"tableau" poems
Here I tread on a woodland promontory—
With wings and wind conjuring the rains,
All is vastness and shroud, open, empty,
Even the light is carried away in silence,
My flesh all but smearings on the tableau,
Foothold of dream within disrupted dream,
Our hands once reached out into forever,
Now my soul is seeping from veined cairns,
Cut chains, mist, rains hollowing the wind.
Apr 3, 2014
Apr 3, 2014 at 1:10 PM UTC
~**My portrait was painted by Jackson *******
<|>
“***there are no lines or lies in my writings
there are no definitions and perception is only your truth.
Therefore,
my poems are splats and drips, you make them into paintings that hang in your own private museum,
but signed by me as first passenger***”
<|>
when did I write these words?
can’t recall, though undated,
they seem all too familiar, and thinking that if I didn’t,
I should have…
for the title of this ‘poem painting’ has lain in quietude,
a resident in my file of
“someday writs, awaiting,”
when the itch demands you will
essay
**the admixture of words and swords
that will cut a newborn corded reciprocity of thee and me,
an unbound bind that ties and frees us
from and by our shared senses…**
today, an inadvertent blinding sunlight stumble is demanding a
fulsome scratching
<|>
the portrait of each is the irrational intersectional of splats and drips,
each viewer, reader, filters the image through a common
uncommonality,
which is as it should be,
**for if we are each created in His image,
how glorious is the diversity of our deities,
each of us a tiny drop of paint on a tableau
of a small planet, insignificant but
uniquely beautiful intelligent species of godlike creatures,**
human
<|>
the précis of this conundrum conversation bewilders,
a single word drops,
of plaint, paint, blood,
a seconds blush blurred
that is the building blocks of imagery
I state is mine,
but now realizations swiftly fertilize,
**the portrait is not of me,
but of me blended into thee,
and this poem,
is our composition**
that hangs in each of our primary
museum,
newly re-titled,
A Passenger, Realized
Sep 14, 2023
Sep 14, 2023 at 7:10 AM UTC
This morning,
I walked with god and man, and animal
I've come to believe,
no other possibility,
He denies me sleep
as His insurance policy
some One wants to be sure,
someone sees His sunrise poem,
He selected this ancien regi-man
to be His admiring audience,
with deer, squirrels, rabbits, a red fox, an osprey
always complaining, why do they get
the cheap seats
so up at five,
no jive,
gotta get there early,
for a good seat,
on the dock by his name
watch the color blue transgender
from feminine elegy elegant pale
to peacock royal male,
the water,
a contributing editor,
phases in with a steely grin,
with ermine whitecap hints
and an orange marmalade sky homage,
I cannot try to describe
and here is where man comes in...
as the tableau reveals a still life
come to be,
a painting enlivened,
come to me free,
bursting with
effervescence and
animal life tribunes,
paying on...
strange...
my Pandora app
back to back,
plays for me
Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue,
hard upon it comes
Saint-Saëns's
The Carnival of the Animals
and I
enfeebled amateur,
needy for a
word titan Titian,
can think only
this trite thought:
*I know not who is the
instrument and who
is the
artist,
but virtuous us,
We, all, now-capital-buddies,
now, all, well-color-capitalized,
god and man and animal,
crooning a chorus of appreciation
let this "accidental" miracle,
this collaboration,
enthuse me,
to live happily
with anticipation
for just one more day...*
June 2014
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 6:56 AM UTC
Here I tread on a woodland promontory—
With wings and wind conjuring the rains,
All is vastness and shroud, open, empty,
Even the light is carried away in silence,
My flesh all but smearings on the tableau,
Foothold of dream within disrupted dream,
Our hands once reached out into forever,
Now my soul is seeping from veined cairns,
Cut chains, mist, rains hollowing the wind.
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 8:01 PM UTC
285
The Robin’s my Criterion for Tune—
Because I grow—where Robins do—
But, were I Cuckoo born—
I’d swear by him—
The ode familiar—rules the Noon—
The Buttercup’s, my Whim for Bloom—
Because, we’re Orchard sprung—
But, were I Britain born,
I’d Daisies spurn—
None but the Nut—October fit—
Because, through dropping it,
The Seasons flit—I’m taught—
Without the Snow’s Tableau
Winter, were lie—to me—
Because I see—New Englandly—
The Queen, discerns like me—
Provincially—
3.8k
Here I tread on a woodland promontory—
With wings and wind conjuring the rains,
All is vastness and shroud, open, empty,
Even the light is carried away in silence,
My flesh all but smearings on the tableau,
Foothold of dream within disrupted dream,
Our hands once reached out into forever,
Now my soul is seeping from veined cairns,
Cut chains, mist, rains hollowing the wind.
