A CONVENIENCE OF CHAOS

A CONVENIENCE OF CHAOS

The honeycomb keeps the tally

In an even, golden blood, once

Held in the mouth of every

Beautiful worker bee that plies

The structure and its liquid gifts.

*

I found wolves in my heart.

Their white and shining teeth

Pushing past the bone to explain

To this heart that it was

To be discovered, made part of the wolf.

I was forced against the most

Beautiful pine tree I have

Ever seen and felt the white,

White teeth open my thigh and then

The symphony of the pack was upon me.

Ribs turned to bleached instruments

From which music has fled

Except for the coldness of a great

Howling across ice fields and

Thick-crusted snow.

WilliamDegouveDeNuncques

FRAGMENT FROM THE HILL JOURNALS

My rock.

The only rock I ever bought.

Purchased just outside Fallon, NV.

Six eggs.

The American Falls at night.

Niagara Falls, NY

copyrighted photo

FRAGMENT FROM THE HILL JOURNALS

The clouds were dark that evening.

Seen from the window they could

Have been thinking, brooding, but

Eventually the stars climbed to their

Places and waited once again for

The cool flame of the crescent moon

To remind everything its light touched

That it was the most powerful beacon

For this time, that anything the night

Might lack could be had in her light.

The table was already set when we came in.

The walk from the villages had seemed

 Inordinately long.

Water had found its way inside my boots

Making a squishing sound as I walked 

To the bench in front of the fire, removed

Them and began drying my feet with a soft blue cloth.

‘I am never coming that way again.

It looks too much like earth

With its meanness and killing.

I was struck with flying things more

Than a few times.   The houses were

Hovels and one of them, near the 

Cliff edge looked to be in a state

Of constant flame but never

Seemed to burn.  Flames out

The door.  Those horrible people

Gathered round, all talking and

Gesticulating.  I hate the way they

Talk.  It isn’t language and

That horrible stench. God.’

Ramon poked at the fire.

‘You’ll feel better after you have

Had something to eat.  This is 

A safe place.  No one has even

Ever heard of these white caves.’

I knew it was true, that if we

Had to be anywhere, this was the

Best of places to be.

‘I did manage to bring two of the horses

And there is enough food for a 

Couple of weeks in the packs.’

‘We will send someone else

Next time.’

I rose, walked across the room

And sat heavily on the bed.

The next thing I knew, I was

Waking.  She was kissing my lips

And making a little morning song to me.

‘You worry an awful lot too’, she said

‘You tossed and turned all night.’

‘These wars will be over soon.’

I said, barely believing myself.

‘I don’t think so.,’ she said.

‘It has been like this as long as

We have been here.  We keep moving

Higher and higher up these cliffs.’

‘Come here.’, I said ‘I will show

You a very special dance.  I rose

And bowed and began to move.

The smile on her face was better than

The dawn all that week, had been.

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.