Poem of the Month - November 2019

 

An effect
of the altitude
bites hardest at night

Despair—
while waiting till dawn
in its
savagery

A long
wait that comes
too soon

Airless—
the ice
never melting

blocks
a natural bridge
if ever there

Penance—
the deep
frigid of blue sky
is blinding

Only the condor

—soars

These thoughts
feelings
always ever buried
shallow but deep
 
This confounded bundle
tied with concertina
no loose ends
a most bloody knot
 
Repelling all yet
longing for an Alexander
his clever cleaving ways
to again undo
 
So I will just distill
another splash of ink
equal part of sang
equal part of tears
 
Painting the blankness
perhaps with something sage
that won't smudge
 
or finally fade
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

  
 
   
   
dunn want to clear off the cobwebbing chaotic universes  
of the sleepless eyes ….they tremble as racing tuning forks    
craving maddeningly in endless salivating strings ….syncing    
with this weird thudding heart gone rogue tonight ... from  
shattering avalanche unto those once clear corridors, under  
heavy border patrols on either side of this wavering geometry  
   
   
no... would consume all &  utter not any more this silent moment..  
else these depths of serpentine memories..mining as deadly thought trains  
   
[flown fertile as a deltaic lubricant in sweet~smotheringly  viscous love.. drowns  
this all over in your frothy entrapping magneticious pools uproariously voicing    
fleshy tides...in hard cicadal rings of high frequential aphrodisiacal drumsticks    
   
evoking a whaling moringal hunger.... of a wetty~gummy secreting ambergris    
..such musky resinous fogginess marring eyes in thickly sweating tears… yet, the    
walling eyelids in airtight locks lets out not the seeming apparitions.... in no    
   
transmigrations of the visioned binaries- the divisive skeletal whiteness frames    
fingering erect amongst the wobbly multiversal zeroes…mirroring image memories    
of the eyes overlap the darking realities as non-negating permanent permeance ..in    
   
clonal copying presence,  unfadingly repetitive of its serially blinking seconds    
…spatters all over as random graphic ants in lightning streaky crisis..  draws  
subliminal sublime motions crossing lightyears in each blinkly~breathly gaps..  
   
...need you as the needling  firming “I’s” all across this porous substratum    
coring in as fully zeroing nullness …we, this Us, are compounding gardens    
of seeding abstractions..afloat as majestic achenes of faithful conception]  
   
   
would crumble down as fossilizing insipidities in diatomaceous siliceous    
 stardust breakdowns of both our origins and eventual liberations…and    
   
these merging inbetween ululating realms of a riotous tribal sultry heart    
in its earthen dancing nakedities of heartfeltly handwoven visceral discoveries    
   
of our half-drowsy half-awoken super (solid) immersion    
   
...would never be felt  
(perhaps wholly superceded by prematuring etherealities- oddly    
in shady lights under such invasions)  
   
in our spontaneous skies and flesh    
fusing diversities - a phasic full circle    
in agelessy orbiting human~divine destiny …  
   
of the abruptive nascence or seasoned undulations  
we tread and tread unto our Oneness destinations  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
 

I cut the cricket bat from a plywood sheet,
wrapped tape around its rough handle,
used an old beer crate as a wicket.
The summer had delivered a perfect evening
poised over a memory that set the scene
and started to roll the cameras.

The cliche version would have been
on location in an American suburb,
father and son playing catch on the front lawn
mother filming from the wooden porch
all fit, white teeth and healthy,
sunlight would glisten on the lens.

But this was a concrete back yard with high walls
and a gate that opened onto broken glass,
Dad was a spin bowler due to the short breath and run ups,
each innings uncoiled him, took its toll.

I began to worry, watching the colour slide
down his face, a novelty pen turned upright
to reveal a naked body.
I pretended to miss, and listened to the clink
of empty beer bottles as the ball clipped the crate
relief shouted,out, across his face.

The director wasn’t happy wanting to go again
but the star was already leaving the set,
desperately seeking his trailer, exhausted from
his fifteen minutes of acting, it wasn’t long
before smoke draped its silk jacket over his shoulders.

We toured with that film, I did all the pro-mo
while he snorted oxygen shipped in cylinders,
always away from the public’s gaze.

I was asked once what it was like
working with such a professional.
I lied and talked about his better days,
paid tribute behind a filter of blue and green.
I held his hand for the final scene
but couldn’t find the words at the after party.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

I asked you to stop breathing
cease the bellows rhythm,
end this fake goodbye.
Body now trespassed beyond retreat,
basic in function,
rise and fall,
rise and fall.
You waited until I slept,
I missed your reply.

Strange that it had grown
on the side of a sandstone slab.
A huge knarred hand reaching out
to touch another world,
held by an underground prison.
I thought of it as old,
generations had played at its wrist,
swung from its finger tips.