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 1:10 PM UTC
Go to sleep, my love.
This ambulance is not for us.
Although, I suppose it could be,
following dark impulses.
Its sirens screaming of hell,
tearing pell-mell in a night
not tinged by blood –
no crime committed for want or violence,
only help arrived too late
to save us. It would go silent then,
as we have been silenced,
locked in a terrible tableau.
You, still, curled around my heart,
me having found for us oblivion.
Oct 8, 2016
Oct 8, 2016 at 7:13 AM UTC
Underneath a silhouette of stars
We confer futuristic forecasts
your skin blends with the ivory outline
of the constellation that envelopes our bodies.
Heard was the echo of
such an ever so pleasant sound
‘twas the rustling of sheets
to the rhythm of the rain
May 30, 2012
May 30, 2012 at 2:52 PM UTC
Laboriously beleaguering hypercritically meticulous hypotaxis apomixis strive
Rainbow mare aura roan exude emote derive
Syntactical propinquity habitation harbinger harangue stoic hive
Colloquialism vernaculars prurient adage jargon idiom clichés jive
Mirador bartizan panorama stalwart bastion bulwark tableau live
Canny cleaver crafty cunning furtive sneaky stealthy connive
Poignant cogent piquant ephemeral effulgence temporal refraction arrive
Paradoxical dichotomy greaves gauntlets gamut catalyst abstracts survive
Hectic mayhem , proximity parameter perimeter peripherals , annihilate rive
Zingy zesty zany zenithal azimuth entity zeal alive
Jan 13, 2013
Jan 13, 2013 at 9:11 PM UTC
I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,
What words could never speak
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud
Two of us, alone, as one
Rapt in the spread of wings.
Later, alone we dine in the Café
Campagne. Our conversation
Deafens a burgeoning crowd
Coffee was nectar, our words
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed
By your tears. I have always
Known you.
Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin
Your slender legs, columns that taught
The Greeks in Helens age, touched the water
And the sky. I saw the milky way that night.
Síneánn, I am your Pablo
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone you are the hinge
To my casement world. Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes
I hold your skin, my Selkie
Sweet Niamh, I have lived
One hundred years this week.
It is warm in the distance
In the country of the sun
We end at the house in Umbria
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.
At the great table we feast
With family and friends
And I am not alone with you.
Jun 3, 2012
Jun 3, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC
Fertile earth’s seductive sorcery
Like ephemeral effulgence’s effluent effusion
Can lead you to believe that it’s not a travesty
Like life’s visceral intuitive eternal is not lost in subtle evasive confusion
Life’s virile translucence reflects this glow
Like an aorist ensemble of interludes transposition
Can lead you to believe that you’re in the know
Like omnipresence presages omniscience’s ubiquity is existential exigency’s peroration’s exposition
Corporeally preternatural metaphysical mystique
Like a mirador bartizan tableau panorama
Can inspire us to rise above its critique
Like spatiotemporal’s telemetry incarnate is creation’s vivid intrepid cyclorama
Spectral verve’s liaison’s consortium
Like eclectic synectic’s conclave’s fatidic
Can leave you lost in germane compendium
Like terminus thrall’s apriori inclination is transcendental accession’s endemic mnemonic
Monad’s transitional majestic splendor
Like residual harmonic vibration’s resilience
Can autonomously evoke and vicariously render
Like rubato’s actuator’s prospectus revealed is orchestration rendition’s intriguing brilliance
Eidetic preterit’s aesthetic amendments
Like protractive analyses’ dimensional delineation
Can lead to cogent salacious enticements
Like phantasmagoria’s fantasia fantastication’s magniloquence is sultry solace’s ostentatious ideation
Jan 12, 2013
Jan 12, 2013 at 8:07 PM UTC
treacherously torrid and torrential torrents of totally tangential tumultuous tortuous ; tyrannically torturous adjunct viably salient seethe.
