poem – Page 51 – The BeZine

Reel to Reel

High Fidelity. He was on it like a plague.
Four tracks just coming into pocket range.

Every visitor loosened up to it eventually.
It was all on the tapes – laughter, singing –
‘Dis aubudy kaen this wan?’ then a flurry
of snippets, of songs old and new,
Campbeltown Loch, Paper Doll,
and now and again a strident voice…
‘Huv ye got the knives and forks oot yet?’
from the kitchen ben to the living room,
the occasional fssss of taking off a bottle top,
then ‘Jessie! Jessie! Come oan, hen!’
knowing she’d sing one everybody knew
and the party was on for real…

Soon enough they’d be in the swing,
there’d be calls for the favourites – each singer
prized for their own particular songs –
and here, fifty years on, a wee bit of him
singing Heart of My Heart before he’s cut across
by a voice I can’t place, a feisty woman:
‘Aw, Joe! Gei us the wan ye got 6 months fur!’
But who was Joe? What had he done!?
And the old man who sang next – ‘There iisss
a tavern in the town…’ – was this him?

I’m filled with names and questions: That’s Grace!
Grace the big belly-laugher – if a corner of her lip went up,
you knew, any minute, the whole place would go up with it
– but is Al’n no there? Alan, who brought his drumsticks
and gave it laldie on the smokers’ stands? What was
the name of that woman who used to fling in all
the Heee-euchs! to the old Scots dancing songs?
And why, four hours, three tapes in, have I not heard
the famous cuckoo clock? Famous for having lost its ‘oo’,
that left us hanging on the quarter hour with just a rising ‘cuck’?

It’s mostly weekend radio shows, behind them
incoherent chatter, the odd faint conversation.
She: ‘They say it’ll be some weeks.’
and he: ‘It disn’t sound too good then.’
Another tape, in the reel to reel’s last days,
him and a man I don’t know, who says
‘Aw right then… C’mon… Oan ye go’
then a bairn, all of four, by the sounds of her,
singing Flouer o Scotland –
this isn’t what I’m hoping for. It’s not my mother’s
Banks and Braes, his web-footed friends… it’s not Grannie
kicking off a round of I am the music man annnd
I come from down your way, not Uncle Stan’s
Moon River, Margaret’s infamous Granada...

Did he save nothing of family? His children?
None of those New Years chock-full until
Four in the Morning and The Foggy Foggy Dew?

Dear Heart, there is something I must tell you.
They don’t say the words I wanna hear.

I want my mother singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot.
I want her in her white dress singing Summertime,
just as though the living had been easy,
just as though, Lord, he really did have
kisses sweeter than wine.

Converge

It is lonely on cool tiles of my corruption
eye on domes of Rome, midday stretches
lethargic silence on ashes I burn
in the high sun on red rooftops basking in refuge

feathers from ashes, feathers short of a wing
to glide down like a raven to your chiral streets

there’s a congregation praying for my salvation
a choir singing the gospel, mirage on church steeples
I wring last drop of resolve in your mouth
and keep a river in my womb to wash my disillusionment

squatting to gut irony collected on your stairways
raw against my breastbone, fishing line stringed
putrescent promises familiar in flared nostrils
same as ancient prayers filtering through parched tourist lips

I will tell you again of pagan sins kneeling in confession
when you stop searching for the righteous woman
buried under four layers of leathered skin
you ask me if I want to pray with you for redemption
I ask you where do we go from here
where do we go not to converge in a dream

race

[…] it’s your turn, stone.
your turn to carve lust in my breathing
and to bring out the shades of dust
from my anaglyphic soulprint.
i need to mirror myself in your random shape,
my scent in your silence, my moans
in the volume of air dislocated
by your falling
white and determined
through the unseen crevices of
wind’s cracked crying
right into the passionate embrace of
a bloody dawn, red as a holy wound –
you don’t fall, but i do,
letting the air brutally brush
the feathers from my wings,
scratching carelessly my face while earth closes
faster and faster –
i fall,
in one fluid movement,
fluid and perfectly articulated,
rushing towards the grounds expecting me,
expecting my burning skin and bones
to sew the sky with the waters beneath them
and to watch you being born –
i fall and you grow,
rooting your solidity in my sands,
turning from one grain to one mountain,
feeding on my imperfect nature,
you, the perfect catalyst towards origins […]

