I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

I WOULD MAKE NOISES DEEP

In my throat that sounded

So unlike anything I knew

That I would scare myself.

I became ceremony in sound.

A whirl of phlegm, crackling

And sputtering up from the

Rooms I guard against time

And her dancing princesses.

A quaking, as if a bear suddenly

Came into the room on hind

Legs and performed the crushing

Of an arm as if it were a

Dance and she the music.

Now, as autumn pushes clouds

Ahead of itself with a yard

Full of leaves, I hear these

Same sounds again issue

From their scraping across

The drive and think them

A familiar music, something

Treasured, like a Nocturne by

Chopin remembered by the fingers

Long after the mind has forgotten

The specificity of the notes and rests.

It is a rustling of lace

In a room draped with silences.

A SAILORS DREAM

A SAILOR’S DREAM

I have plans for you and have

The names of ships you may board

That will take you to islands, to lands

Where strange things, there the Bong tree

Grows or fairies might gather

By fires at night and warm the

Long ropes of their noses, they do,

And warm the long ropes of their noses.

I will teach you to spell, to light

Saint Elmo’s fire on the top of the mast

And loose it from your mouth

To frighten the birds of the far lands

Who will cluster in toward you

To hear your stories,  If you 

Come to the places I’d lead you,

If you’ll sail on the ships of the night.

Their voices will rise and mix

With the chorus that rides

From the waves to the sky.  There are

Legions that dwell in the depths

Of my body and serve the

Legends of men.  Yes, they do,

They enhance all the legends of men.

And yes, I will go, for my breath

Has the salt as the eye of the dawn

Is blood red and I’ll notch

My footsteps to the heave of the decks

And I’ll sail on forever and then some.

I’ll sail us on through the doors of the night,

You shall see me as a ghost on fogged mornings.  

I’ll be sailing us on through the doors of the night.

Let this dream of the sea be your warning. 

THE LITTLE STAR OF CHINA

THE LITTLE STAR OF CHINA

The one with the broken mouth.

The one who used to put her hands

In the water, lift them  back to her mouth,

Speak into it and put it back in the stream.

She was the one.  We saw her many times.

Once she was a hill just outside of a small town.

Once she was a squabble of birds in a tree.

It was summer. It was almost dark, but it was her.

Those bay colored horses with the darker spots

On their sides and their perfect eyes.

We saw them standing in the moonlight.

There was barely a breeze.  We were waiting.

It was her, no doubt.  She was the one.

It was her too that time we were driving

Through the jungle at night, trying to get

Matt to a hospital.  He had mangled his leg

While cutting wood.  It was a bad cut.

We passed about a half mile wide fire

That ran almost to the edge of the road.

We knew it was her.  Ramon said, “it’s her.”

Once there was a ship leaving the harbor,

Easing through the morning mist.  The trees

On the far side of the river, all pink and wonder.

It groaned and creaked and moved into the river.

She was called The Little Star of China.

RAILROAD ROOMS

D.R. Wagner - La Noche de las que Brillan

17 1/8" x 14"

Ward

This poem was published earlier tis year (in April) by Medusa's Kitchen.  I wanted to post it here because I like the way it moves.

RAILROAD ROOMS

A mouth that worked like flames.

She had a Transylvanian horse

With soft silver trappings and a blue

Flamingo that spit pure gold.  She 

Would sit in the alley and wait for

The forest to catch up to her

At least, that’s what she preferred.

And her mother had told me not 

To draw attention to those beautiful

Fires that could be seen on the hills.

Memories could be had one hell of a lot

Cheaper and you could pay for them

With your childhood and pills.

There was a broken down railroad

That once ran to Texas or someplace

That looked like Texas in New York.

And a man with a fracture that he called 

A smile who ran freight on both sides

Right through the middle of the park.

At three AM on Saturdays we would go to

The theater.  They gave away roles to those hungry

For fame.  And the aisles were always crowded

And the lights were always flickering and there wasn’t

One person who would admit it was a game.

We live far from the heartland, we live close to the bone.

The children who come visit, they come always alone.

They tell us we are crazy to live lives in these places

They tell us it it will cripple us and we will live in fear.

But the sun here, it does something that looks like a morning

And there’s coffee if you don’t mind waiting in line.

They make fires out of old doors and they keep them burning.

They have never once, never once, asked us our names.

ORNITHOLOGISTS

ORNITHOLOGISTS

They banded a naked girl

Riding a beautiful star specked

Horse with the echo of youth

So they might track her

Should she ever return.

Somewhere out there silence

Can be learned as if it were

An alien language or a card game.

See those spinning lights?

They are the ones I spoke of

In my letter.  Yes, they are

The children of of the deepest

Purest thing we could ever imagine,

But we could not realize them 

Happening to us.

Now I don’t know about the rest

Of you but I’m thinking none of this

Is done in vain.  This is the world,

Is it not?  “We are surrounded by

Enchantments.” Who can judge

Any of this? Moonlight? Lions?

We came here because we must

Come here.  We were told this is

The place. Where will love

Go better?  Where will anything

Be as innocent as this ever again?

I press my face into her hair

And breathe.  They will come

For us soon enough.  Don’t 

Even think of running.  Just

Look at that horse.  Unbelievable!

The lovely girl, naked.  Her beautiful

Back.  Look how we understand this.

BESIDE THE SEA

John-Bauer-

BESIDE THE SEA

These flowers burn my hands

As they are delivered to me.

I must have gone out at some

Point to gather something like them.

But they became too many bouquets ,

Too many different ideas of what

Time allowed me to find.  I am

Sure it was for time’s amusement,

Just as it finds so many literatures

To poke at as one might a jellyfish,

With a stick, between tides.

This then, is between tides.

I will be patient with it all

And carefully map out the 

Labyrinths, make deliberate choices,

Find a mysterious object, half-buried

In the sand, carefully lift it, turn

It over, only to discover a perfect mirror. 

PULLING UP THE BLANKET BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP

PULLING UP THE BLANKET BEFORE GOING TO SLEEP

The stars pretend to show eternity.

They claim to be the cape of paradise.

They form constellations only so that man

Can talk about them and think them other

Than the flaming balls of gas they are.

Tonight I saw the stars as human skulls.

The constellations as the same and as I watched

Time came and unloaded some of its trash 

In a far corner of the universe just to keep

It expanding.  just to keep things interesting.

I took the path that went through a small wood

And opened out almost at the edge of the sea.

The tide was at neap and what were waves

Were very far away, as if one were in Maine.

I went down to where the edge of the water

Would be in a couple of hours and listened

To these skull stars in the chorus of their

Divine realms of space.  They were voices.

They were voices as the sea is voices,

As the wind is voices, as the rain too finds

The earth a place that can make rain to speak.

And I did not know the words and I did not

Comprehend the music that I heard but I

Tried to be as these things were.  I became

Naked to the night and walked across

The rocks farther and farther, on my way

To meet the water, the great ocean, the 

Endless sea, to welcome it back to the shore,

To believe as I was racing ahead of it, pulling

A great blanket up to the woods to give

The starry skulls the mirror their flaming vision wants.