Identity

Building on Sand: Poetry

Building on Sand

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1
Everywhere the afternoon
gropes steadily to night.
Some people have lit fires;
others read by candlelight.

Geese litter the river bank,
drifts of snow their whiteness,
stained with freshet mud;
or is it the black
of midnight’s swift advance?

They walk on thin ice
at civilization’s edge.
Around them,
the universe’s clock
ticks slowly down.

2
Who forced that scream
through the needle’s eye?

Gathering night,
the moon on the sea bed
magnified by water.

Inverted,
the big dipper,
hanging its question
from the sky’s dark eye lid.

Ghosts of departed
constellations
walk the night.

Pale stars scythed
by moonlight
bob phosphorescent
flowers on the flood.

3
The flesh that bonds;
the bones that walk;
the shoulders and waist
on which I hang
my clothes.

Now they stand alone
beneath the moon
and listen at the water’s edge
to the whispering trees.

They have caught the words
of snowflakes
strung at midnight
between the stars.

Moonlight is a liquor
running raw within them.

4
There are striations
in my heart, so deep,
a lizard could lie there,
unseen, and wait
for tomorrow’s sun.

A knot of
sorrow in daylight’s throat;
the heart a great stone
cast in placid water,
each ripple
knitted to its mate.

Timeless,
the worm at the apple’s core
waiting for its world to end.

Seculae seculorum:
the centuries
rushing headlong.

5
Matins:
wide-eyed
this owl hooting
in the face of day.

Somewhere,
I remember
a table spread for two.
Breakfast.
An open door.
“Where are you going, dear?”

Something bright has fled the world.
The sun unfurls shadows.
The blood whirls stars
around the body.

“It has gone.” she said. “The magic.
I no longer tremble at your touch.”

6
You can drown now
in this liquid
silence.

Or you can rage against this slow snow
whitening the dark space
where yesterday
you placed your friend.

The silver birch wades
at dawn’s bright edge.

Somewhere,
sunshine will break
a delphinium
into blossom.

7
Tight lips.
A blaze of anger.
A challenge spat
in the wind’s face.

High-pitched
the rabbit’s grief
in its silver snare.
The midnight moon
deep in a trance.

If only I could kick away
this death’s head,
this sow’s bladder.

Full moon
drifting
high in a cloudless sky.

8
After heavy rain
the house shrinks.
Its mandibles close.

A crocodile peace
descends from the jaws of heaven.

I no longer fit my skin.
Iguana spots itch.
Walls encircle me,
hemming me in.

The I Ching sloughs my name:
each lottery ticket,
a bullet.

None with my number.

9
Late last night I thought
I had grasped the mystery:
but when I awoke
I clasped only shadows and sand.

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Lagartija: Fast Fiction

 

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Lagartija
(Bistro 13)

There are striations in my heart, so deep, a lizard could lie there, unseen, and wait for tomorrow’s sun. Timeless: this worm at the apple’s core waiting for its world to end. Seculae seculorum: the centuries rushing headlong. Matins: wide-eyed this owl hooting in the face of day. Somewhere, I remember a table spread for two. Breakfast: an open door, a window that overlooks a balcony and a garden.
“Where are you going, dear?”
Something bright has fled the world. The sun unfurls shadows. The blood whirls stars around the body.
“It has gone,” she said. “The magic. I no longer tremble at your touch.”
The silver birch wades at dawn’s bright edge. Somewhere: tight lips, a blaze of anger, a challenge spat in the wind’s taut face. High-pitched the rabbit’s grief as it struggles in its silver snare. The somnambulant moon tiptoes in a trance.
If only I could kick away this death’s head, this sow’s bladder, this full moon drifting high in a cloudless sky.

