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Friday, August 9, 2013

FINDING THE OLD LANGUAGE






FINDING THE OLD LANGUAGE

In a rage to know all things,
Or as many things as it is possible
To know when one is eleven years old.

The divine walking amongst
Our friends, choosing this one
And that one, taking them away.

Unlacing their memories,
Giving their recognition of others
To the winds, to the birds,
Both flying away in a flurry of noise.

Electrical storms across the brain
At any time; just sitting there,
Getting out of bed, walking from one
Room to another.

All that was familiar
Suddenly not at all
Understandable.

Time without borders.
Anything could happen
At any instant,
Or perhaps not happen at all.

Waking from a summer nap.
The light, enchanting, over everything,
Temperature and sound engaged
In a magnificence of waking.
The world, yes!

Rulers of the mind,
All chemicals and fires
In the neurons and synapses.

More and more information
Beyond explanation.
The half-remarkable question:
"What is it that we are part of,
And what is it that we are?"

*

The delight of the dance,
The endless business of water.
That which is love,
Beneath the stars,
Inside all of sleeping,
Surrounded by its
Insistence on forever

Waking once again in the same
Room. Still here upon the Earth.
Doing things that become familiar,
To us. No longer surprised
By every act, by each event.

Moving through the day,
Learning laughter and
Helping one another to
Understand how something
Works. Finding the old
Language, the color, the
Limited means of expression.




Thursday, August 8, 2013

BURNING GREEN WOOD




Antoni Tudisco

This is a poem from by book WHERE THE STARS ARE KEPT.  Rattlesnake Press, Pollack Pines, Ca. 2007.
The book is no longer in print.


BURNING GREEN WOOD

Once in Spring, i saw a heart
Smoldering atop a fire of green
Wood.  “Pruning fire,” the farmer told
Me when I came closer to watch.
“Looks like a heart in there.”, I said
Pointing.  “Reckon so,” he answered.  “Came
Out of the pears.”  He gestured to the 
Orchard.  “Kind of unusual, no?” I offered.
“Found ‘em before,” he said, poking at it
With a long-handled rake.  “After Winter
There’s lots of stuff comes out of pruning.  I’ve found
Boxes of letters.  lots of dreams, well, parts
Of them anyway.  They don’t last long usually.
Even found prayers, once or twice.  Think
People would take better care of them.”
The heart caught fire, flamed briefly then
Quieted down again.  “Out here’s a good
Place to leave things, “he continued,
“Puppies, kittens, a body once,
Nobody knew who he was.
Things that are hard to lose, have to put
Them someplace.  Think that heart’s been
There all Winter.  Looked pretty battered.”
“Kind of sad, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Always is,” he said looking me in the face.
“Better than after the war though.  There were
A lot of them then.  That’s why I use
Green wood, new growth.  Makes lots
Of smoke, yes, but it’s new stuff.
Seems better to do it like this.”  He shifted
His weight and threw more wood
On the flames, covering the heart altogether.
“What are you doing out here?” he asked.
“Walking.  I like long walks.”
“Good thing, walks,” he said.  “Have a nice one.”
“Thank you,” I replied and started away,
The smell of wood smoke in my nostrils,
The tower of it reaching high above
The orchard.  The sky still morning pink.
A sound of songbirds came, first far away,
then closer, insisting that the moment
Indeed be Spring, all else of no matter whatsoever.





Wednesday, August 7, 2013

BREAKING TEMPO / AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT



This poem appeared earlier this year in Medusa's Kitchen.  It is part fiction, part remembrance.  Baxter is E.R. Baxter III, my best friend back in Niagara Falls, NY.   He is a poet, novelist, and a wonderful essayist with more than a few books in print.  His Niagara Digressions is a lovely collection of essays.



BREAKING TEMPO / AND WITH YOUR SPIRIT

There is a slight rise just at the edge
Of the wood where the trees seemed
To have decided they would go no further
Than this.  A rise pushing up with
Visible boulders and short grass.

When I used to go there it seemed
Very important to get right to the brow
Of the place.  There one was even with 
The tops of the trees and could look down
To the ice-edged creek that named the place,
The Baxter Run the people called it.

Baxter had had a farm not too far
From the rise and the stream was a quick
One, moving over rock, heading for the lake
With a couple of deep holes
Where dark fish dwelt, sun fish,
Perch, crappie and bullheads.  Raccoons,
Foxes and raptor birds liked to come here.

I decided to come here for the same
Reason these creatures did,
To know the place.
A place to put my heart and to know it
In my blood and feel it in my bones.
A place where, no matter who came there
They could never find it as I had.