© 2015, poem, Liliana Negoi, All rights reserved; originally published in The Hidden Well, audio version can be heard in the author’s interpretation on Soundcloud; 2014, photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

Le Fée Verte, Absinthe

“A glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world, what difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset.” Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), Irish writer and poet

in the wilderness of those green hours
gliding with the faerie muse along café
walls virescent, sighing jonquil wings of
poetry, inventing tales in the sooty red
mystery of elusive beauty, beguiled by an
opalescent brew, tangible for the poet and
the pedestrian, the same shared illusions
breaching the rosy ramparts of heaven

Albert Maignan’s painting of “Green Muse” (1895) shows a poet succumbing to the green fairy (absinthe). Musée de Picardie, Amiens.

Saints In My Rain

I learned the rain in cursive slants
I learned  lying on doubts
spread on the sacred and not
spread on my bed, my pillow, my exhale
the crust of every lie I loved
tainted with silver sliver of your tongue

I turned that night on its back
after you went to bed
your streets indebted
to shadows of restless dreams
bruising on its replaced ribs
where trash collectors compress
disposed remnants
in the ruble
life’s severed limbs
an envy here
a longing there
a nothingness holier than my prayers

and I add
that face without the lips
under the face with muffled shame
under the face I used to have
on heaps of unfinished poems
where a lemon tree and jasmine blossoms
promised mornings
colored and scented at my fingertips

I learned the rain in every lie
in stammer of your pavements
where Saints gather in line at rock bottoms stacked
between my howl and a crow’s black squawk
wrists dripping prayers on St Rita’s solemn face
she sympathizes but says tonight she owns the ledge

there’s always mad laughter at the foot of beds
where Saints sleep on their sides facing the drapes
that catch the city’s quieting breath
misting under street lamps
that catch impelled compromise
in bourbon shots and blues on a clarinet
as lonely as you
that time when you asked my name
sometimes I tell you
long after you’ve gone to bed

© 2015, poem, Silva Zanoyan Merjanian, All rights reserved; excerpted from Silva’s latest book, Rumor. All proceeds from the sale of this book go to Syrian Armenian Relief Fund; illustration courtesy of Steve McCabe (Poet Image), All rights reserved

Reasons

Every beginning has a story and
in this one, you are the reason
why ‘phrontistery’ has no synonyms
or a specific meaning and transparency.
And I am only the moonlight girl
that likes the right side of the bed,
not because the left is yours,
but because the word ‘nihilarian’
suits better the tiny, strawberry-like
birth mark on my lower back
and the widdiful dragons in your dreams.

And all I desire is a reason, maybe a couple,
and a quire, azurelaid and antique, to pencil down
the seconds dancing at half- pace
when we mastered anatomy and agastopia,
when instead of scars and brontides
the stars left luscious trace in the night,
and the velvet causeuse is no longer lethological
but wild, kiss-consuming, violent with delight.

The Dream of a Poet

$bright-feathery-fractal$ I woke up with a start some time ago;
A very familiar path;
from sleep infused, in semiconscious state,
with dreams of the unpleasant,
into a slow and rude awakening.

Was it a mystery magician or
con artist, the evil one,
who managed to deprive me of my freedom;
usurp my own free will;
transport me where I never want to go.

And then, somehow it dawned on me that I,
apropos my own illusion,
had written words that weren’t exactly true?
I’m not sure how this is…
But missive written. For poets. How to write!

Astonishing!

The anti-hero in my fated dream
insisted I capitulate
and turn my trade to more constructive ends
by which it sought the truth
of why I wish to make my dreams come true.