Who knows when the skeleton will take to the limelight, peel off her gloves, doff her hat, lay down her white cane, and use me as fuel for a different kind of fire. Grief lurks in the bracelet’s silver snare of aging hair. I kick my legs in the chorus line and my day fades into shadowy shapes that unfurl leathery wings.
Pebbles catch in my throat and the word-river once flowing smooth backs up to spill leaf-freckled foam over the tiniest barriers of branch and weed. I try to speak but a gypsy has stolen my tongue and sewn my lips together.
Leaves outside my window grow rusty with rain. A sharp-shinned hawk no bigger than the blue jay he stalks drives like a whirlwind at the feeder. Winter touches with his jack-frost fingers and Old Eight Hoots waits in the tree and calls my name.
Bright stars crackle the sky. Frost crisps leaves. A mist weaves webs scarce-seen. All around, as I walk to my lonely home, the cold ground creaks its wordless tongue-tied whispers.

Night shapes abound.

 

 

 

Writing or Re-Writing? 6

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A Question of Thematic Unity

 The question for today concerns thematic unity: should one strive for thematic unity or should one present thematic contrasts? This question is provoked by today’s blog post, Obsidian’s Edge 22 10:00 PM, in which the narrator, sitting alone at the table in his apartment in Oaxaca is filled with memories of home, a home that is very different from the daily reality of life in Oaxaca.

The contrast with the sights and sounds of Oaxaca is obvious and immediate: outside in the street, a world of sunshine and shadow, darkness and fireworks, singing and dancing, people and poetry; yet within the room, alone, the narrator is challenged by that other world in which he is also immersed, the world of home and memories from home. This other world contrasts cold with warmth, the coast with the interior, memories of home with the immediate presence of Mexico.

I keep asking myself, would it be better to keep the thematic unity of Oaxaca, rather than to try and contrast the past with the present, thus creating a contrast between the distance there-sense and the immediate here-sense? The insertions try to emphasize the strangeness and immediacy of the new world (Oaxaca) that is in truth already so old. My worry is that I have not done so, certainly not in the way that I wanted to. As a result, I am worried that these “home visits” are intrusive and break the thematic unity that I would also like to establish.

The same question arises with earlier posts, Obsidian’s Edge 17 (Home Thoughts) and 16 (Siesta and Dream). These three poems (or sets of poems) break the thematic unity of the Oaxacan presence. They work as a contrast to that present, a reminder of the origins of the foreigner who observes and writes. But do they intrude, do they break the unity to such an extent that they stick out, a sore thumb hitching a ride to nowhere in particular?

My feeling right now after scanning the rewrite yet again is that they are intrusive and should be excluded from the final text. I have other poems and scenes from Mexico that would fit the Oaxacan themes much better. I give an example below. So, fellow followers and fellow bloggers: the rabbit is out of the trap and the greyhounds are primed and ready — I would appreciate your thoughts.

First: Today’s Post

10:00 PM
Alone at the Table
Memories of Home

1

Salt on the sea wind sifts raucous gulls in packs,
breeze beneath wings, searching for something
to scavenge. Seaweed. The tidemark filled with
longing. A grey sea crests and rises. Staring eyes:
stark simplicity of that seal’s head filling the bay.
Next day, his body stretched dead on the beach.

The river runs rocky beneath the covered bridge.
Campers have created first nation’s rock people,
heaping stone upon stone. At low tide, on the dried
river bed, there is no easy way to say no. White foam

horses in the farrier’s forge stamp and surge. A cold
wind blows at Cape Enrage. Wolfe Point sees late
gales transform the beach: the sandbar carved:
a Thanksgiving turkey, stripped to bare rib bone.

Dead birds sacrificed, so I can lie here in comfort:
my eiderdown is stuffed with dull dry winter coats.

2

Gold and silver, the last breath going out of him,
this warrior destined to dance before a cruel sun.

His ultimate spoken threads, so delicate, so thin,
they run, blood and water, through his pierced side,
sorrowful beneath the spectator’s stare. Ice cold,
this water on which he no longer dares nor cares

to walk. Rich silk: this tapestry woven with another
man’s words. Ghosts shunt back and forth across ice.
Late autumn mists confuse the paths, leading nowhere.

