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Ice trees
merge with the sky behind,
they become
whatever color. Ice
on the statuary that bows
with the weight of sleeping.
There is no sanctuary
in this scene, no cave
to fire these bones,
bones that dream of
greening come spring,
so far from here.
Now so cold.
There is no perfect storm.
Someone always
survives.
This night is a darkness, a ruin,
A boneyard of projects and possibility
Come to nothing, a wreck of years
That claws at my impoverished spirit.
The dawn is but a rumor,
And I have little inclination to go on.
I have taken refuge in beauty
And found solace there —
In a coffee joint or a tavern
Where the air is thick with
A poetry of hope,
Rich with the dregs of despair
And the ashes of love betrayed,
Witness to desire
Fierce enough to haunt the dream
Of the lovely María Carlotta
Who with a bottle of decent red wine,
A thin blue shawl,
And a cigarette to warm her
Inhabits a café table
In the hip district of Reykjavík
Through days of winter night,
While I wait for the sun
To shine in my head again.
I have known beauty,
And while I know too little of beauty now
At this particular moment of things,
I trust in the memory of what has been
And the rhetoric of what may yet come to pass,
This carousel of verses flung
Across the tender night
Punctuated by cups of espresso
Dark and bitter
As the women who find
Their way into my heart.
The snow falls with a flavor of tears
That sweep across the boulevards and avenues
That lead to museums
Whose cellos and violins haunt us in our despair
While our own tears sink into the black earth
Outside the window where I sit
With my pen and my paper
And of course my drink
In a glory of wasted time and goofing off
Truly at the heart of a poet’s occupation,
Awaiting the lovely María Carlotta
Who will reward this foolish abundance of hope
I cherish in my heart,
The lovely María Carlotta,
Who when she brings me a book
Of poems by Pablo Neruda,
Offers without reservation
An eroticism of grace
Born in the deeps of her eyes
And softness of her breasts.
Faces
so close she was a beautiful blob
our
breath became one.
i wake up
this morning
my woman
is no longer there
my stubborn heart
is weeping
for not loving her
that much
© Danny C. Sillada
Growing wild in
purple and white,
or Primrose Yellow...
These colors
in the gray depths
of my shadow
across the garden.
They see me and invite me to play.
Childhood dances with me still.
Clustered comfortably
amidst the grass and the weeds,
living next to cool, grainy stone,
monophyletic,
earthbound spawn of sunlight,
woven of delicate and silken skin
they promise a world without end,
a cosmos of wonder and simple joy,
their bilateral symmetry
charming and colorful,
electrified by the joy
of simply Being,
while their scent
is an echo of emotion
expressed on the wind,
these little miracles,
Antirrhinum majus,
these everyday promises
of Heaven's existence.
Lifespan measured
by the beat
of a bumblebee's
wings.
Blossoming
in Montego Orange,
or Apricot Sunburst...
They see me and invite me to play.
There, at my feet,
under the cloak of my shadow,
after the frost.
*******************
Image courtesy of Dreamstime Photographic Stock: "First Frost" by Thylacine, dreamstime_309693.jpg
At times it is a sweet treasure, dewy, green
opening at night in the fields of Kakun;
at times it is a bloody treasure seen
sprouting from the reddening earth;
or the humps of a camel team
swinging to and fro, moving up and down.
There, these many days I dream:
diving in my slumber as my ears fill
with the sound of bells ringing in the long-necked beasts.
Bloody land moves under me, shifts,
clinging to me like an unwanted gift:
I hear the yellow-toothed mouth emit a grunt,
I see hands hastily cleaned of the hunt,
swelling in the night, dribbling in the heat
transparent bubble-like objects that grow green and sweet.
Perhaps my fears these many days will be expunged,
the ones that reemerge from forgetfulness, not fazed
even after so many many days.
©2007 Elisha Porat
Translated from the Hebrew by Cindy Eisner
She was fresh out of detox,
What I soon found would be
An ongoing affair,
The day I turned in my work ID
And office keys.
I put the knife to my throat
The night before.
"I pulled it back," I told them.
"I just can't do this anymore."
The bounce of hair caught my eye, her bare legs,
The loose red skirt, and a smirk of a smile,
As she pulled back a chair, turned her eyes to
The Toulouse-Lautrec print there on the wall
Near the door, and asked did I mind, as if
She knew I might, but it did not too much
Matter. The place was packed, a déjà vu
Kind of crowd on a je ne regrette rien
Kind of afternoon. I raised my eyes from
The Sunday Times and said nothing. She took
It for an invitation and sat down.
I was thinking, if only I could be
A lone sparrow silhouetted against
The unbearable blue of evening sky,
To harken rain that might now wash away
The stain of tears from all we once held dear.
"I have been on the wagon for a week."
The words spilled from her as she sipped coffee black.
"I do not care for it much. You can sink
In your despair or swim in your dreams, paint
A different color on your rainbow, find
A name you can use to say who you are
And what it means. One day you learn it does
Not matter who you used to be. You are
Just another grievous angel swept up
In a flood of fire. The cross I was brought
To bear is gone. It did not fit my needs
Anyway. So what would your story be?"
Before I could answer, she said she knew
A better place, where the coffee was dark
Enough to make way for the darkest mood.
