The Hawk In The Rain

I was a fresh tube of paint, Indian Yellow,
in wait to experience the slick skin  
of a gesso'd canvas—or paper'd  
Poetry put to pictures, a visual gift  
After hand-to-hand combat  
With the muse. I had never known  
A scent of turpentine permeating  
The space of an atelier,  
Unlike my friend, whose name  
Was that of a man's, Michael,  
Yet, she was feminine as they come.  
Michael, who had fallen obsessively  
Within the composition of one  
Who would unwittingly become  
My greatest mentor. Me, starry-eyed  
And ignorant of the power of words  
To loosen the cap of Love  
in the wrong lifetime.  
 
I felt the squeeze, an inchworm  
Of syllables clawing for their debut  
Against raw cartilage of my throat.  
Cadmium tints bled a foreign landscape  
from a genome of southern memory.  
A provence'd affair of likeminded artists  
Gathered 'round the café table  
Not far from the remains of Chagall.  
But, my tongue curled into an Autumn leaf—  
Cracked and dry, void of utterance.  
I drank the wine instead, tattooing  
My lips a plum'd vino of crushed grape  
And speckled glass dream.  
 
Sixteen plus years after death  
I come face-to-face with my own image  
Staring out from the Universe. . .  
I was a catalogued nebulae of sienna blue  
Surrounded by a super nova of burnt orange,  
Neon green, and powdered pink entwined  
Within space. The low price of $120.00  
American dollars adjacent to its cardboard spine.  
I added it to my cart without thinking twice,  
Or notifying your archived estate  
I was she, the ghost-girl of portrait's past. . .  
 
Suddenly I remembered everything—  
'The Shelter from the Storm' gang  
Rampant upon Saint Paul de Vence  
Living youth as an arranged Charcuterie tray  
Of the finest cuts of moment.  
Wheatfield's and Van Gogh in one stroke  
Of mental illness, a madness that infiltrates  
Bloodletting among artists, changing  
The dynamics of their insanity.  
 
I glanced at the wall where your painting  
Hangs over the headboard of my bed.  
How sad I looked back then—  
How comfortably numb, impervious to truth;  
How happy it would be to have another  
Image to distract family and friends  
From the longing of such large, doleful eyes  
That command their attention, even after so many years.  
 
I leave them alone to ponder every time—  
They've given up asking what was on my mind.    
They'll remain as unaware as the generation to come;  
As unaware as we were of when, exactly. . .  
Michael had left the room.  
~

Snowdrop

Now is the globe shrunk tight
Round the mouse’s dulled wintering heart.
Weasel and crow, as if moulded in brass,
Move through an outer darkness
Not in their right minds,
With the other deaths. She, too, pursues her ends,
Brutal as the stars of this month,
Her pale head heavy as metal.

Ted Hughes—

I understand the space in the brass
Airless no contempt, or ability to hold it
Tightly, round spring coiled around nothing
The Yo yo ing purpose of mice, mouse
Pursuits of the steel wool cut, itchy
Red abrasions cover heaving chest, loose
In the leg, furthering no where special
Connecting the four corners of the Earth
Ill conceived screams, curling under sharp toothy, to punch holes in the can
Scurry the string through, running the telephone line
Hello’s dreams, fears
Echos of clay and thud
The moisture in the ground is mud

The moisture in the ground is mud

The pooling reflects no light
And gathers the snow drops
With the remorse of it
She will surely die there
If only a smiling face to make an impression

Melting tar its smell  
Black puddles ripped up, on car tyres
Ray Bans stripped from of the shelf
Factor 75 in the shade retired  
Zinc oxide be our war paint
Fissures fingers anger in that temper
In just shorts under the hydrant,
as it sprayed
Mean yellow replacing earths green placenta
Parch(ments) crisp paper
Wall to wall heat, chase shadows east to west
Mother Earth in hot flush beset

Death scratches at my door,  
yet I can not fathom it,  
so I am better than it.  
I can see it with my crow-eyes  
and it is not me, but another  
worming in the grass, half-blind,  
but not deaf.  
It hears me as I call to it:       That Death.  

I scry a branch in the dim light of  
outer space which damply revolves  
around me and I grant it no mercy,  
that little thing which stalks itself,  
and cannot reach me,  
cannot tell me what it is  
or tries to become  
but red spills and a silenced tongue.  
It wills itself away,  
pities itself in many ways:       That Death.  
 