And now the alternate post on which I am still working.

10:00 PM
Alone at the Table
Memories

(Alternate Take)

1

Last year,
limed in a wedding
suit of white,
the grand tree of Tule
escaped from its compound.

Waving its branches wildly,
stumped down the road
to Teotitlán
in search of a bride.

2

It found instead,
on the Day of the Dead,
a carpet weaver
who interfaced its spirit
with fine lamb’s wool
shot with silk.

Next morning,
the tree came back,
its soul intact.

Now you can’t take photos:
the locals have imprisoned it
in a straitjacket of rusty iron railings.

3

The tree will not escape again.

It wanders round its pen,
hiding in corners,
never quite what you expect,
nor where you expect it to be.

Child prisoners,
escaped from their schools,
flash tin mirrors
at the underside of its branches.

Their dancing lights
set ancient spirits
free from their incarceration.

4

Serpiente lies along a lower limb,
waiting for some gossip to walk his way.

Mono swings from branch to branch
and is never still.

The quetzal bird preens
the emeralds of his feathers;
mirrors pursue him
with their liquid light.

5

Wandering eyes need time to rest.
They need time to discover
the old wrinkled man,
face like an ancient manuscript
all lines and creases,
his dark skin dried by the sun:
coarseness of furrowed bark.

Half buried in the trunk,
he nurses a fiery flame.

6

Convinced by the eloquence
of his hand-carved map,
I strive to follow
my troubled heart
struggling on its journey
across earth’s sea.

7

Conjured in the mirrors’
confusing crossfire,
blood flowers
dot the poinsettias
eyes and cross their Ts.

Sunshine engraves my name
on the sacrificial pelt
I bought at the abastos.

A blazing sun
dries the cries of shock
coursing through my victim eyes.

Obsidian’s Edge 22

10:00 PM
Alone at the Table
Memories of Home

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1

Salt on the sea wind sifts raucous gulls in packs,
breeze beneath wings, searching for something
to scavenge. Seaweed. The tidemark filled with
longing. A grey sea crests and rises. Staring eyes:
stark simplicity of that seal’s head filling the bay.
Next day, his body stretched dead on the beach.

The river runs rocky beneath the covered bridge.
Campers have created first nation’s rock people,
heaping stone upon stone. At low tide, on the dried
river bed, there is no easy way to say no. White foam

horses in the farrier’s forge stamp and surge. A cold
wind blows at Cape Enrage. Wolfe Point sees late
gales transform the beach: the sandbar carved:
a Thanksgiving turkey, stripped to bare rib bone.

Dead birds sacrificed, so I can lie here in comfort:
my eiderdown is stuffed with dull dry winter coats.

2

Gold and silver, the last breath going out of him,
this warrior destined to dance before a cruel sun.

His ultimate spoken threads, so delicate, so thin,
they run, blood and water, through his pierced side,
sorrowful beneath the spectator’s stare. Ice cold,
this water on which he no longer dares nor cares

to walk. Rich silk: this tapestry woven with another
man’s words. Ghosts shunt back and forth across ice.
Late autumn mists confuse the paths, leading nowhere.

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Obsidian’s Edge 21

9:00 PM
Mass in the Courtyard
St. Cecilia’s Day

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1

Straw
waiting in the manger

fine layers of sand
silted sorrow
strewn across the yard

eleven musicians
shaking the same traditional
salt and pepper tune
conch pipe and drum
over and over and over
again

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2

a mass without mescal
a meal without wine
a day without sun

dark face of thunder

a stranger
pouring for a stranger
brown hands
offering grace

Tom Thumb sips
minuscule cups
thin paper crumbling
pinched between
finger and thumb

mescal’s fierce fire
burns a fiery ball
searing
throat and belly

3

candle light sputters
shadows on name-
forgotten half-
remembered faces

ancestors
long-buried
walk among shadows

fading flowers
gathering freshness
a cross
a crowded room

4

black blades
paper cuts
sharpened
blades of grass

thin
ribbons of blood
tongue slit open
ready for sacrifice

cactus pierces lips
mustache of thorns

5

stones under flowers
so heavy

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a moonbeam,
slips its knife
between
a vow to forget
a memory that survives
living forever