I said it sounded good to me and made
My way with her out to the street, the sky
A brilliant blue, the air soft-bright and breezy,
A snowfall of cherry blossom to dust
The dragon boats stretched out along the river.
A man whose studded ears drooped to his collar
Asked could I do with a good suicide
Assistance guy, as he brushed stringy hair
Back from his caved-in face with a limp hand
Missing a finger or maybe it was
Two, then suggested he could fix me up
With a woman who would do what I like.
I asked if I must choose one or the other.
He said, "It's your life. You do what you want...
Some of the time, anyway." Then the sky
Grew dark with clouds that of a sudden came
And rain poured down in silver sheets that drove
Us on to huddle in the gloom beneath
The bridge, where the dark protected me from
So much I knew it was best not to see.
A poet has no need of suicide
Assistance, she pointed out with a smile.
All a poet needs is a bridge above
A bit of river, a boat in the Gulf
Where he might remove his jacket, fold it,
Place it down just so, jump into the blue,
A noose, a revolver with a bullet
in one chamber, a razor blade for blood
To scrawl one last poem on the dirty wall
Of an unremarkable room in this
Shabby tenement we call life.
They say everything has its season, but
When your seasons run together and all
To hell, it's a fine mess that's left us, Ollie.
Each day you pull back from it all,
Step away from the bridge, the boat, the noose,
The revolver, the razor, and the rest,
Anchor your spirit, this clod of a self,
To this patch of dark earth, this bit of dirt
And treachery your poor words are thrown up
Against....
The rain stopped. She stepped
Out into the fragile, shivering light,
Her pale, slender fingers reaching for mine.
"I am not here," she said, "to reassure
Anyone, not even myself, you know.
I could do with a face-lift for my soul."
The little sparrow sang and broke your heart,
A fog of cigarette smoke, dream, and whiskey
Coloring the night she brought just for you.
These gifts are always suspect when they come
From poets and chanteuses, but you take them
Anyway, a beauty bitter and dark.
I followed her and followed her again.
There was nowhere else to go, just a promise
Of mountains to the east and a pale moon
That clung to them in full daylight, Childe Roland
To the dark castle bound and must go on.
I cut my teeth on the ten thousand dreams
And left blood on typewriter keys that flashed
In the sun of mornings that will not dawn
Again, gone, like a book we must have read,
A line of poetry or a melody we
Almost remember when it slips like time
Through our thoughts, with only hints that remain
Of what was brilliant, green, gold, vermilion.
We take what we have and make what we can
Of it, this dark earth, the encircling sky.
She waits for the bells that ring through the fog
Where a green horse holds a clock with no hands
And the bridegroom there with his heart in his throat...
A Russian painting of geranium
Bloom endures whole in her heart far beyond
Its fade and passing, a bloom rich and deep
As a low-country door born from the brush
Of an anonymous master somewhere
In the sixteenth century. She goes on...
While I navigate that drunken boat down
The delirious river, back to where
I have never been, claim those lines that hold
In my spirit like a brushfire, cleave to
The vision, make each day a gift once more.
how can i tame my soul
from despairing
the scent on your pillow
disappearing
my heart is dead
my arms are cold
colder
than your timeless sleep:
how can i bring you back
my beloved!
© Danny C. Sillada
When last I was home, I stopped by
The church of my childhood
To be for a moment again
With the ones who are gone —
Buzzards, in a line perched
On the steeple above the red door,
Looked down on the graveyard below
And corn field beyond green
And shooting skyward in the spring
And gleam of the glistening sun —
I want to run like when
I was nine years old and
Sweat poured from me —
We chased balls, each in its season,
With grim and determined delight —
I lived even then in books
More than among friends
And took so much for granted
That has disappeared
All swallowed up in time —
I am amazed how
Much of it remains with me —
Through the hours of this day
And darkness of my night
When everything is thrown
Out of joint, I am astounded too
My little poems remain —
The moon in a flowered skirt
With a suggestive slit
Way up her shapely thigh —
A mountain with a great, green beard
And goof smile like an old and holy man
Come all the way from China
With a zafu strapped on his back —
A violinist whose fingers burn
The way a poem, a painting,
A concerto burns memory
Into my fevered brain —
Chance rhyme and metaphor,
An axe wedged in a block of wood,
Icy wind scatters oak leaves
At the dark end of this brief winter day
We think of as life — Born
Of books and romance
Immensity of sky
The passing of all things
The tenderness of your touch
And learning too late too little of love,
What are poems next
Everything that is gone
And so much that never was?
I long to bring it all back home —
A shard of memory that lies
With those bones in the red earth and
Shadow of that little church on the hill —
Today I linger in the maple shade
And memory of your so beautiful eyes
And the impossible belief in me
Held for one bare moment in this
Chorus of eternity and ending —
We are redeemed — such as we are —
By kindness — Your welcome of me
Into the home of your heart
Is much part of all that beauty
These little poems hold dear
For whoever among us
May notice — and remember —
With each breath that quivers
The spring air —
It is dark now
a cloud benumbed moon
grieves for memory lost
the distraught wind
stalks between high grasses
seeking its youth
owls roost, soft feathered
in darkened poplars
creatures unseen
move inevitably
to their nightly fate
insects buzz and hum
demented dervish dirges
of those soon doomed
while the tide runs out
whispering secrets
to the reed-bound shore
of a lonely darkened estuary
awake in star crazed darkness
embracing eternity.
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