Daffodils
(for my mother)
Light in dark
bright yellow stridence
shrill golden dog’s bark
to warn off death’s wolves
that freeze her blood
she dreaded night’s unease
the devil’s wintry anti-spring
life’s darkest sparks
but loved the daffodils’
sunny March cadence
of brief piercing dance
Blind
Warmth in a color,
with heat visible to the touch
and shocking pink a shock
to seeking fingers,
not one that you and I,
gifted with sight,
would ever understand.
Blindfolded, they wheel me
round and round the garden
in my teddy bear reality.
Gravel scrunches beneath
the wheels and I am flooded
with the inability to see, to know,
to be sure of the shadows
that are no longer there.
The ones who push me
talk and tell but cannot show.
How could they hold a rainbow
before my eyes or let me hear
the northern lights crackle the sky,
their visible Niagara a curtain
of fairy lights dancing up and down?
And those glorious organ notes
quivering the body, angel voices rising,
falling, grasping at my eye-
lashes, peeling my eye-lids apart.
Song of songs and the singer
deaf to his own sublimity,
oh dealer of cards, fingerless
pianist, bold dancer prancing
on your amputated stumps.
Comment: Raw poem, written for Gwen Martin who opened my eyes to the fact that blind people can perceive color through their finger-tips.
Pibroch
This morning, the bailiff, Mr. Kovdrop,
evicted the two gnomes from my lungs.
Landlord Bodie placed an ad on Kiji
then rented the free space in the left lung
to a tiny piper who took up residence by my heart.
This piper piped a pibroch, sad to play,
on his worn and wheezy bagpipes.
A pack of miniature wolves infiltrated
the midnight forest flourishing in my other lung.
When the pibroch played, they pointed their noses
at that spot in my throat where the full moon
would have been, if she could have broken in.
They mingled their howls with the bagpipes caterwaul
and I lay awake all night with my heart beating
arrhythmic suspicions on its blood red drum.
The drum played, the pibroch wailed, the wolves howled
and my body lay scarred by an absence of moon and stars.
Two Gnomes
Two small gnomes
have set up camp
in my lungs.
All night long
they play their squeeze
box, wheeze box concertinas,
never quite in unison.
Sometimes they stamp
their feet and dance.
Their wild night music
catches in my throat
and I cough up
unmusical songs
that splutter and choke.
An east wind blows
outside my window.
It whistles and groans
as it herds the stars
from left to right.
The stars chase
the westering moon.
The planets dance
to the rhythms
of the accordion music
playing in my chest.
Comment: Raw poem, raw sore throat. I wish this flu on nobody. And yes, I had my flu shot, so the flu bug probably mutated and created a version just for me. This is also an “I need sympathy poem” so, moan and groan … splutter and cough, breakfast’s ready and I’m off.
Sun and Moon 6
“Wake up!” says Serpent. “Knock!”
I knock and the door swings open
Old Woman sits spinning at a ghostly wheel
she draws me to her with a string of starlight
I squirm on the fishhook of her eyes
when I blink I fall gutted to the ground
herringbones knit me a tangled destiny
lost people wandering in a tapestry of dreams
as I read my story in the sky around me
Moon scythes my heart into tiny slices
a fishbone slides stitches into my side
dice click
two snake eyes stare into my eyes
Sun and Moon 5
dusky shawl of a knitted dream
wrapped round my shoulders
I pick at knots of tangled memory
a word as sharp as a stone
cast at a friend
sea shells cutting
naked feet
at the water’s edge
sunlight
weeping blood
over mother-of-pearl
Old Woman winds
a ball of wool
she handcuffs my wrists
with softness
spun from lambs
my hair turns silver in her mirror
snakelike I slide into my dream
slipping sideways
deep dark well of night
Sun and Moon 4
night without moon without stars
dark sand dropping
filling my mouth
I walk the lonely bed of a dried up river
when I stumble in my dream
my feet leave no footprints
colourless is my path
through shadow and sand
figures of darkness
conjured before me
hollow their eyes
their mouths black caverns
no flesh decks their bones
footless they sigh
a sibilant song
mindless they draw in
a net full of sorrows
silver fish darkling
losing their sparkle
Sun and Moon 3
at midnight Serpent slithers through
a gap in the fence of my dream
he slides close to my shivering body
and lies there chill against my skin
his length – a sword without a scabbard
unscaleable wall of unblemished steel
severing all warmth
“Tomorrow,” he says, “I will take you to the sky.
But first, you must watch me dance.”
he twists in circles winding and unwinding
infinite loops and figures of eight
endless cat’s cradle of bottomless shape
sleep draws my feet deeper into quicksand
the night wind whispers me a head full of dreams
Sun and Moon 1
Last week an old man squeezed the moon;
tonight, she’s a shrunken orange in the sky.
“Tell me, Moon:
when all the stars have been caught in my net,
what will I harvest?”
Silence descends a ladder of moonlight
bearing an offering of gift-wrapped stars.
“Wise Old Woman who lives in the sky:
what man tore your bones apart
and gave me your face?”
Dead leaves rush out through my eyes.
My hands stretch out before my face
and I wash them in moonlight.
“One day, I’ll climb to your silver palace
and steal all your secrets.”
Comment: Sun and Moon 2 (as sung by Cat Leblanc) is introduced and complemented by Sun and Moon 1. These are the first two poems in the ten poem title sequence of Sun and Moon. The eagle costumes, shown in the photo, belong to the original dance sequence from Sun and Moon as performed on Monte Albán.
Sun and Moon 2
Eagle paints my eyes with daylight.
He offers to fly me to the sky.
His feathers trap sunshine in his pinions.
Morning is a rebozo draped over his plumage.
“My mother is blind,” says Eagle.
“Her sight: cold ashes in the fireplace.
Stripped of her dreams,
she wanders in darkness.
You must give her
the fire from your eyes!”
Tiger offers to carry me to the sky.
Flame speckles his pelt.
His eyes are two scorched blocks of charcoal.
“I will break the bread of your bones,” says Tiger,
“and warm myself on the fire of your blood!”
Serpent offers to bear me to the sky.
His scales are shards of emerald and ruby.
His serpent’s blood runs cold through his veins.
He weighs me in the twin dice of his eyes.
“Where I lead you must follow,” Serpent says.
“There is no other price.”
Comment: Here as promised are the words to yesterday’s song as composed and sung by my good friend Cat Leblanc. This is the second stanza from the ten poem title sequence of Sun and Moon. Here is the link.
rogermoorepoet 