It asked me who I thought I was and then,
without so much as by
your leave, it pulled me back into oblivion.
It also didn’t hear me
when my stentorian protest made no sound.

It was a vision; a reverie that spoke
of fantasies; woolgathering.
It is, in truth, as truth is meant to be
none other than my conscience,
speaking of the will to write and dream.

If answer there is one, I do not know;
so often out of our control.
The only thing I have to say is this:
it’s always up to you.
Only you can judge what’s best … for you.

By your own best devices, you don’t need
to take advice from where
there is no guidance better than your own
… save rules, and even they
can be ignored once you have mastered them.

[This poem combines the subjects of a dream I had three years ago. The dream left me with a strong impression of a magician with magical, but not particularly benign powers and quite possibly a conspiracy that threatens the world of future times. I have written a synopsis of it in my notes on future project ideas, because I had strong feelings that it would make a fantastic storyline for a Sci-Fi novel, but, more than this I cannot tell; you’ll have to wait to see if this particular dream comes true. ]

Double Dutch

playing with god

double dutch

jump rope

swinging round

and round

the confusion of

ropes going up

and down and

both ropes circling in

contrary directions

beckoning

us to leap into the

flow

Father Sky

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Did I ever thank you, Father Sky,
      spread far around like an open field
           piled high with moods and structures,
                a playground for my soul?

Your face above bids my thoughts expand
      to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
           and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
                or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of your lonely blue
      where I find no mist to hide me,
           and lie exposed to the western wind
                like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
      you coax me to musing
           far removed from the minutiae
                that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness
      to shadow the bonds of earth,
            exploring the vault of heaven
                for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art,
For opening my eyes, admitting Sky into my heart.

The Will of the Quill

April is International Poetry Month here at The BeZine. Poetry has been an inspiration that has moved me from a very young age and I cannot imagine life without it. I have not been very poetically productive lately, but this is one of my favorite poems that I have written.

It was inspired by a conversation about language and how difficult it can be to communicate, sometimes. Poetry is all about communication, whether it be ideas, thoughts, visual descriptions, and trying to capture emotions or any of the five senses…in part, expressing the human experience of the world.

*********

~ The Will of the Quill ~

Thick as the speed of clotted thoughts,
This language suffices;
A cumbersome tool.
Experience sought (and bought)
The sacrifices
That made wiser men
From ignorant fools.

Words escape.

You. Me.
They cannot be caught,
Yet aren’t quite free,
For every one comes attached to a thought,
And for every action,
It was birthed in naught but
Electrical energy —
Brain waves of….what?

Symbols understood, with meaning,
But none can accurately catch the dreaming,
Teeming shores of what it means to live.
Sensation lingers in the mind’s mouth,
Tasting phrases.
Sifting variations of description,
Through this medium’s sieve.

It still lacks
The richness of the moment’s impact.
In fact,
It’s amazing communication takes place.
Limited as we are,
By our lack
Of (understanding)
The rigidity of moving back
And forth,
Through
Time
and
Space.

Seeking to capture a feeling,
A sight,
To explain human nature —
Thus, stealing it, right?
We take from experience,
And categorize.
We label our labors,
And ceaselessly prize the “Hows“,
And “Whys”,

But Language,
The bridge of the written word…

*sighs*

Though inadequate,
Sometimes succeeds,
And we’re “heard”.

Blue Echo

silent, but for the cunning corvidae,
they of persistent caw, whoop and kuk,
they float on soft whimpers of wind
above the quiet fragrant grass
and all the while the pen spins ~
spins on spring when gentle colors
stir the blooming riot of garden

a fabled coalition of migrant birds
arrives to sit a spell, to catch a breath of
white jasmine on a breeze, it speaks the
tongue of aleppo … while pen weaves
a twine of words in the shade of a ginkgo,
siphoning stories from earth’s green waves
and that blue echo of peace called sky

Survival

SURVIVAL

When the cot wouldn’t stop howling
night unstitched its gentle blanket and smacked

the kitchen clock’s face. Death was a vision
of a bloated sheep slowly floating downriver.

