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Friday, October 4, 2013

THE STARRY RAMS




COLD RIVER PRESS will be doing a chapbook of my work.  It will be titled ETERNITY REMEMBERED. I am delighted they are doing this and am posting a poem from the chapbook here today.



THE STARRY RAMS

The starry rams that vex
The starry plow and trundle
Cross the heavens at the edges of the hex
Signs, tipping huge and noisy beacons
Toward the table of the morning,
Lower head and butt, no warning,
But continue toward the dawn.

Oh sparkle, clean and burning,
Clustered in the arms of the sun
That makes no claim to
Planets. Air like flying junk
That litter space as it races
To the limits of what is known.

The starry rams perplex us
And the starry rams suspect us
Of having forgotten them.
They left us perhaps, we left them
And see them only in the heavens

Or caught inside a wish
They could be less than poetry,
They could be less than verse
Or could become a simple myth
And the whole construction burst.



Wednesday, October 2, 2013

ALLOWING THE LANGUAGE

Mike Worrall

Toward Darkness - D.R. Wagner


ALLOWING THE LANGUAGE

We cannot ever bring back the dragons.
That was the agreement back when we
Came to the high camps.  Even if
We were without hope we had vowed
Not to say their names aloud.

Their gift for this was a new language.  it took so 
Little time to gain its usage.  We were amazed
To be speaking it in groups within a fortnight.
It had a quality of song about it.

I am going to allow the language
But it will speak as tigers, terrible
As the dawn might be or the nights
Great majesty, for the words have power

They power all and you may dance or you
May fall, swirling on a pause that
May be a comma or nothing at all.
The eyebrow of the beast may twitch
And we will run from the forest
To the shore and I may
Never know you or I may know
You all.  There is no sound upon
The page
As we see the tiger in its glade,

But its eye will see you,
Smell the warmth of meat of which
You are  made and find you almost
To Charon’s boat, now blue,
Now only a shade. 

The burrs of understanding
Every language in the world,
Their curious cadences we use
To ride.  The horses come from heaven
To do our bidding as we beg
to become the night that we might
See feel the language fill our sight.

I am going to allow the language to
Dwell here for its famous moment.
A purity we are amazed to have privy to
Even as we open our mouths.






Wednesday, September 25, 2013

FROM THE BOOK OF THE LITTLE PAST





FROM BOOK OF THE LITTLE PAST

I made a picture with my breath.
What colored it is filled
With death.  There was a war
We had to leave, we had to
Store our things away until
Another, brighter day,
And burned the house,
And burned the barn
And hid deep in the wood from harm.

Anyway, when we finally returned
We had already heard the adagios
Where the clouds are able
To get lost.  Morning was
Pure frost on all the panes
And we couldn’t see if
This was indeed the place we lost.

It either was the same or gone
Completely.  We swept up
The campfire and tried to
Find the foundations of
The house, but they too were
Lost as lost as was our
Morning long ago, standing in the snow
Watching the places go up in flame.

Mother crying softly.  the horses
Stomping the ground, breathing
White air and threatening
To tell the story to our dreams

Every Winter night since then.
And so they have until
Today, when once again
Here upon the heath
We have come together underneath
The oak still charred
From the decades of the
War and we have no place
Here any more.  It all has
Passed into local lore
That talks of ghosts who
Lived there long ago.

I made a picture with my breath.
“Those islands far away are mine.”



Friday, September 20, 2013

THE GUARDIAN MOON






THE GUARDIAN MOON

That same darn moon with its two full letters
smack in the middle of its name.  It saw us
Here but the moon, it don’t say nothing to us
Anymore.  Just pours that dead grass light
All over the place while we take a short walk
Between the house and the far shed.  We forgot
That three horse harness and remembered we
Were going to use it in the morning and there
Was the moon, waiting for us, partially behind a 
Stand of oaks, waiting for the change in the weather,
“Just like us.”, you said pulling the tack down from
The hooks.  “Just look at that light out there tonight.
Can’t keep it outside at all, crawling all over us
Pale light golden as dream over the whole place.”



Thursday, September 19, 2013

ANGELS AND GLACIERS

Terry Schoonhaven

Paulo Paulauskas



ANGELS AND GLACIERS

Angels in large groups are seen
Flying away from cities.
We look underneath our beds and find
Sparks of light smoldering, glints off
Silver and gold baubles left there
So they may be understood as gifts
To others, as a kind of braille to help
Describe wonder and its patterns
Through our nervous system like
Crying children afraid to be left
This alone.  We watch the angels
Depart.  There is little we can do.

The glaciers have receded. So much
More land has been revealed than
We are able to understand.  We are
Offered places to live, carved from stone
By huge sheets of ice.  Lakes are everywhere.

There is really no place to go when
We finally realize the extent of the
Angel exodus.  We look for wings, hope
We may join them, seek other ways
To understand everything that has happened.
Do you remember who I am?
Do you remember that I love you?




Wednesday, September 18, 2013

A SAILOR'S 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. 



Monday, September 16, 2013

PENTECOST




This poem is the title poem from 'a selxn of poems by D.R. Wagner' published by GREEN PANDA PRESS, CLEVELAND, OHIO 2012 greenpandapress@gmail.com



PENTECOST

The last of nothing drifts by.
All of space is now occupied.
We are now ready to receive
The Holy Spirit.  It does not

Come as tongues of flame,
But occupies the cells of the body
Like crowded subway cars at night,
Full of dozing riders and people
Reading books as if their life depended on it.

We cross the tracks carefully.
We are unable to recognize anyone
We pass.  Balloons of vision lift
From the clouds of people, rise up,
Are lost in a reaching of hands to grasp
The colorful strings dangling from them.

The gift of tongues is ours once more.
Touch our hand and you shall be healed.
No one believes this to be true.  We buy food,
Giving away bars of chocolate and plastic
Wrapped sandwiches.  Some shed tears,
Thanking us as we move forward.

Times like this will come again.
The seas lash the shores.  Tornados
Sweep the kingdom.  Fire consumes
All that is left.  We suffer fools
With their predictions and admonitions.

This is indeed pentecost.  We can not name it other.
Illuminated display boards at the exits flash
Our names and show grainy images of what
We are supposed to look like.  We lose
Ourselves in the crowd, the buzz of understood
Conversations in every language of the world.