“My ambition:
to liberate color…
to make it serve
both as form …
…and as content.”
Henri Matisse.
“I don’t always know what it means …”
… but I know it means something.”
Salvador Dalí
Ambition
Creativity
Only the mystery
“Only the mystery …
… keeps us alive …
… only the mystery.”
“Sólo el misterio nos hace vivir,
sólo el misterio.”
Federico García Lorca
Dreams
Dreams
I once stole the nose from a sacred statue.
Today I watch it cross the square attached to a face.
Eight Deer walks past with a fanfare of conches:
you can tell him by his donut with its little tail.
A shadow moves as zopilote wings his way across the square.
I spoke with him once on a midnight bus.
He begged me to fold his wings and let him sleep forever.
A gringa called Nuttall sells tins of watery soap.
Her children fill my days with enchantment
as they blow bright bubbles through a magic ring.
Eight Deer, eight years old, sets out on his conquests.
Nine Wind births nine of his people from flakes of flint,
or was it from the magic tree in Apoala?
The voices in my head slip slowly into silence.
Sometimes I think they have no need of me,
these dreams that come at midnight,
and knock at my window.
Other times I know they cannot live without me.
Earth to Earthlings
Earth to Earthlings
“Get out and about,” she told me.
Take off your socks and shoes.
Walk barefoot on the earth and grass:
twin pleasures, you can choose.”
I took two canes, one in each hand,
and left the house to walk the land.
In the garden I took off my shoes
to walk barefoot on the lawn;
when grass sprang up between my toes
I was instantly reborn.
I stood in the shade of the crab apple tree
and let leaf and flower spill over me.
Sunlight took away my frown
and freckled a smile on my face.
I was blessed again with hope and light;
earth and grass filled me with grace
When white blossoms filtered down
they gifted me a flowery crown.
I stooped to reach my shoes
and carried them home in my hand,
maintaining as long as I could
my contact with this magic land.
Daydreams
Daydreams
The alarm clock shuffles
its pack of sleeping hours:
a clicking of claws,
needles knitting outwards
towards dawn’s guillotine.
A knife edge
this keening wind
sharpening my bones
tingling fingers and toes.
Ageing eyes refurbished
in the morning’s sky fire.
Ravishing rainbows
dazzling the eyelash of day.
Old myths grow legs.
They wander away
to gather in quiet corners,
where the wind weaves
dry leaves into endless
figures of eight.
An old man now,
I dream of white rabbits,
running down tunnels,
escaping the hunter’s hands.
When my dreams break up,
they back into a cul-de-sac:
a wilderness of harsh black scars.
Scalpels, my finger nails, carving
red slashes on white-washed walls,
trenchant shadows, twisted dancers,
old warrior kings
bent into pipe wire shapes.
Croaking Angels
Croaking Angels
Their tunes are one note symphonies,
croaks of joy that move
their fellow frogs to ecstasy,
exhorting them to share
the splendors of ditch life,
in a springtime bonding
that will loft them skywards.
There’s an ancient magic
in this calling: water
and laughter, sunlight, warmth,
and all those joyous things
that fill the newborn spring.
Moonlight swings its cheerful love lamp.
New leaves and buds are also known to sing.
Comment: This always makes me think of the croaking chorus from Aristophanes. I do hope all those wonderful ancient plays, songs, myths, and legends are not forgotten in our croaking frog chorus of modern jingoistic advertisements and propaganda. Ah well, what’s a source for the proper goose is probably a source for the proper gander. Who knows nowadays? What we do know is that spring is just around the corner. Warmth and the absence of snow will help change our lives. And yes, that croaking chorus will be back.
Black Angel
Black Angel
You cannot hide
when the black angel comes
and knocks on your door.
“Wait a minute,” you say,
“While I change my clothes
and comb my hair.”
But she is there before you,
in the clothes closet,
pulling your arm.
You move to the bathroom
to brush your teeth.
“Now,” says the angel.
Your eyes mist over.
You know you are there,
but you can no longer see
your reflection in the mirror.