By day I was trapped in the tube of the hoover’s
extended arm, fear filled my lungs with dust.

The years ahead stood before me blank
as a line of empty buckets but I knew they’d fill

with panic, its manic dance as time and again
I failed to measure up as a real mother.

When I received the diagnosis death jumped up
taller than life, laughed at the bright words

the consultant was mouthing and pointed its gun
at my head. Reeling, I looked into its two nostrils.

The words crumpled. Then the walls collapsed
as if they were the pieces of paper the wolf

had huffed. We drove home and the future
fled along the gutters with the thunder-rain,

so hurling my favourite teacup, the one patterned
with redcurrants – across the kitchen – was useless.

And yet somewhere inside the empty self
were threads I didn’t know I possessed.

Love was it? kindness? that tugged, set me
on my feet, worked my arms and legs.

There was the day when a girl in mauve
put a tray of powder paints into my hand

and I unleashed on the sugar-paper treefuls
of turquoise leaves, a pram with easy wheels.

There was the day, years on, when snowdrops,
defying the forest of bare twigs above them,

stopped me in the street, spurred me to latch
onto words, defeat the terror lodged in my head.

How to Write a Poem

A daydreaming gentleman;
from an original 1912 postcard published in Germany

First you sit down and
look out the window.
Whether a framed bit of glass or
a soft hole in your soul,
doesn’t matter. Then you wait,
looking for the ripples in
the breeze and listening for
the colors of nature,
human and otherwise,
to reveal themselves.
Did I mention you have to
do this with your heart?
Sorry, those are the rules.
I never realized, when I
was a boy, that I was writing
poems when I would stare
at the world and you,
whether you were in front of me
or not. I just forgot
to write down the details of
how the air around you glowed,
how the songs of birds shone
blue and yellow and how it
felt to touch you with my heart
when I wasn’t touching you at all.
Until today.

Keeping Silence

Lately, my ears are ringing from the sound of too many words, my eyes burn from reading too many words, my mind aches from thinking too many words, and my voice is tired from speaking too many words. In that spirit, today I offer you Rumi:

“Keep silence,” be mute; if you have not yet become the tongue of God, be an ear.

Rumi (from Mathnawi, II-3456)

Shhh…

– Donna Pierce

Twilight Will Be Enough

So many live our lives
groping from one darkness
to the next, praying
for the spark of hope
to light our way,
for we are certain
we’ll never see dawn,
never feel even sunset.

Others live in the sun-bright
moment of now.
They follow illumination
from within to find their way
through the dark times
until the Great Light
they enter.

And there are those of us,
like me, who’ve been through
the dark, the light,
and back again. For me,
the twilight will be enough,
as long as I feel the blind warmth
of your hand guiding me.

– Joseph Hesch

Call Out for the Sacred Dream

Writing in a far and broken country, my pen
knows its kinship with the dark forest, asks
direction of its trees, celebrates a quiet amity
over the din of plastic medicine vials, the 40-foot

serpentine specter of a cannula, the hiss and sigh
of an oxygen compressor amid layered silences.
We are named on a long list of regional poets.
The region is the sickroom where the palm and

birch in the courtyard know their meaning and
place. Lend your soul’s ear. The trees will speak
and tell you that we are found. We are here,
not lost in those vials but found in the hallowed

company of this dusty Earth on a shared vision quest.
Call it illness. Call it artful … Strike up the hill. Cry out
for the Sacred Dream, for the purpose of your life and
its confusions. A comforting Infinity breaks through

fierce grievings embraced. The great dream comes
to you. The trees come to you. They speak in God’s
tongue, which is – after all – your whispering heart  . . .
Life gives, bequeathing  the key to its wide and
wild Essence. Unlock the door. Listen … listen!
The voice is  lyrical and trails records in blue ink.

“There is on this earth, what makes life worth living.” Mahmood Darwish (1941-2008), Palestinian poet … An observation as true for people who are occupied by illness or other distress as it is for a people who are living in occupied territory.

