I THINK YOU DIDN’T CARE ENOUGH TO TELL ME THAT YOU’D GONE

I THINK YOU DIDN’T CARE ENOUGH TO TELL ME THAT YOU’D GONE 

When I boarded the barge

The climate was already changing.

Something was drifting in my eyes

That made me feel I was trying to outrun

A storm, left me thinking that notes,

Torn signs on buildings, on discarded newspapers

Had some kind of message for me.  It was like

Neglect had something powerful to say to me.

Deny all shores, it said, stay aboard as long 

As possible.  Disregard all gestures to explain.

A PLACE FOR THE MOON

A PLACE FOR THE MOON

This path leads along the shore

Line for about a mile then ducks

Beneath some wind-shaped pines

Into a cove where the moon may

Always be seen as it assembles

Its lines and hoists itself

To the night sky.

Years ago many people would gather

Here to watch these preparations,

But now this place is mostly forgotten.

Those who came here have mostly died

Or have gotten themselves, far, far away, no longer

Thinking of this place.

I came here with gifts for the moon,

But it will not receive me and prepares

His rigging, mixes his huge variety of lights

And sits down for a few minutes

Before it is time to lift above the tree line.

I watch it practice becoming huge then

Diminishing to the much smaller size

It uses to reign as lord over the night.

It flips though its phases, tucking itself

In here and there, using the shadows

To his greatest advantage to remain

As beautiful as possible.  It is

An amazing display and takes place

In that regal silence the moon demands.

After awhile, I am joined by a few

Others who know of this place.

They come for inspiration and to restart

A sense of wonder lost to themselves

In their commerce with the world.

For centuries this place has been

Such.  I have seen the winds here,

Flocks of owls and creatures who

Build the night.  Last to arrive

Are the dreamers in their gauzy 

Garments, truly stardust and breathing,

Smoothly and deeply.

The moon begins its ascent.

The night settles into itself perfectly.

KING LEAR ON THE HEATH

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KING LEAR ON THE HEATH

The swarms are moving in.  They pass

Through our breath and fog the glass of days

Completely.  If they have bones, they use

Them to make music, a curious dry, music,

The sound of grasshopper wings in a still field.

We begin to write the opera they contain.

“I am more alive that you.”, wail the flutes,

Lugging their way through storms and broken

Reed to light upon the quick scarves of the 

Tongue and burst into colorful flame, capes

Unfurled, as if they were not paying attention 

To how the story might go.  They eat heroes

And heroines alike, spitting out the small bits,

Extinct and irrelevant but always catching us,

Making us regret their actions, passing us

With thick arms and buckets filled with fascinating

Treasures from the deepest parts of the sea.

Finally we are asked to walk among them,

Suspend belief, give ourselves over to their

Crackling displays that take language out

Of the senses violently, pulling our hair

To direct us in the direction they will have us

Go.  We become weary meeting other people.

Looking for the light in their eyes that allows

Us to understand they have seen what we 

Have seen, heard what they have heard.

From on high we can watch the doors of perception

Swing open and closed, millenniums of behavior,

Always similar to our own but finally crouching

Behind one another, As flies to wanton boys, 

Are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.

We will leave the room quickly, dress without

Caring, only to be warm, find our way into the snow.

We will get into our automobiles, humming to ourselves

To keep some sanity and drive off into  music finally

Done with it, lucky to be alive.

IN THE LABYRINTH- I KEEP WANTING RAIN

All photographs D.R. Wagner

IN THE LABYRINTH

I have told the children that it was still raining.

I asked them to come to the window and see how this is.

Look at these cards I have been given.  They are neither

Playing cards or Tarot.  The may be a marked deck.

This one has an image of a coyote on it.

While we were speaking a bird with a wren-like sound

Landed on my head and tapped my head lightly.

It came as a surprise.  I suspected this for the bird as well.

It wasn’t like it never happened that that I saw you

Out on the trail, just at the ridge top.  You had  binoculars.