procrastinating pandemic plenipotentiary prosthesis ; prosaically pragmatic parenthetical predication predilection premise prognostication
panoramic tableau preternatural propensity proclivity prestidigitation gesticulation :
gyration guidon ; ghastly gruesome grotesque hideously horrible horrendous heinous
grotty gnarly
diabolically maniacal dementia brusque macabre abrupt
awful
amalgamated anathema analysis agnate aggregate aberrance
somatalogy virtuoso cognate obduracy
worse
rudiment ebullience , confluence effluent effusion affluent , prolific profusity opulence , cogent fecund secular secund , recondite redolence abstrusely obstreperous mesomerism resonance resilience
protractive perpetude futurity
blither blandishing blabber burnishing boresome blahs
lithe blithe jabber prattle chatter tithe
morose morsel moribundness
stolid stoic
stalwart bastion bulwark
Oct 24, 2013
Oct 24, 2013 at 5:45 PM UTC
Inadequate to the task
Humbled by the enormity of our love,
The perfection of our joining,
Where are the words kept that sufficient
Honor and portray what we have achieved?
You seated, beside me by the bay, finally,
Two old adirondack trees side by side,
By the sheltered place you bequeathed me,
Where poems are raindrops, so numerous,
And you, if not the subject, the source.
The waves rolling in, mirror the
Fluidity of thy dancing,
Fluidity of the adaptation,
Two lives, now one bay blue colored,
The merging, the unification,
Many waves, but one bay,
The Bay of Us.
Yet so different.
We are cloud worshippers,
Does not the Skye's Tableau inconstancy,
Mirror our ever changing form, individuality,
Yet, one sky,
The Sky of Us.
So many times have I lain be-sided
Even as we this afternoon sit now a-sided,
Tears welling up, above and beyond control,
This man's steady nerves, constant on patrol,
Our secret open, visible, un-hided,
Your are my Magi
My Yogi,
i.am, your, obedient devotee, shaped to you please.
This is the birthday present my words present.
Words, unremarkable,
Except for the contentment
That lies within them.
Let me love you more,
Recklessly abandon norms,
Kiss you at the supermarket, at the opera,
Unashamedly, take you in my arms
Wherever wonderment and wandering lead us.
T'is so very hard to compose
When tears flow upon my writing tablet,
To wipe, blot them away, I refuse,
For tears are joyous emblems,
Salty badges of love,
All compliments of our complementary beings,
The Tears of Us.
The soaring music we gather in.
The shimmering sparkles upon the bay,
My gift of natural diamonds better, this day,
Than jeweled glitterati I hide in the refrigerator.
All this treasure, part and sparkle of
The Treasure of Us.
T'is truth,
I know not, forgot, your age nor care,
The day the time the year,
What matter they to me these artifice markers,
I weep carelessly, undone, overcome,
Every day, but this day, most, united joy.
Need-No reminder,
I am a survivor,
From a concentration camp
That slow programmed to destroy,
Perhaps the kindness you claim
As the hallmark of my fame,
An inadvertent gift, from the devil?
You shook my hand on our first meet,
Don't think, have I ever let go?
Let me be your driver, entertainer, your only poet,
Let me be whatever you need,
Even as now, I laugh-cry, your tissue carrier.
For t'is I who weeps and keeps
These tissues as part of our history.
You are the first,
Who has ever read
The Words of Us.
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 1:52 PM UTC
~
*find your torch
light me up
brittle and cracked
I like feeling this incomplete
I hope the nightmares don't start
without me
but if they do
let them stir
as the crow flies away
on dangerous days
with a host of stars
fiery god-smacked
in the vast well of night
where I could play king
for an hour
to a wounded land
and a pair of queens
kept in high dudgeon
lest they sing
their burning song
in rich hues
and deep tones
painted on the warm
analog tableau
on my skin
distant
distillation
happiest when sad
with time and space, some
of the intricacies
can be airbrushed out
but I don’t think
imperfect love
can take too many fires
like that, because then
a renaissance heart
would certainly go black*
~
May 24, 2022
May 24, 2022 at 11:51 PM UTC
Love has come Again
At a halt on our path
a field-scape lies.
The sky downcasts
a beige blankness
tucked into the horizon.
It is a scene, still of movement.
Then in an abrupt cloak of berries
the sudden plumage of a pheasant
erupts from its hedgerow covert,
a most vivid proclamation
of the season’s palette.
