass
Fetishizing stage mothers falling on kitchen knives
& school girls wearing **** whistles around their necks like charms
& at 11:26 it comes on to me
In the choking on discussions of
Muted liberties—
Civil duties—
Toothless ethics—
& the sleight given upper hands
& now they glass me real good
Looking to me for my rebuttal
But it is now taut around my throat
Taking hold like a drunken uncle
For all the times I stuck my neck out on the line
& it happens like this most every time
In moments so gentle, so tranquil
The kind that only the sting of a horsefly
Or the discovery of a tumor could tamper with
& I am left filled with a love so grandiose
So indescribable—
That my heart swells & threatens to burst
& if they could hear me mutter just that
Then maybe this wouldn't be such a bad way to go at all
Mar 7, 2015
Mar 7, 2015 at 12:15 PM UTC
what happens
when
a horsefly
lands
on the
rear end of
a full grown bull
or
a blind
*******
Mar 30, 2015
Mar 30, 2015 at 7:38 PM UTC