6

shoe-less the people
standing on temple steps

noses ears lips
pierced
thorns
drawn from cactus
thrust through flesh

7

eyes of Tlaloc
Tecolote beaked and ready

the hole in the sacrificial frog
fills with fresh blood

round bundles wrapped
and tied with large knots

8

Christ
stripped from this flower
-ing cross and re-
placed by red roses

town’s beating heart
el corazón del pueblo

mass in the courtyard
St. Cecilia’s Day

 

Obsidian’s Edge 20

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8:00 PM
Evensong

1

a skein of blood
reels its life out
vein by vein

he struggles
in vain
at the end of his crimson
lifeline

a weaver
unwinds him

then weaves him
into another pattern

2

left right left
he marches
onwards
along the edge

towards the brute
black knife

3

the key in his back
winds up
his pendulum legs

tick-tock
his heart

a time bomb
waiting to explode
its crimson flower

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4

An overflowing river of rouge,
a great red gong,
this plucked out heart
palpitating in the outstretched palm.

As orange as an orangutan,
its pendulum, once shivering
from rib to rib,
now spattering the worshiping crowd.

5

White birds gather piratical thoughts.

Etiolated crossbones,
bleached skulls,
avian blossoms,
they fly home to roost.

6

Deep-pooled river of unsought sunshine,
this leaf light flowing,
its tears torn from tresses
drift to the ground.

Wild surge of bells,
flourishing their flowery sounds,

blooming and booming on the church
tower’s rocky cliff.

7

The cricket
activates its trigger of song:
bright flashes sound sparks
from tree to tree.

Soft flares this evening air,
this kingdom come,
so soon to be upon us.

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8

Thick with an anonymous flame,
the tongue you parrot
ties itself
to a flesh and bone
cage.

Writing or Re-Writing? 5

 

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High Tide exists in two separate forms under two different names: (1) the prose poem High Tide and (2) the poem, Though Lovers Be Lost. The title of the poem comes, of course, from Dylan Thomas.

High Tide     

High tide in the salt marsh and now you are a river flowing silver beneath the moon, your body filled with shadow and light. I dip my hands in dappled water. Twin gulls, they fly down stream then perch on an ice floe of half-remembered dreams. An eagle with a broken wing, I am trapped in this cage of flame. When I turn my feathers to the sun, the black and white of a convict’s bars stripe my back.

Awake, I lie anchored by what pale visions fluttering on the horizon? White moths wing their snowstorm through the night. A feathered shadow ghosts frail fingers towards my face. Butterflies stutter their kisses against the closed lips of shuttered eyes and mouth. Hands reach out to grasp me. A candle flickers in the darkness and I am afraid.

Who mapped in runes the ruins of this heart? Eye of the peacock, can you touch what I see when my eyelids close for the night? Black rock of the midnight sun, blocking the sky’s dark cave, when will I be released from my daily bondage? Last night, the planet quivered beneath my body and I felt each footfall of a transient god.

The prose poem shortens the verse poem and turns it into a rushing hurly-burly of breathless words strung together by metaphor and magic. They flash and twist this way, that way, like minnows in shallow waters, allowing no time for pause, no time for thought. When I have read the passage in public, the listeners have always looked slightly stunned, bemused, battered almost by the storm of emotion tied into the piece.

The prose poem was published in Fundy Lines (2002) but it was originally conceived as a poem written in stanzas and took this form when published in Though Lovers Be Lost (2000). When the poem is set out in stanzas, it is shaped by the spaces that surround each line. These spaces slow the poem down, allowing the reader to permit the listener, to dwell on each group of words. Obviously, in a silent and private book reading, each one of us will read poetry and prose in our customary way. That said, in a public reading, I usually read the prose slightly faster than I do the poetry. The metaphoric nature of the language stands out in the longer version, and instead of the rush of words (prose), we have a measured resonance that shapes meaning. Impact in prose versus depth of meaning in poetry: I think both forms work in different ways.