I am not stronger than it, or love,  
but I can outfly its reach, its trials.  
I can eat and peck at its great successes;  
I am fueled by its spoils,  
awakened by its cries.
I hear it stalking me in my mind  
but I shall win by staying of it behind  
watching the little one die.  
The weak sparrow with its meager song  
is nothing to me, nothing to it,  
but to everything:       That little Death.  
 
         .....

The Earth is soaked over-brim and steaming
See proud red cardinal, it is the first
 
Early bird, to catch and savor
Terror-limp worm curling under
 
Slick and silent, lacking cruelty
The sole witness a month-old hare
Bug-eyed the dirty-work is done
And both babe and red king hop-along
 
To the plucky omnivore
Goes its base-need; survival
The urban-jungle morning has begun





©Tanzen Lilly July 2020

so uncollar my shirt,    
up to the moss around the chin,      
      
and uncuff the wrist from its irregular saltwater beat      
     
unbutton the puzzles that our babies      
pretended had flown away,      
puzzles that choked      
  the hearth and chamber.      
     
  for you were correct about the stars,      
they are out of control,      
they seethe from fleeing light,      
     
with their  songs      
of bloody urges, hear-of,       
  a red-setter and his cherry-heavy      
paw prints on a scrubbed floor      
     
everywhere misaligned      
rolling around, to admit      
I should have been hung; dried      
  outside this tiger's mouth,      
     
should have been sung in hunger,      
bird-watching the beetle eggs, your eyes      
hatching in a stomp  
  of horseshoe blue.

Day has gone, darkness closes in,
it clouds my mind with a vision of nothing.
I squint to see the the unseeable
beg to know the unknowable but the
gates of my heart remain locked tight.
I search for that one truth to put down
on this page that stares back at me
wondering why it is blank and will it’s fate
be that of others, crumpled, in the dust bin.

Sleep overtakes me, I’m restless, agonized
by my failure of creativity. Thru the fog of self
pity I hear a sound unlike any other.
It seems unworldly, like from an angel
who has been wounded in the fall.
I’m drawn to it like the Sirens song and
the doomed ships of yore. Music without words
yet it’s message is clear. Its flow varies
but its rhythm is the same. Its rhythm
matches the beats of my heart and its
flow reflects the reality of life with
all it’s high and low points.

It’s suddenly clear that inspiration is
part of that flow, just waiting for the
poet to grab on and explore.
There is no inspiration outside
of the life continuum. When stuck
in the ether, we must return to life
to be inspired.

Ted Hughes, “The Thought-Fox”

Life has a shelf life as does all things.  
Things that are vivid today are
faded tomorrow, then gone next week.
The effect on us doesn’t vanish.
It lingers in our consciousness and
impacts our actions.  
 
The problem is certainty vs uncertainty.
There are only two things certain in  
this life, yesterday and death. We
dwell on yesterday because it’s real
and known to us personally. Death is a  
mystery but is always before our eyes.
We see it in our lives, in flora and fauna.
Faith says things go on, science says
when the switch turns off, the light goes out.
 
Observing what could have been, what
might have been or what should have been
has no basis in reality, only in our own minds.
What brought us to this point doesn’t matter,
the point we’re at is all that matters.
 
 
Ted Hughes, “View of a Pig”;

He rode atop that mounted horse
that whinnied along into the night
on and on together, astride
wanting never to stop or tire.

He held the reins and bridle tight
so no one else could know her this way
or steer her into the dark as he would
promises lighting the way.

Her eyes were deep with the Earth's secrets,
those he longed to know but never would.
His skull containing only a ridership
of prominent vision understood.

What lie ahead she would never anticipate,
plodding and dodging her circumstance.
Trust in him would be her course
if the path be clear ahead.

They would fall together asleep one day
and exchange bodies in a dream
to conquer each the other once awake
to know the other fully, becoming joined
in ever trying, faultless as they might.

His heart, then would be in her bridle
and she, with piercing eyes would see
ahead many miles and through smiles
deep in a wall would bury him.

Even as he reared away from all that lie ahead
driving to her spoils would he be destined
to where the darkness held nothing but air.

She would gallop him to the brink of understanding
though blinders would narrow his sight
on and on, and again, on
would she reveal her endless night
to sear him in what lie ahead.

Throwing her off would he press on,
relieved of weight to leap over fences
ever wild, unbridled,
eyes watering from the wind.

                 .....