The rope had been robbed
from a coal mine,
It gave out black blisters
and was hung by a rumour.

The pendulum effect was magnificent,
motion sickness spun from its canopy
to the creak of a rolling Galleon.
Exposed roots collected skin and blood
from thin boned boys on summer days
that shared a look at dirty books,
before they chanced the rope
and felt the kiss of bark.

They chopped off its hand
with no one to hold it,
broke up the slab,
sealed the wound with tar,
built houses over its tomb.

I walked up the hill to see it gone,
my clothes grew with each step,
until I stood as a small boy
remembering,
how I once learned to fly.

                   
       
       
      flowers giant        
       
                               pink &        
       
                              green        
       
       
                  projected thru        
       
the window screen        
       
       
((and the wind blows like the wind               
       
and the wind blows thru the trees        
       
and the wind blows the leaves away        
       
and the wind blows time away        
       
but not the doings of time    
     
entirely )        
       
       
nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn        
nnnnnnnnnnamo AmitaBhaa        
       
i reflected        
       
       
rather benignly        
       
upon        
       
the spiritual movements        
of this        
       
  with tea        
       
to whomever        
       
and the shelf beside        
       
on its stomach is a radio        
 (….maybe I will say gramophone.....)        
       
no,        
on its stomach        
 is a radio        
       
ripped open        
       
from which music spills, gushing,        
like the Rhône        
       
      -euro-new-lounge-        
electro        
      -jazz        
       
-Caribbean        
-zephyr chill        
       with        
       
quaalude feathers        
 and speckled bills .        
       
       
..hello.....        
 ….hellow        
is anybody home?        
or is this just        
some kind of        
slow motion lonesome?       
       
       
hey there bruv,        
      What is love,        
                             you think it true?        
       
Yea,        
 sure i do ,        
       
       
but not a thing to take on faith alone        
       
       
and thus behold        
       
or thus be sold        
       
at its word or name        
 or face or fame        
       
nor to set on simmer either        
       
in backgrounds like a stew        
       
but is, we shall say, that what is done for you,        
       
& that which you do and do and do.        
       
       
(jejune        
à ma        
grande        
surprise )        
from here        
i hear        
your pulse        
and your        
pause        
like a sunrise.        
       
just outside my door        
       
violet air streams by,        
just up my floor,        
from out yonder it pours,        
rushing in        
       
and all around        
       
       
       
submerged as i am        
       
sunken eyed  bug eyed
       
as a phantom of hot air        
       
or dart frog with the suck-it tongue        
       
in this body        
       
as empire and none        
       
       
but prone, you know?        
as if floating        
       
in ever deepening ever widening        
       
hexagonal daydream aquariums        
       
aerial millponds        
       
fuzzy loafing        
bog comas        
 of ghostly ellipsis        
       
echoes of        
 the vast undercurrent, legions of        
       
smoke lagoons come liquid Soma        
       
stalagmite reality of riptide and thy tender eyes        
       
glittering whitely but far far far from any sight of mine.        
       
       
so yeah        
 sometimes we float atop the surface so lightly        
and sometimes we sink in,        
 down beneath        
(the smothering stone of psyche)        
and sometimes we fall under        
more concisely        
       
       
and drift along        
       
the bottom        
sucking mud, a flounder,  
a mudskipper        
sucking bloodworm artemia        
       
                  -or along the far edges        
       
            and the outskirts        
       
                  and the purlieu        
       
of the world and the centermost world,        
       
 and the world indeterminate, out of sequence, such fare, what        
       
difference? for destitute is my plenitude &the        
       
earth                                      of lagoons        in swan light and amphibian yields     or flowery fields        
       
       
                                          dressed to the nines, a painter's muse,        
       
       
                                          giant and brightly        
       
       
                                                       pink &        
                                                green        
       
       
                                    surveyed thru        
       
       
                  a rubber tangerine        
       
       
until  the       end of       art or       years or       everything.        
       
       
All across        
                     the slipshod waste        
the woodblock ballet        
                     thunks away        
       
the garden        
is a machinery of mud        
       
Hokusai paints prettily at the buds        
       
                  and like Wang Ch'i        
              
      his petals offer up        
       
            their ruby charms        
       
for madrigals        
       
and Montifrignilla        
       
       
while wandering Sordello        
       
dredges back to Goito,        
he pulls his trunk alone, a broke-down elephant dud,        
       
                  amid flowers        
              
giant pink and green        
       
blueberry canary yellow        
       
hibiscus and sparrow        
       
yes i remember now        
have pity on a fool        
       
oh, hell,        
       
       
let me explain        
       
       
but, no,        
       
i never will.        
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
       
 

 
.


i have
waited
a long
time
for nothing...

it's been
the
greatest
achievement
of
my life