You were looking toward the fire.  It was still a mile or so away.

I knew I could never reach you. I asked the angels for help.

They told me to keep walking.  I wavered in my belief.

Later, I set up a creche decorated with bright candles.

Something was moving in the corner of my eye.

I could not longer understand why I had to be on this 

Road all alone.  It was the wrong season.  The weather made

Travel nearly impassable.  The rain streaked the windows.

I continued to stand with the children and watch it.

"THE MYSTERIOUS LOVE OF THINGS"

“THE MYSTERIOUS LOVE OF THINGS”

...Borges

We have for them and them for us.

How easy it is to unseat any color

Into something that is no longer aware of itself

Or of us as we hurry through the labyrinths

Time gives us for a chance to know

Error or to know truth.

We thank ourselves for the blue

Of the ocean and it is not us at all.

It is the conversations between memory

And things learned by the body,

Burns on the hands, inside the mouth.

Admonitions of ourselves unaware

Yet constantly striking poses that

We may learn to handle those impulses

Where we will have to dance

And be impeccably pristine about it all.

SLOW TRAIN COMING

 Duy Huynh

SLOW TRAIN COMING


There’s a kind of pain inside
Maybe I’ll take another ride,
Slide down a mountainside,
I forget those things, now I feel enabled.

Must be the power of the words
'Cause nothing else here has occurred
This whole thing feels absurd
I just put all of my cards on the table.

Won’t be going home tonight
I’m not sure I can stand the sight
Here, the furniture even fights
It gives new meaning to the word ‘fabled’.

Time to ride the rails away
Forget all the words I say
Just pick it up and play
Hang out at the Tower of Babel.

Put the lawn chairs in a row
Invite the pope, Curly, Larry, Moe
Make some bread, make some dough
We will talk about J Lo and Betty Grable.

This kind of foolishness has to end
We’ve got a store to tend
Run outside and make some friends
Get myself a new coat made of sable.

There’s a slow train coming down
Take everybody home in this old town
Even the jokers and the clowns
Chase religion out of town without a label.

LIVE: ACOUSTIC

 Jen Corace

LIVE: ACOUSTIC

I am caught in the darkness 

Near light but still unable to see

Where it is I am.  The blear of night

Stumbling close by my footsteps.

If I put my hand on the wall,  I know

I am near light but there is no light.

The illuminated globe of the world glows 

Just beyond the door, should there be a door

And, of course, we always hope for a door.

  *

I saw you standing at the back of the room.

We had just finished playing the song about

The dawn during the snowstorm and how 

The sun had moved through the falling snow.

Everything became a kind of gold that we did not

Know how to describe, so we made the music

Within it.  There was one bird, he had a damaged

Wing and flew in circles around us making a wonderful

Sound.  The lyrics were based on those circles.

I found my hands upon your shoulders.

I thought I was still in the music.  Golden

Lights flew along the edges of my vision

Inside my eyes, yet still high above it.

*

I walked all the way to the end of the road

Where the waterfall began.  It was nearly 

Twilight and the waterfall was a lilac and hyacinth,

The color of heartbreak or someone you love

Walking away and you knowing you will not 

Be seeing them again.  I suppose there is

A music there but it is stolen by cellos and keyboards.

Given to a corner where we notice the quality

Of the light, the people crossing the room,

The way their conversation had its own agenda

And there we were, together once again, waiting

As we are now. I lean close. Listening to your breathing.

A PLACE FOR THE MOON

 D.R. Wagner

A PLACE FOR THE MOON

This path leads along the shore

Line for about a mile then ducks

Beneath some wind-shaped pines

Into a cove where the moon may

Always be seen as it assembles

Its lines and hoists itself

To the night sky.

Years ago many people would gather

Here to watch these preparations,

But now this place is mostly forgotten.

Those who came here have mostly died

Or have gotten themselves, far, far away, no longer

Thinking of this place.