In these silent wolds winter’s wheat
has already sprung its green blade
from the buried grain . . .
only now to wait,
to wait in the cold earth
at our feet, to wait, then flower.
Love is Come Again the carol sings.
This is nature’s promise,
and yet hidden from sight
the story tells itself
again. And yet again
we pause and wonder
at its telling . . .
even as the light fails us
and a darkness falls
against this frigid land.
La Serenissima
There it was, high on an outer wall
of San Giovanni Battista in Bragora;
the church where Vivaldi was baptised.
Ruskin would surely have brought
suo scala a pioli to come close
and so sketch this tableau in relief
of Mary, her son and the Magi three.
But with il telebiettivo
its detail becomes forever mine,
and so is pinned during Advent
to my studio notice-board:
a ****** purissimo,
un bambino divine,
my Christmas gift
from La Serenissima.
Dec 24, 2013
Dec 24, 2013 at 5:30 AM UTC
Exotic trollwood harlotry and mule kit blues
Tyrannical tyrannosaur traction padness
Cohort cavorts clastic and witch’s *** hues
Ontological ontogeny somatalogy fadness
Inductive endemic veracities and talus weather clues
Epistemological equilibrium’s homogeny badness
Timeless rhetorical ruminations and ephemeral exigency dues
Transcendent ascensional equivocal madness
Tactile acuity prescience capacity intrepid intrigues
Mystical symbiosis dharma sensorium sentiment proselyte
Torturous tractive prosthesis umbrage ultraism colleagues
Newfangled nocturnal nonchalant nether nestle neophyte
Top notch topography tortoise trauma fatigues
Faustian faux pas foist felicitous fealties socialite
Agnate nous ontological ontogeny euphenics in league
Mentalities evocative introjecting sycophant eulogizing apposite
Mystical terrestrial equestrian tellurian tableau
Panoramic imagery empiricist
Evocative exserted apomixies’ ethereal should show
Ontological somatalogy lyricist
Reflective refraction remissions opulence could know
Theosophy theophany epiphany equilibrist
Magniloquent inductive extrapolation quantum back ***
Transcendent nimbus nimiety exorcist
Aug 10, 2015
Aug 10, 2015 at 5:20 PM UTC
10,000 steps to a poem
<~>
walk to save my visions, my subterfuge-self, trying to
encapsulate the moments, seconds of nano-instances of a
tableau of histories, of actions becoming interactions,
a physical mitosis, ground into one human paste of word-cells
by a singular mortar and pestle that more than blends, but condenses
walk in Whitman’s footsteps, prowl old cobbled
streets seeing them anew, listening to the patois
of each skyward pathway, a commingling of
catechisms, Tefilot, Salah, Stuti Karana, into a stampede becoming a tornado funnel of a multivariate alphabets singularity - a prayer|poem returning to birth-mother
rush homeward desperate to retain the holy mess of verbal music,
before aged eyes release the visions, into a heavenly lost but found
depot of single lefty gloves, snatches and refrains, hymnals, phrases,
10,000 preservation band steps keeping but scraps, weeping
for the so much lost, yet blessing-uttering thankful for this one,
to a one
*who has kept us alive, sustained us, and brought us to
this moment, to this season.*
4/4/21
1:50pm
~writ by night, daylight born~
Apr 4, 2021
Apr 4, 2021 at 1:57 PM UTC
“some say love is a burning thing. that it makes a fiery ring.”
so kiss her.
or don’t.
and always regret.
always bike home thinking.
always think of love.
she’s in a parking lot somewhere drinking cheap wine,
balancing on the bumper.
he’s on the river somewhere drinking cheap beer,
balancing boulders.
a dog sprints by and forgets all heartache.
he is happy.
the town and the people and the job and the dreams.
the nothings
and the everythings.
and the little life this is.
to slipstream years gone by.
one fire in the sky, or another in the hills
just west of town.
something said about the smoke.
we take a weekend to spool through the story of your folks.
film cans or video cassettes,
or home re-sets. rewind.
words and faces scrawled in a tome of note.
spoken little memories,
little mysteries.
stories to tell no one.
stories to tell those who will listen.
the boys with dirtbike brothers.
the brothers with drunken fathers.
the fathers with dead wives.
the wives with ancient mothers.
the mothers and their children.
and the children living well enough.
living calm, then free.
far away, then close.
an empire.
of highways and histories.
of songs and the souls they swing.
of old money/new money,
betrayal on the horizon.
blacktop jamborees and assassinations.
driveways and nicely neighborhood lit-upon lawns.
well-trimmed trees.
a never-ending tree of lovers,
grasped and gasping for the sky.
listen and wait.
for the sun to kiss the moon goodbye.
