FINDING THE ONE

Jan Fabre

FINDING THE ONE

Somehow the music found itself

In Cuba, beyond Son and the rhythm

Brilliantly feathered birds

Devour the afternoon.

A clacking of beaks.

Ramon says, “They sound

Like they are driving nails

Into the sunset.” just as

The guitars come up and

play some instrumental music.

“What is this supposed to be?”

“You are under arrest."

The clouds announce our names

Without stumbling on a single syllable.

The air catches inside a 

Clay pot and we hear a whistle.

You ask if it also sounds like your name?

We begin to understand music,

Pay attention to where the notes have been

And where they are going,

What they intend to do next.

You pour me a beverage
It is blue

A CENTURY OF DOVES

I USED A LINE FROM DOUGLAS BLAZEK TO SPARK THIS POEM.  DOUGLAS IS ONE OF AMERICA'S FINEST POETS.

“A CENTURY OF DOVES”

                    ...Douglas Blazek

A dreaming.

A tearing at the windows 

That opens to a particular jewel.

We can walk there. Even the air

Smells sweet as if the clouds were charms.

Here the Forlicon hills seem

To challenge the sea, almost taunt

It with hard, nearly leafless scrub

Plants that never seem to notice

The wind and cold rains. Like truths

That have seen all fools, they never

Shake in their perfect occasions, 

At spring, they have the smallest

Of yellow flowers, four-petaled.

I caught it in my throat

And it was a birdsong, one

I did not recognize and I thought

It my own and perhaps I had

Made it and then afraid to look

Down, but doing so, I saw myself

Fully fledged gazing at two pure

White herons perched in the branches

Of a tree nearly submerged in

A pond. There was only a moment of this

And the hills returned around me and I wept.

WE ARE NOT REALLY THAT SMART

 Picasso-Minotauromachia  1935.

WE ARE REALLY NOT THAT SMART

The palaces of the night,

Made of fireflies and moonbeams,

Ropes one hundred thousand

Strong, the night birds throng

The parapets and glide along

The chimneys with their dark smoke.

Actaeon becoming the stag on the edge

Of the forest, his hounds seeing his

Coat glisten and become fur.

Poor the weeping that comes

From the great cities.  Lame,

Tired and with wings of pity,

Tied to the coattails of change

So that nothing is recognized 

When we pass a place.

“This was your home as a child

And it is a grocery store”, the lights

Depending on our feeble memory.

They even record and play thunder

Storms when the sprays of water

Turn on and wash the vegetables.

We are outside.  The world is ours.

Let us run through the garden.

The thin strips of wood that made

Up apple baskets are gone now.

Entire trees are draped in torn

Plastic fluttering with the wind

Alongside of every highway.

Sweet prayers rise from our throats.

Saint Theresa joins us with armloads

Of roses.  She tells us about Actaeon,

Gathers the stag in her arms.

THE SHUTTERS BANGING

Lullabyeland - Charles Robinson

1895 - Night in Venice

THE SHUTTERS BANGING


I used to think that it was
Wind that pulled my face 
Away from my bones and threw
My thoughts as far as the sea

Shore, where I could stand
For hours watching the birds twist
In the bright blue air and tear
Across the wave tops barely
Clipping the surface, then lifting
Themselves up toward the sun.

My hair ruffling and clothing tight
Against my body as I leaned
Forward to walk into the mouth
Of the day, to live this way, perfection.

But it was not. It was time
Who dressed in that same clothing
And hid in the doorways swirling hours
And memories alike around me
Until I became so confused
By all things I found myself once
Again talking, without sound,
Back to the perfection that was wind.

FRUITS OF THE EARTH

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.

NIGHT DESCENDS

Kolomon Moser-lithograph-Music

NIGHT DESCENDS

Night descends.  It sets up its little

tents across the valley.  From one and another

Location someone lights a lamp within a tent

And a soft and comforting light glows through

the cloth structure.

Individual and quiet music escapes from

A harmonica or concertina and drifts like

Woodsmoke above the valley, beneath 

The vernal moon.  There is no kinder quiet.

Slowly the veils come down to swaddle

The land.  Peace comes slowly too but it

does come, in flocks of birds landing in

trees as dark as their wings appear.

The rivers remembers and slaps the sides

Of its banks as it moves past, a burden

Packed with dreams part of its surface and its

Depth.  We can watch from here, listen

To the quiet, pretend things will always

Be this way, the breeze swearing this is true.