I came here with gifts for the moon,

But it will not receive me and prepares

His rigging, mixes his huge variety of lights

And sits down for a few minutes

Before it is time to lift above the tree line.

I watch it practice becoming huge then

Diminishing to the much smaller size

It uses to reign as lord over the night.

It flips though its phases, tucking itself

In here and there, using the shadows

To his greatest advantage to remain

As beautiful as possible.  It is

An amazing display and takes place

In that regal silence the moon demands.

After awhile, I am joined by a few

Others who know of this place.

They come for inspiration and to restart

A sense of wonder lost to themselves

In their commerce with the world.

For centuries this place has been

Such.  I have seen the winds here,

Flocks of owls and creatures who

Build the night.  Last to arrive

Are the dreamers in their gauzy 

Garments, truly stardust and breathing,

Smoothly and deeply.

The moon begins its ascent.

The night settles into itself perfectly.

A MANUSCRIPT

 A MANUSCRIPT

Near the edge of a high cliff called Relan, a particular species of flower occurred, here and here only.  Blue and yellow petals, tomatose leaves, a thick, fleshy stem and exhibited a variety of variations and sports that often changed the habit of the plane so significantly that it was, oftentimes unrecognizable to all but the serious botanist and a few magicians who climbed here at various times of the year to gather specific parts of the plant in order to create teas, poultices and mixtures of dried flower parts for secret purposes.

It was held that a tea made from the unusually silvery, slightly florescent petals of this plant could be counted on the generate pre-cognitive dreams in certain subjects.  Those who sought this kind of information first observed a regimen of fasting, meditation and other practices in order to increase receptivity to the infusion.  This tea is purported to be extremely astringent and yet quite flavorful.  It does not keep well and is traditionally consumed within a fortnight of the gathering of these plant parts.

The dreaming generated by imbibing this infusion are often complex in structure but always, despite baroque ornamentation, unveil an action or occurrence that otherwise would have remained hidden from the dreamer for a longer period of time.  One would waken knowing something would occur in one’s waking state.  The dreaming however was not time or circumstantially specific.  One could be assured however that when this event took place it would be recalled as the subject of the dreaming.

This kind of activity was not often made available to those pilgrims who sought these magicians council.  The quest prompting such an exploration as this needed first to be determined to be pure inquiry, that is to say, that one could not ‘wish’ to know something for the purpose of causing harm to anyone else.

For example, one could not dream if someone would die on a journey, but one could dream the kinds of lessons one would learn on that journey.  This kind of dreaming was valuable in determining the difficulty of a situation.  A selfless inquiry would be most readily responded  to by the tea although many questions had been posed by great kings and warriors concerning the outcome of future battles.  The information gained usually informed them of the kind of weather on that day or a bit of news concerning a loved one that might be received on the same day.

The poultices made from the leaves and fibers of this singular plant were also of an extraordinary nature.  At the hands of a master magician they could restore a tree from a cut stump, the memory of an old man, healthy skin to a damaged skin, eyesight to a dead eyeball and courage to a faint heart.  Placed up the ears it could create a blessed an unique music to be heard that, in its unraveling healed and brought peace to a troubled mind.

So powerful were these leaves and fibers that horses...

Here the manuscript ends.

A POSSIBILITY OF BREATH

 Pierre Rojanski

A POSSIBILITY OF BREATH

for W. Stevens

This space between here and the clouds

Seems careless but for fleeting beauty

And a wharf for docking weary eyes

To something not covered with the dust.

A dreamt majesty that doesn’t

Stare but remains an argument

That there is a sweet, staring

Distance between all things.

Waking as we do from whatever

Uncertain depths we

Direct ourselves in so-called sleep,

We find the wide heaven,

This sparkling haven where we no

Longer need make choices

But use the energy we have gathered

To quell time’s complaints about

Everything that is not dead,

Forgetting even our own names,

Living here without bodies to see

‘The low owl plummet, rising of the morning.’