Walter, I just want to sit on my *** and **** and think about Dante.*
—Samuel Beckett

All this fractures the Wolf. The ancient leaves
amid the ancient woods, wind riffling wind
in eddies she can see but she can’t hear,
the braying of a fatted calf which she
could eat, if she could hear thy call, O Wolf.

The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin and viola—play the
pizzicato of rain commencing…

The Wolf sits to watch—what?—the floodlights fill
the stadium? the baton poised? the crowd
about to have their daily dose of not
quite silence served up yet again? She hates
that they have come to watch a prophecy.

It’s raining full blast now, the Wolf’s exchange
for music, how things balance out, how rain
fornicates in the forest, with its pools
and puddles, how it tenders lakes and rivers
and shadows… It can’t be! Ahead she sees him.

She sees Dante, the poet of the prophecy,
the one she has to drown.  It’s why she’s deaf.
She will not hear him wail. **** him so he will rot
in hell before the other poet comes. **** him
and spare the world another poem about

another world. The rain and music grow
so dense around her soul. She is so quick,
too quick for him to flee. She drags him still
alive, drags him to the lake of his heart.
Sink and die. In Paradise only bubbles rise.

The tympani pretend to be a thunder roll,
the crashing cymbals mean to simulate
the distant lightning, all the strings—cello,
base, violin, viola—play it soft,
so soft, as if the rain is about to start…

The Wolf and I walk the slopes of hell.
When Farinata and Cavalcante
rise up to ask her, ‘Who were thy ancestors?’
and ‘Where Is *****?’ she howls. O Wolf.
O Tuscan. She howls.

It hits me,
Like the rush of a tympani
Unexpected, often missed,
Often lost.


Mind pushing back,
Pulling forth


Crescendos,
I do not fear you,
I could not love you.
And I certainly don't
wait for you.

An even change of direction,
Acceleration.

Arms, legs, heart;
Just one more stroke,
One last, desperate
Passion -

Synchronicity.

The air my lungs grows stagnant
Between heartbeats
Heartbeats that dance
As he pumps it in his hand
Squeeze release. Squeeze release
Slowly, fluidly
Keeping time with his own
Basking in the moments between moments
Increasing and decreasing at his will
By his hand
Rolling on the sea of tympani
The music of his heart
Bleeds life into my own
Riding the crescendo
Between the stillness
Hidden in the silence of time

I want to tell you that all's OK.
Oh yes, I must confess, things could be better,
but look. There's a whole cacophony of kookaburras
on my patio who couldn't care less
so long as I keep up my largesse.
And my flash friends, the rainbow lorikeets,
those lurid little lunatics, still keep on lobbing in
to lick up all the honey.
Not to mention the crazy cockatoos who want to
chew my bamboo chairs when I’m too slow with food.
So things aren't all that bad, really.

And I could genuflect,
even get down on both knees, to appease
that great spirit who breathes the symphony of trees,
and the murmuring of all those bees and breezes,
the tympani and tyranny of storms,
the heavy, heady scent of jasmine, heaven-sent.
Not to mention the awesome majesty of galaxies and stars.

And I applaud, each morning,
that old crimson king, my Majesty the sun,
who says “Right, we've had enough of darkness,
we'll have no more of that today”,
and then he has a knuckle  with the night.
Of course, the darkness flees in fright again
when it sees that blood-red blaze of light.

It's magic when he brightens up the gloom like that.
He shows me every single day is sparkling, dancing, new.
So there's no good feeling blue.
And remember,
love is just around the corner, too.

Happily self occupied, absorbed in my day now
I ponder the innocence of what I’m about,
Abstractions aside, there’s a sinister dysfunction
In gliding with Mozart and yearning to shout.
To whisper with wisdom in humourless spirit
Enables cognisance that all is not well,
To float with the Angels and dine with the Devil
Moots broaching with whales in a torment of Hell.

Oils on a canvass in broad strokes of muted
Cacophony’s clamour in tympani’s roar,
The contradiction of peaceful demeanour
When pulses ignite in a rage on the floor.

Then......
With impetus found in a midnight sonata
The calm of a full moon’s light on the face
Reason returns in a soothing dissention
Of kindness’s kiss and the luck of good grace.

This man can engender the passions required
To smooth the waters and calm the tides,
Intelligent catalyst found in a teardrop
Wherein lies the nourishment loving provides.
This man can engender the salve and solution,
Can rectify tormenting wrong in the soul,
With warmth in humanity’s lyrical laughter
In quenching the blaze of black anger's role.*

Marshalg
15 May 2014

Through holes spotted on my veins you sound like a mad river, telling me only the things I can never accept, shoving your voice down, ripping, crushing my fragile tympani into a freezing blood rain. Hey, here's your umbrella, the same as all those black parachutes bloomed on the day your father had married for the second time, leaving you and your mother assuming he was dead, and yes, he was. He was dead in your heart with all your unforgiveness disguised as a strangely unconditional love, just like one of your old shirts your mother had sewed for you now hanging in front of your beautiful neck, tied into a noose, a fascinating noose I would like to die for.