– Jamie Dedes

Renew in Me

i sat in a pew

hearing the strain

of an ol’ time melody

singing “create in me

a clean heart, o-o-o

god” and i wondered

really? is it me?

does my heart need

cleaning?

each patch of

dust

grime

dirt

stain

does it need to be

erased?

forgotten?

removed?

maybe I will sing

a new melody

building on the old

wishing not for

a clean heart

but for a strong

heart

not for erasure

but for

expansion

not for the unsoiled

but for soil ground in

so deeply that it transforms

me to mud

to adama

giving rise to new

life.

…create in me a heart of mud, o-o-o God, and renew a right spirit within me…

…

mud maid — “Mud Maid” by Caroline
CC (BY-NC-SA)

Note: the name “Adam” in Hebrew scriptures is connected to the word adama which means earth or mud. So essentially, “Adam” is “mudman.” For more information on the Hebrew meaning of the word: go to aish.com

Shalom,

– Rev. Terri Stewart

Project Tag: poem

Morning Dove

In praise unceremonious

birds sing to greet the morning.

In liberty they make their voices heard.

Each separate tune a secret speech

upon Creation’s ear,

an intimate awakening of love.

What expression can I give you

to welcome your affection,

to place myself within your waiting arms?

The murmur of my scattered dreams,

the sigh of lonely longing,

a wish for lasting closeness on my lips.

Hear in my stuttering, open heart,

Oh, lover and companion,

the grateful, private music of the dawn.

Reel to Reel

Converge

race

Le Fée Verte, Absinthe

Saints In My Rain

Reasons

The Dream of a Poet

Double Dutch

Father Sky

Did I ever thank you, Father Sky,
      spread far around like an open field
           piled high with moods and structures,
                a playground for my soul?

Your face above bids my thoughts expand
      to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
           and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
                or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of your lonely blue
      where I find no mist to hide me,
           and lie exposed to the western wind
                like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
      you coax me to musing
           far removed from the minutiae
                that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness
      to shadow the bonds of earth,
            exploring the vault of heaven
                for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art,
For opening my eyes, admitting Sky into my heart.

The Will of the Quill

Blue Echo

Survival

How to Write a Poem

Keeping Silence

Twilight Will Be Enough

Call Out for the Sacred Dream

Renew in Me

In praise unceremonious

birds sing to greet the morning.

In liberty they make their voices heard.

Each separate tune a secret speech

upon Creation’s ear,

an intimate awakening of love.

What expression can I give you

to welcome your affection,

to place myself within your waiting arms?

The murmur of my scattered dreams,

the sigh of lonely longing,

a wish for lasting closeness on my lips.

Hear in my stuttering, open heart,

Oh, lover and companion,

the grateful, private music of the dawn.

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Did I ever thank you, Father Sky, spread far around like an open field piled high with moods and structures, a playground for my soul?

Your face above bids my thoughts expand to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of your lonely blue where I find no mist to hide me, and lie exposed to the western wind like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray, you coax me to musing far removed from the minutiae that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness to shadow the bonds of earth, exploring the vault of heaven for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art, For opening my eyes, admitting Sky into my heart.

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Thank you for sharing the beauty and inspiration:

Did I ever thank you, Father Sky,
spread far around like an open field
piled high with moods and structures,
a playground for my soul?

Your face above bids my thoughts expand
to climb the heights of an anvil-cloud
and teeter on the edge of a dazzling glare
or slide down the shafts of the sun,

To swim to the center of your lonely blue
where I find no mist to hide me,
and lie exposed to the western wind
like a mountain braced for sunrise.

Or clad in the shroud of brooding gray,
you coax me to musing
far removed from the minutiae
that chains me to my life.

I search for light and openness
to shadow the bonds of earth,
exploring the vault of heaven
for its meaning and its truth.

Thanks for this cathedral speaking glory through its art,
For opening my eyes, admitting Sky into my heart.