In addition, the prose poem has been very selective and has abandoned several of the images and themes that appear in the poem. This increases the sense of urgency and unity while diluting the strength of the metaphors. Although the words are basically the same, the shapes and forms make for two different works, two distinctive appearances.

Though Lovers Be Lost

1
Once,
you were a river,
flowing silver
beneath the moon.

High tide
in the salt marsh:
your body filled
with shadow and light.

I dipped my hands
in dappled water.

2
Eagle with a shattered wing,
my heart batters
against bars of white bone.

Or am I a killdeer,
trailing token promises
for some broken god to snatch?

Gulls float downstream.
They ride a nightmare
of half-remembered ice.

Trapped in my cage of flame,
I return my feathers to the sun.

3
Awake,
I lie anchored by
what pale visions of moths
fluttering on the horizon?

A sail
flaps canvas wings
speeding my way
backwards into night.

A feathered shadow
ghosts fingers over my face.

Butterflies
stutter against
shuttered windows.

Strange hands
reach out to grasp me
and again I am afraid
of the dark.

4
When was my future
carved in each sliver of bone?

A scratch of the iron pen
jerks the puppet’s limbs
into prophesied motion.

Who mapped in runes
the ruins of this heart?

Above me,
a rag tag patch of cloud
drifts here and there,
shifting constantly;

like this body of water
in which I sail.

5
Eye of the peacock,
can you touch
what I see when
I close my eyelids
down for the night?

Black rock of the midnight
sun, rolled up the sky,
won’t you release me
from my daily bondage?

Last night, the planet
quivered beneath my body
and I felt each footfall
of a transient god.

6
Thunder knocks
on the door of my dream
and I am afraid.

I no longer know my way
through night’s dark wood.

Who bore her body
out in that rush of rain?

Could she still sense
the sigh of wet grass?

Could she still hear
the damp leaves whisper?

7
A finger of fog
trickles
a forgotten face
down the window.

The power of water,
of fire, of frost;
of wind, rain, snow,
and ice.

Incoming tide:
stark waters.

Rising.

I would welcome any comments you may have (a) on the difference between the two forms, as they impact you; (b) on the perceived differences between the prose poem and the poetry; and (c) on the perceived revision and thought process that turns poetry into prose, and vice-versa.

Bistro 12 Flash Fiction

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High Tide     

High tide in the salt marsh and now you are a river flowing silver beneath the moon, your body filled with shadow and light. I dip my hands in dappled water. Twin gulls, they fly down stream then perch on an ice floe of half-remembered dreams. An eagle with a broken wing, I am trapped in this cage of flame. When I turn my feathers to the sun, the black and white of a convict’s bars stripe my back.

Awake, I lie anchored by what pale visions fluttering on the horizon? White moths wing their snowstorm through the night. A feathered shadow ghosts frail fingers towards my face. Butterflies stutter their kisses against the closed lips of shuttered eyes and mouth. Hands reach out to grasp me. A candle flickers in the darkness and I am afraid.

Who mapped in runes the ruins of this heart? Eye of the peacock, can you touch what I see when my eyelids close for the night? Black rock of the midnight sun, blocking the sky’s dark cave, when will I be released from my daily bondage? Last night, the planet quivered beneath my body and I felt each footfall of a transient god.