Comment:
I first saw the Black Angel in Aldebarán’s cultural store in Ávila (2006). She sat there, in the shop window, along with several other angels, and I worshiped her from the distance of the street. Her image was taken from an original painting from Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464). This was turned into a 3-D image and then converted into the statue I saw in the shop window.
I brought the statue back to Island View, placed it on the shelf above the fireplace, where it still rests, and wrote several poems on the theme of Angels. I gathered them together in a chapbook entitled All About Angels that I self-published in Fredericton in 2009. The chapbook was dedicated to Clare’s great-aunt, D. E. Witcombe who departed this world on October 15, 2008.
All About Angels was also based on a book of a similar title, Sobre los Ángeles, written by Rafael Albertí, one of the major poets of Spain’s Generation of 1927. I avoided the ambiguity of the Spanish title — Sobre (in Spanish) can mean Above or Beyond as well as About — by limiting my own title to All About Angels.
For Carl Jung, angels are the messengers sent to inform people of the state of their world. For me, they are also the wild creatures that inhabit the world around me and often take the form of chickadees, crows, mourning doves, woodpeckers, deer, foxes, chipmunks, the occasional bear, and other spiritual creatures. They can be best seen in those moments of solitude when we are most open to the natural world around us. Then, and sometimes only then, we can hear the urgent messages they bring.
Alebrijes
Alebrijes
Alebrijes step out from dried wood and stand in the shower of paint that falls from the brush’s tip. Yellow flash of lightning, pointillistic rain, garish colors that mirror those of the códices. The carvings take the form of fantasy figures, anthropomorphic animals, and mythological creatures.
Sometimes one individual selects the wood, carves it, then covers it in paint. Occasionally an entire family takes part in the work of making the alebrije. One person collects the wood and prepares it for carving. Another carves and sands it. A third works on the undercoat, and a fourth applies the final patterns of paint.
The great debate: does the form in the wood reveal itself to the carver or do the carvers impose their own visions on the wood? In the case of the team, do the family members debate and come to a joint conclusion?
These thoughts, exchanged with wood-carvers in Oaxaca, have led to a series of interesting conversations. What exactly is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we, as artists, impose it upon our creations? Or do we merely observe and watch as new ideas float to the surface of our minds? How does the creative mind really function? And, by extension, how much of the sub-conscious creative sequence can be placed into words?
Alebrijes
Are they half-grasped dreams
that wake, wide eyed, to a new day’s sun?
Or are they alive and thriving
when they fall from the tree?
Does the carver fish their color and shape
from his own interior sea,
or does he watch and wait for the spirit
to emerge from its wooden cocoon
to be reborn in a fiery block of color?
Daybreak:
in a secluded corner of my waking mind,
my neighbor’s dog greets the dawn with sparks
of bright colors born from his bark.
My waking dream: dark angels with butterfly bodies,
their inverted wings spread over my head to keep me warm.
In the town square, the local artist plucks dreams
from my head and paints them on carved wood.
Downsizing
Downsizing
a double sword
this clearing out
of odds and ends
the library diminishing
book by book
so many memories
slipped between the covers
dust-bound now
yet springing so quickly
back to life
sorrowful not sweet
these multiple partings
from people I will never see again
save in my dreams
I think of book burnings
so many heroes
gong up in flames
fire their beginnings
fire their ends
fire the means of forging
the Omega and Alpha
of those book worlds
that surround us
fire words
encircling us
consuming us
outside and in
Silence
Silence
When I wait for words to come
and they refuse,
I know that silence is golden
and spreads its early morning sunlight
across the breakfast table
where yellow butter melts on hot toast.
Light from the rose window in Chartres
once spread its spectrum over my hands
and I bathed in its speckled glow.
My fingers stretched out before me
and I was speechless,
for in such glory,
mortal things like words cease to flow.
So much can never be said
even if it is sensed: fresh coffee,
poutine à pain, bread baking,
flowers bursting into bloom,
the sense of immanent beauty that fills me
each time my beloved enters the room.
rogermoorepoet 