[a family and their dog.]
this chrysalis.
this coincidence that is us, on one good gust.
from heart to hand to sons and daughters.
synchronized to die and revive and imbibe along the ride.
a tableau of animalia.
feasting and sleeping and awoken
by the wide little world all around.
“we are fires in the night. let us bathe you in our light.”
Jun 21, 2014
Jun 21, 2014 at 5:46 PM UTC
Le nom du court métrage c'est Miction Première.
Le personnage: un homme nu. On ne voit de lui que ses deux membres du bas et son membre viril
Les décors : une chambre de jeune femme bourrée de livres sur l'art et les oiseaux
Un matelas queen size sur un lit en bois verni couvert d'un drap rose et deux oreillers roses
Au mur un tableau
On entend le bruit des pales d'un ventilateur.
Près de la fenêtre un fauteuil en velours rouge. La lumière de la nuit filtre par les persiennes.
Une armoire occupe tout le pan du mur à côté de la porte de la chambre. Cette armoire possède un grand miroir.
A la droite du lit il y a une table de nuit ou se trouve un portable branché sur son chargeur.
Juste à côté de la chambre c'est la salle de bains close par une porte
Dans cette salle de bains il y a une ****** italienne, un évier, une cuvette d'aisance, un bidet. Les murs sont en faïence bleue.
Le script: Il est entre trois heures et trois heures et demie du matin
Un homme se réveille et saisit son portable. Cette lumière éclaire la pièce et donne l"heure
L'homme qui était allongé sur le côté est désormais allongé sur le dos.
On ne voit de lui que son sexe qui frétille dans un demi-sommeil au-dessus d'une forêt de poils blancs
Sa peau est aussi noire que la nuit est bleue.
Il dort nu, se lève.
Et se dirige vers les toilettes en tâtonnant
Il allume la lumière qui inonde la pièce.
Et se présente au-dessus de la cuvette
Où il satisfait un besoin naturel.
Il pisse en un long jet de 45 secondes
Colorant l'eau transparente de la cuvette
D'un jaune mordoré
On entend clairement le bruit d'un ruisseau ou d'une source qui se déverse
Puis la chasse est actionnée
Et on voit le sexe qui palpite pendant que ses eaux disparaissent dans la fosse septique
Tandis que perle la dernière goutte d'urine.
Aug 21, 2019
Aug 21, 2019 at 6:01 AM UTC
I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.
Later, alone we dine in the Café
Campagne. Our conversation
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed
By your tears. I have always
Known you.
Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.
Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world. Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived
One hundred years this week.
It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.
At the great table we feast
With family and friends
And I am not alone with you.
Aug 28, 2012
Aug 28, 2012 at 1:05 PM UTC
I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.
Later, alone we dine in the Café
Campagne. Our conversation
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed
By your tears. I have always
Known you.
Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.
Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world. Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived
One hundred years this week.
It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.
At the great table we feast
With family and friends
And I am not alone with you.
Nov 2, 2013
Nov 2, 2013 at 4:32 PM UTC
<|>
“***IF we are each created in His image,
how glorious is the diversity of our deities***,
*each of us a tiny drop of paint on a tableau
of a small planet, insignificant but
uniquely beautiful intelligent species of godlike creatures,*
“deities~human”*
<|>
wise enough to know mine philosophical shortcomings,
for they are many,
insufficient wisdom, more than sufficient laziness,
but sometimes even the o b v i o u s
strikes a rhyming chord,
even so, delving into God’s image
is for the foolhardy,
ergo ipso facto,
I am that,
that fool
but the boundaries of common sense poetry,
offer healthy delimitations,
and as rhe day wanes, eyes go blurry,
I am content to laurels~rest:
I do not count the times,
I’ve called out my beseeching deities,
I do not count the numbers of names,
we have designated and available for them,
or how many I’ve employed, and which replied
or the varied shapes they assumed,
to get my attention,
but this is a poem,
cannot leave you hanging,
if you paid your dues for joining me this far:
the due is due you:
them
(their ONLY pronoun),
keep their answers
short and oft inexplicable,
yet strangely satisfying,
for being a deity
they employ common sense,
and the answers frequently found
on a list of Frequently Answered Questions (FAQ‘s)
the most common response,
“but you already knew that!”