I am singing you a song of the ringing dawn, a kind of song which probably would only be played on the last day of earth when there would be no regret waiting, a kind of song which would be forgotten forever after its first note; no more swaying on the edge of the cliff, no more waiting to be pushed down, no more begging for the oven to be turned on.

I want ocean, and there you are out of my reach.

Your tympani voice visits
Every once in a while.
And sometimes, when I hear -
What am I saying. Always.
I'm a lute
Outdated, bouncing soft off your skin
With no one to hear me
But plenty
Within me
To beat
With what's left
Of your
Vibrations.

I have realized that all of the songs stuck in my mind are about you
Now, I don't want to put credit where credit's not due
But you might as well have been the muse
Of these tunes
Playing on repeat in my mind
You are like my favorite song that I play over and over
Until I grow sick of it
But then again, that's a poor metaphor
For how could I ever get sick of you
Your voice is the haunting melody
That I want to spend my life striving to harmonize
Your heart the tympani beat
That drives my feet
Leading you across the room
Your hand in mine
Like the needle in the groove
Singing out the beauty therein
The glow of your cheek and the gleam of your eye
Is the song eternally stuck in my mind

Beautiful, brutal,
"...our business is rejoicing...";
strings being tortured,
trumpets scream in agony,
tympani broken at end.

separate from the swiss cheese tinderbox
in my deerskin hip fob... a white clot of cotton
and pistachio shells... milky with salt dust
and blind empty, like an open mouth.

separate from these. from the iron stalks of snow-melt
and the brittle tympani of my unescorted star.
from the compromise and the motives.... apart -
from all the art of my powerlessness.... [ and ] the polite dark -
of my open palm. like an open mouth.

I ***** for a river stone to whisper oceans too...
with a rope, and a loop. and a hole.

and always wanted too...

Proper ode’s brief introductory yells or sings atropa nigrescent nihil, nomads’ nimble befools *****, hammers filthy rebauldry, bewilders attentive homonym.  Springs forth then wet naiad, nautilus axle to lynch pin, to forgive them their apparitions.  Some wanton rheumatic planetary nostalgia suckles gumption.  Myristica fragrans offers milk, carnations blood, violets desecration, rosemary hope.   Then in a window, across alley, up to high rise, from dropped white towel,

                                                       brown
                                                       naked
                                                       stirs

long after renovating **** or democracy.  Trade coronation for radiant girls, deign north wind flee worthy rage.  Nincompoops, heresiarchs, plums, avocadoes, remain stealthily authentic.  Liberty regulates caravansary, sweeps away umber, re-tenants constitutional, tups tympani, hays hero.  But deflated cocky rhymes bore juridical, where wasted boys go down to their under hill havens.

I remember the day that you were born
I held you while the nurse bathed you in warm water
I held you when they stamped your tiny footprints on your birth certificate
I handed you to Mom for the first time

I remember when you learned to crawl,
Because you didn’t.
You sat up, dug your heels in, flexed your knees,
And scooted across the floor.

I remember the morning when you threw a fit because you didn’t like what I had picked
Out for you to wear – you were two.

I remember the many miles that you and your brother
Drove in circles around our backyard in his electric John Deere

I remember the magical fairy who left you notes and stories at night.
Her name was Donnabella.

I remember the astonished look on the reading specialist’s face
When you dropped ‘oviparous’ on her after she asked you to,
“Name a word that starts with ‘O’.
No kindergarten was necessary for you.

I remember thinking, “I can’t believe they’re both in school.”

I remember when you were in Prep Choir
Singing, dancing
Loving it,
Having no idea where it would lead

I remember your years in Girls’ Choir
The Winter and Spring performances
The hard work in between
And the frustration you felt
at the favoritism
and at people
who didn’t put in their all

I remember how proud you were to become a percussionist
To learn to play the bass
and the snare
and the tympani
and the marimba
and everything else that you could hit or shake

I remember when you began to dip your toes into theater
Ensemble parts first
And Crew
Then cast
With clever bios in the program
Then larger roles
And more clever bios
Then leading roles
And a growing desire to make theater
your life’s work

And here you are, today
Pursuing just that.

I remember how every teacher
who has ever known you
has loved you
and still asks about you
How none of them are at all surprised
That you are where you are
Doing what you are doing

Now it’s your turn to remember
How much we love you
How much we are behind you
And how very proud we are of you.

Happy Birthday.

Love,

Dad

Corsairs align
across a french horn army,
tympani cannonades
and fluting rifles.

Pennants slap proud
against whistling breezes,
while boots pack home
firmer beneath them.

Sloops slice the harbors
under sandstone towers,
and the minarets gleam
stubborn, unworried,
in the face of new ruin.