THE WIND'S TALE

THE WIND'S TALE

It starts with the birds.  Wind can place them

Where it wants them, a kind of skywriting that

Is so elaborate cultures could actually read them

As they moved upon the wind, daring and articulate.

The thermals curve and swirl.  From here flight seems

Without effort and the wings upon them must be an

Imagined sound of wind over primary flight feathers.

*

The temple of night snow under a full moon.

The wind holds the flakes and I have heard them

Touch the ground, owned by the wind, made to

Describe the landscape by the wind, shown the drifts

White and deep before the howl of blizzard interrupts

The lesson and confirms the myriad voices this whiteness

Contains.  “I will hide everything from you under the pleated

Drape of snow.  And we will recognize this same tale 

In the desert, in the sand dunes and the wind voices

Caught in canyons and dancing with dust devils, tornados

Hurricanes and other extreme manifestations, wheel

Within wheels spinning with millions of copies of mantra

Locked inside them.

This is that same wind. “ Open your hand and feel it

Move over your fingertips.  We will ride the great vehicle.

We will be the be the birds floating over the highest places.”

THE REMEMBERING WIND

Floor Pattern

Illustration from forthcoming book

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Lummox Press, 2013.

Skull Bridge

Photos:  D.R. Wagner

THE REMEMBERING WIND

Spring to Summer, Summer 

The vernal pools with their white birds

Gathered at the edges. The gold

On the rocks. That oak tells

Everything it knows.  This is

The remembering wind.  This

Is its time.  We will see it so 

Seldom we will try to touch

Its tall choirs swirled with clover

fields and flowers of a thousand colors.

We catch at its fine strings, shaking

Ourselves to believe.  This is the 

Remembering wind.  It glistens

Like jewel stone glistens.  We are

Learning to speak once again.

The tall ships move into our

Language, their sails full of 

The Remembering wind.

It is morning.

WORKING TOWARD AN ANIMATION - D.R. WAGNER

WAKING UP WITH YOU BESIDE ME

photographs:  D.R. Wagner

WAKING UP WITH YOU BESIDE ME

I dreamed you beside me in the morning,

The winds of sleep still rolling through

Your muscles, fields of diamonds cascading

Your dreams, white water on the white of oblivion.

You did not see me as I lay beside you, watching

Dawn slip across your skin.  You did not know

I kissed you then or that you were other than

Your present self.  I know and only I can know for sure.

I was surprised in this dreaming, dreaming that

You dreamed about me.  Who knows what highways

Sleep will let us travel?  All our lovers in their cars,

Zipping through the chemicals that unlock door

Upon door and let us see these loved ones again,

Living or dead.  I dreamed that we were loving,

Making love with all attendant skies and being touched

by angels as we were there together, again and again,

Falling in and out of sleep, first you there and then

Again you not.  I spread my hands upon the whiteness

Of the sheets and they were flat and cool, not you at all

And of more substance than such dreams.

This morning you were gone.  You were birdsong

On the electric wires, the net of energy that surrounds

Us in our cities.  You were slow breezes off the delta,

A dancing in the leaves of the trees, the sound of the mind

As it clears all sleep from its fine sifting screens, a moment

When, before the water hit my face, when you were truly

Real and I did not know that such a thing as this were dreaming.

TRAILS OF VIRGA

Three photographs from the internet.

TRAILS OF VIRGA

They never reach the ground.

We can see them riding the wind,

Tails  streaming out behind them.

We will never know their destination.

Sometimes we just float on the tides.

We look up at the clouds but they

Are busy.  Most of the sound is gone.

There wasn’t enough to go around,

Now it’s gone or only a ghost.  The

Blindness is only temporary.  It will pass.

We begin to open the packages.  There

Is fire in them.  We feel we see friends

In the flames, faces and gestures we

Had forgotten.  Whatever the sea is doing

Is making us look harder and harder

At its breathing, at its waves, so much

Like the clothing we wore during the cold,

How hard it was to move.  We would use 

Our hands to talk to one another.  That might

Have been a clue.  Yes it might have been.

They show us where the lightning is kept,

Tell us we can use it if we have the need.

We do not understand what they are talking about.

We didn’t even ask to come here.  We will

Never reach the earth this way.  Too much

ice.  Too much sun.  Too much of this dancing

We must do to even move a few miles.

There will be consequences for what we have

Done here.  Trails of Virga will follow us down,

As close as they can get.  I’ll not remember you

By the time the sun is just opposite where we 

Are now.  There will be a rainbow.  This is how

You will know it was us.  Sorry we couldn’t wait

Any longer.  We didn’t have ourselves in order.

This Saturday Medusa's Kitchen has published a number of my poems from the past week.  Try

http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com if you'd care to see it.

The next few photographs are mine.

SOME FRENCH PIANO MUSIC

This poetry reading is tonight.  It promises to be quite an evening.  Hope you locals can make it

buildings with sky bridge-Oakland, CA

broken crucifix, Elk Grove, CA

second story window - Oakland, CA

Here is a little poem on French Piano Music that I filled up with some of my favorite early 20th century composer.  I very much enjoy their music composed for the piano, vocal music and clarinet as well as much of their chamber music.

SOME FRENCH PIANO MUSIC

Tonight I will follow the plain

Out to where the adagio lives,

Where the Pavane is still danced,

Where the melody takes the bass

Out against the cloth of night

And presses it as close as breath.

Where we are the prayer in

Ravel or Poulenc or Satie,

Or Deodot de Severac, or Faure.

France comes to our bed and

Caresses us as we have never

Been touched before.  It settles

In our heart and in our hands,

In our memories of something we did

Early on in life, when every day was long

And every night, longer still.

We will keep this close.  We will

Breathe and the music will pulse

Through, yet remain and we shall sleep

In the hands of the masters. 

PICTURES OF PEOPLE MAKING LOVE

PHOTOS D.R. WAGNER

This poem is from my book from Rattlesnake Press 

A LIMITED MEANS OF EXPRESSION

Rattlesnake Press 

The book is currently out of print

PICTURES OF PEOPLE MAKING LOVE

I was looking at some pictures

Of people making love and I wondered

Who they were this morning,

If they had walked along the cliff

Edge near the beach to watch the morning

Ease itself across the water?  Did

They smell the seaweed?  Did they

Listen to the wave sounds and the

Fog horns unanswered song as they talked

So beautifully you’d think the

Walls of heaven were being described,

Just by the way they were talking

To each other? Was it the sea

That made them remove their

Clothing and wander into each 

Other, wonder into each other 

‘Caravans spilling out of their thighs’

And the bones singing of the lovely

Flesh touching like this so

That they wanted to keep some part

In pictures and they did they had

Their talk and were as leaves

And were as faith is so we are told,

So they could return to these images

Wondering who they were then and what

Happened and why did it all look

Like this and who else would see

Them here and float away on the

Images watching the sunlight on

The flesh, the bells of their bodies

Making that sound full of hurrah

And the waves coming back into focus

After a long time?  The apple tree

Still in the background, the wonder

Piling up like forests against the sea.

Where is paradise now with its glory,

Its truth, the flames that are their 

Flesh, the nobility that lives above 

And shines incomparably on all human beings?

photo: D.R. WAGNER