Sep 23, 2023
Sep 23, 2023 at 8:26 AM UTC
I am alone with you.
A fire burns in the distance,
It lights our faces
As before in the empty cinema,
Where we arrived, at some beginning,
To watch a foreign film. Our eyes,
In new utterance, murmuring subtitles,
What words could never speak,
The tips of seats, rows of air
And the moony screen,
A tableau of feathers and cloud,
Two of us, alone, as one,
Rapt in the spread of wings.
Later, alone we dine in the Café
Campagne. Our conversation
Deafens a burgeoning crowd,
Coffee was nectar, our words
Were whispering petals.
Dearest Blodeuwedd, I saw the sweetest
Sorrow on your face, the green ocean
In your eyes, I was cleansed
By your tears. I have always
Known you.
Across the border on the far island,
You stepped into the waters with me
And when you disrobed you lit the stars
And the stars and my eyes kissed your skin,
Your slender legs, columns, tilting
Toward heaven, in the age of Helen,
Touched the water and the sky,
I saw the milky way that night.
Síneánn, I am your Pablo,
We are two white birds sailing
Over the foam of the sea.
Solvent to my stone, you are the hinge
To my casement world. Rain petal
Voice, lithe, alabaster woman,
I am lost in your Sargasso eyes,
I hold your skin, my Selkie,
Sweet Niamh, I have lived
One hundred years this week.
It is warm in the distance,
In the country of the sun,
We end at the house in Umbria,
In the autumn, there is no word
Siberia, my light Rosaleen.
Now is harvest time.
At the great table we feast
With family and friends
And I am not alone with you.
Mar 12, 2013
Mar 12, 2013 at 4:00 PM UTC
Fluorescent flickers illuminate the stained cement floors of the hallway. Your slippered feet music an uneven pad and scuff. This ***** city is home, whatever that means. This ***** city holds you like you're someone else's child. A burst of joy and music reaches for you through the window; someone bangs a door and you turn on the tap. As water sputters onto your toothbrush you catch a whiff of Dakota Jim's racist southern drawl, a puff of his ketamine breath.
You walk to the window, toothbrush dangling.
[Oh London, I know you love no one, but nights like this I feel your heartbeat in your embrace.]
History swells beneath your feet. Your eyes land on a seated figure, his grand headdress of feathers overpowering the tableau, his gaze calmer than the other mad happy swirls that make up the crowd. It makes you wonder what he sees. Probably nothing. You will learn that when he seems profound it is usually an accident. You are penned in by jagged skyline hieroglyphics. History swells. Your heavy hearted story is a speck consumed in all this history. All the history you were taught in school was death, you remember your mother bemoaning this war generals and battle dates history. You wonder at how much death this place has seen, how many lives the city has birthed and eaten, hungry mother staving off starvation.
We all write our stories on other people's bones. Of course the greatest cities would leave the greatest scars. And what did you come here looking for anyway?
[Hello Momento Mori city. I see you. I see your rooftops straining to **** stars. Do you mourn for your dead? Are they heavy in your belly? Are you going to eat me, too?]
But now, if you drag your little mind back from the immensities, everything around you is alive. Everyone is dancing, happy to be caught in her belly. Or her womb. Not one of you knows which, but there you are. In the courtyard, the small, steady figure of Freddie Stitz brings a lit cigarette to his lips and smiles up at you in the window.
Wipe that toothpaste off your face, you look ridiculous. Go back to bed.
May 28, 2013
May 28, 2013 at 4:57 PM UTC
Here I tread on a woodland promontory—
With wings and wind conjuring the rains,
All is vastness and shroud, open, empty,
Even the light is carried away in silence,
My flesh all but smearings on the tableau,
Foothold of dream within disrupted dream,
Our hands once reached out into forever,
Now my soul is seeping from veined cairns,
Cut chains, mist, rains hollowing the wind.
Nov 8, 2014
Nov 8, 2014 at 10:31 PM UTC