In the silver of summer, if it were quiet
I could hear the lake water lapping
Just at the edge of sound.

A place where I could image old Baxter
Getting up from his kitchen table, lighting
A cigarette, putting on his coat and boots
And making is way to the barn
Where the few head of cattle he kept
Waited for him. Their lowing in the night
Air just above the waves.

He too would walk by the Run.
He too would see the same water
Curl around the edge of the farm,
Past the cabbage field and into
The hardwoods to the rise.

Some evenings I could hear him talking to the cattle,
His voice deep and resonant, a caring.
Then I was the fox and the raccoon,
Then I was the darkened wing headed
Into the woods to find where the night was safe.

Now I wake from deep sleep
In a bed on the other end of evening 
And I am on that rise above Baxter’s run.

I wish for a moon.  I get one.
If I want to see the water rushing
Just beneath the thin ice, I am able
To do so.  If I wish this place 
To become forever, it does so and I become
The place, the rain, the snow,
The wildflowers of Summer,
The insect orchestra.
The tendrils of each day breaks
And there will never be anything
Greater than this peace.



Tuesday, August 6, 2013

FOR GENERATIONS TRAPPED IN THE GAS VANS






FOR GENERATIONS TRAPPED IN THE GAS VANS

“What exists as reality can be so substantially
Altered that when we kill those who disagree with us,
There will be no notice of the event.  They seem to,
Then do, rush to the light, to where the light
Closes upon them.  When we open the doors,
At the end of the operation, they are crowded at the rear doors.”

I keep waiting to see the big rooms.
We must be able to find them, open,
Light streaming in, the angels of
God, seated quietly, composing the
Sounds of what we will come
To know as the language of loving.

Here a touch, from the heart
To the groin.  Here, a kiss,
From the name of time to the
Second Drawer of Spring, as it
Reels its petals full force into
The face of desire, unaware
Of the vicissitudes of the 
Seasons, full and culpable
To the caprice of the erotic,
Slitting its lips open to accept
The dogma of the carnal.

The roads only lead to the north.
Direction is a function of the loins.
Yielding and penetration of ideas,
Debate by debate, circumcises itself
For the benefit of an acceptable
Resolution of the source of a particular
Season.  The mouth closes over
The tip of the concept and fills
With a million ideas.  All of time
Begins understanding its own creation.



Monday, August 5, 2013

FRUITS OF THE EARTH

Victor Bregeda



FRUITS OF THE EARTH

Night decides to take over the conversation.
The shadows stir, the spiders begin
Their spinning toward the dawn.

Spring begins its work toward those
Seasons it will never see. The exuberance
of buds and bright flowers, the dazed
Spinning of elm seeds through the green
Air.  Soon there will be no room upon
The ground for all will be growing.

We do not wait.  We dig the soil, find
The seeds of plants we want to see
In particular, begin the garden rituals.
We too become fruits of the earth,
Laboring toward the harvest, privileged
To entertain the dance through all the seasons.

The morning excuses itself from the night.
The night pales before her great might,
Calls the dark spider back to itself
And bides until the story changes once again.


Sunday, August 4, 2013

WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME




This poem is from a forthcoming book THE NIGHT MARKET.




WALKING ALONG THE ROAD WE STOP NEAR A STREAM IN SPRINGTIME

You have found bits of song caught
In the spillway of a beaver dam.  They
Are church-like in their praising.  They shake
The collection of sticks
Piercing the face of the dam like so many
Bayonets.  A rain begins and spills
Upon the surface of the pool, each drop a book,
A crowd, a child, a Golden Heart singing to the fools,
To what is left of the dancers, the poor shoulders
Of the river made to bear a cascade of tears.

They have built a monument on the edge
Of a cliff.  It is impossible to get close enough
To look at it without plunging into the mind of God.
We stand watching the little fires in its towers,
The pitiful way it seems to contemplate the end
Of  day.  A vibrant eye peers from every window,
Some of them weep as only ones who have seen murder 
Can weep.  Ships send up flares to illuminate this place.

We walk along the edge of the pond where the grass
Grows tall and yellow.  We stop and kiss each other
Before deciding to lie in this place and create
Another world, full of wings and the silence invented by snow.
We are unquenchable as acrobats before the highest throne.

House, knife, wonder, tears, cold, a flute,
Lambs, bridges, hills, the beautiful dark,
Silver bells opening like journeys, a crying,
Weaving a web around the heart that it may
Not break.  All of the heavens resting
In the corners of your smile.