Obsidian’s Edge 19

7:00 PM
Wingless in Gaza Street

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1

amputees
they buzz an unending dance
in the dusty gutter

galley slaves
chained to broken oars
they ply rhythmic
blunt stumps

shorn of strength and beauty
their once coloured shuttles
weave dark circles

my mouth is a full moon
open in a round pink circle
shadowed by a skull

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bone and its marrow
settle in subtle ice

2

futile fragility
of the demented heart
pumping the same frequency

fragmented messages
panicked veins

frail beauty
torn from its element of air

this brightness of fragile moths
wing-shorn
drowning in the inky
depths of the gutter

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the seven o’clock news brought to you
from an otherwise deserted street

Bistro 11 Fast Fiction

Doppelganger

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Last summer, in Oaxaca, Tom bumped into his twin, Gerry. Candles flickered on the engraved glass panels of the cathedral’s main doors illuminating Gerry’s ghostly face as if it were that of a young martyr. Mouth open, Tom stared at the apparition, but neither of them spoke. Tom’s neck-hairs bristled, his mouth ran dry, and his hands shook. He closed his mouth, tried to swallow, but the dryness in his throat prevented him from doing so. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but words stuck in his throat and meaningless sounds emerged.

Three old crones, dressed in black, broke the spell. One stood in front of Tom and struck him with the large black bag of knitting that she held in her hand. Thin threads of red wool spilled out as she pushed him away. The second threatened Tom with a pair of scissors that she held in her left hand, jabbing them repeatedly towards his eyes. The third produced a tailor’s measuring rod and, using it like a cattle goad, prodded Gerry in the side. Gerry nodded, smiled sadly, and then the three women shepherded Tom’s dead twin away, hurrying out through the cathedral’s glass doors and back into the square. Tom stood motionless for a moment and then as the doors snapped shut he pulled them open and ran out after the group.

The setting sun filled the square with shadows that whispered and moved this way and that. It was as if the earth had shaken, a hole had appeared in the cemetery wall, and a whole generation of dead people had walked out of the cemetery to gossip beneath the trees and dance in the rays of the dying sun. Tom stood on the cathedral steps and called out his twin’s name. Gerry half-turned, but the three old ladies closed together and the herd hurried on.

Tom ran out into the crowd and followed the shadowy quartet, pushing his way through insubstantial people who stood firm one moment and then melted away the next like clouds or mist so thick one could almost lean on it. He ran as far as a side street that led away from the square and there he stopped.

The three crones pushed Gerry into an alley and Tom ran in after them. At first, it was dark. Then, as he brushed through a final curtain of mist, he emerged into a sunlit courtyard. Three beautiful young women in diaphanous garments sat working at an enormous loom. One spun thread and she beckoned to Tom. He approached and she pointed at the loom where tiny figures walked up and down the wool as it was being woven. He felt himself grow smaller and smaller. Then the weaver picked him up and placed him firmly on the loom and wove him into the threads. The third lady clicked her scissors and severed the wool that held him. The wooden shuttle clacked and he remembered no more.

Gerry emerged from the alley and entered the square where real people, flesh and blood beings, turned to gaze at her.  A group of villagers carrying the banner of a small town in the hills stood in a group behind their village band. An elder, carried a live-match in his hand. Deep lines scarred his face with living shadows that danced in the match-light. He put the live-match to the taper of a rocket and it soared upwards with a long-drawn out whooooosh. The village band struck up a traditional dance tune as the rocket clawed its way into the sky to explode with a loud knock against the door of the ancient gods.

Afraid of grasping at shadows and scared by this living phalanx of bandsmen that suddenly marched towards her, Gerry retreated across the main square and hurried back to the cathedral. There, she knelt at the altar of La Virgen de la Soledad, the patron saint of Oaxaca. She inserted five pesos in the collection slot, took a taper, lit it, and applied it to a candle.

Then she started to cry. Her twin brother Tom had been wearing his best grey suit over a light blue shirt and a dark blue, hand woven tie. These were the same clothes in which Gerry had dressed him for burial.

Gerry was on her knees before the statue of the Virgin. Her breath came in short, sharp bursts. She clenched his fists so tightly that her fingernails gouged into her palms. She looked into the Virgin’s eyes and candle light sparkled through the single, silver tear that trickled down the Virgin’s cheek.

https://rogermoorepoet.com/2016/07/03/writing-or-re-writing-4/

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