Photos

Obsidian’s Edge 11

1:00 PM
Water 1

Cupped hands cannot embrace you.

Do you remember when the earth
was without form, and darkness lay
on the face of the deep?

You yearned then to be released,
to flow from the darkness,
to flower in the sunlight.

Images and symbols:
flags flying within my skull.
The shrunken head pond
ringed like a bath tub;
fields scorched and dry.

The land’s parched throat
longing for liquid:
water, born free,
yet everywhere in chains.

This mirage of palm trees,
green, against burning sand.
This hot sun dragging
its blood red tongue
across a powder blue sky.

Panting for water, I lick my lips
like a great big thirsty dog.

Words begin with the “Let be!” of light —
and it divides from darkness.

Then comes the world,
the inner waters in which male
and female forms are borne;
when the waters break,
the life sustaining substance drains away,
throwing us from dark to light.

The mid-day sun rides the sky
rolling its dark ball-turret cherry:
blood red wine over and under
this double-barreled thunder cloud.

Hare and Pair

Hare and Pair
With photos
by
Clare

“Hare is the Lord of all he surveys and none can dispute his right … ”

Some do, mind, in spite of hare’s propaganda, for moose, raccoon, deer, Northern Goshawks, owls, and the neighborhood dogs, though these are usually kept on a leash, all make eyes at hare as he sits there, on the edge of the lawn, seemingly unafraid.

Hare can run. He can run very fast. He thinks he is the fastest there is. So he just sits there.
“I AM the fastest,” he boasts, and none can gainsay him.

Chipmunk knows he’s not the fastest. Mind you, he’s not that slow either, over short distances. Chipmunk is fast, but he’s also very, very cautious.

“”Is the coast clear?” he asks.”I’ll just pop my head out and have a little look.”

“Coast’s clear, dear. Heave ho, and out I go.”

“No one about. Weather looks nice. I’ll just go for a little run.”

“Off I go. Won’t be long, dear.”

“I’ve found something nice, dear. Some fresh new bedding. I’ll bring it home.”

“I’m on the way, dear. Pop that kettle on. Stretching like a long dog: I’ll soon be home.”

“Oh darn it! Forgot the groceries. I’ll have to go out again.”

“Wow! Some nice little goodies stuffed in my cheeks!”

“Hello, dear. I’m back. Give us a kiss.”
“Come in then. Kettle’s boiled. We’ll have a nice cup of tea.”

It will soon be all quiet on the southern front. The chipmunks have all gone. But the hare just sits and likes to stare. So he’s still there.

If a picture tells a thousand words,
this photo essay is 12,280 words long.

Obsidian’s Edge 8

11:00 am
Mist, Mystery, and Magic
Baños de Oaxaca

The steam soaks everything.
Fundy on a foggy day is not this dark.

Fundy 2004 003.jpg

A face looms through the mist
A hand taps me on the shoulder.

The masseur points me
to the next room:
he is a brown man, totally naked …
… he takes a step back,
startled by my whiteness.

The masseur gestures.
I strip off my shorts
and lie on the marble slab.

Incense caresses my brain
with its subtle invasion.

The massage begins.
Slow karate chops:
the heartbreak
in my muscles
begins to break down.

The masseur hums as he moves.
He drives each note home
with pounding fingertips.

I am the piano.
He is the maestro,
rippling the keyboard
with manipulative fingers.

Beethoven’s storm scene
in the Pastoral Symphony
must feel like this
in the Liszt transcription.

The music accelerates.
I am swept away:
a rudderless ship
on a sea of wild sound.

My abandoned flesh
releases itself to cauterizing
currents of earth and air.

Fundy 2004 004.jpg
My spirit overflows.
Eyes closed, drowsing,
my grey sea of grief
transmutes into
a river of gold.

Obsidian’s Edge 7

Room in my Mind
10:30 am

My latest alebrije
wags his tail and flicks
forked lightning
from the forge of his mouth.

His ancient mocking spirit
slowly emerges
from the trickster wood.

Made from scrap metal
by the man down the road
who recycles old scraps,
Don Quixote sits on the reinforced
toecap of a workman’s old boot.

Two spent sparking plugs
join to form his body.
His presence lectures me
on the ages of gold and silver
long since past.

“We exist,” he says,
“in an age of recycling.”

Shadows double
themselves in the mirror:
recycled lines of shade
carve the shower’s glass.

Wary of shade and flame
I stand in a dust-
laden beam of sunlight.

Motes in my mind:
flesh and blood chessmen
play their game,
dark squares and light.

My neighbour has six cats,
two children, and a tulipán tree.

I bought her youngest daughter
chocolate, and she showed me
how to play a simple game of cards.
But the pack was different
with the three
ranking above the queen and jack.

I throw away my threes and lose the game.
She laughs at me and calls me tonto.
She is ten.

Nochebuena,
single and double petals,
crimson and cream;
cempasúchiles,
flowers of the dead,
guide their footsteps
leading my lost ones back to me.

I think of milk bottles placed on a concrete step.
When I go out in the morning, sparrows have pecked
the silver tops to get at the cream.

Memories: once open doors
now slowly close.

Keys no longer turn in the locks.
Sleep gathers in forgotten rooms,
falling like dust on silken flowers.

My mind drifts in and out
between sun and clouds.

Water Falls

I will leave the magic and mystery of Mexico for a moment in order to look at something that lies much closer to home: running water. New Brunswick is famous for its waterfalls. Here is the video poem I created after visiting Dickson Falls in Fundy National Park. Sometimes they are almost dry, but on the day these pictures were taken, the waters flowed in marvelous abundance. Don’t forget to click on the video link at the end of the poem. Clare took the pictures while I conjured up the words. Water Falls was published in Triage (2015).

Water Falls

“What is it about running water
that it explodes like long, blonde
hair over moss and rock
frothing with sunlight the diamond
sparkle, the freckling sound,
light flickering downwards,
fine threads of angel hair
tumbling from above, falling,

white, over earth’s rocky shoulders,
pillowed across soft green quilts

poured down from heaven’s skies
watering the earth’s dark throat,

sinking through the soil
emerging in rivulets and brooks
until all waters are one
and the rains join hands
to splash, rejoicing,

dryads and naiads bathing
together in deep, cool pools,
nymphs reborn, acrobats over rocks
as water falls to seek the sea.“

https://moore.lib.unb.ca/poet/VP5_Waterfall.html

Obsidian’s Edge 4

8:00 am
Up and about

Last night,
a cataract of flame
flowed down
the cathedral wall.

A black wooden bull
danced in the square,
sparks struck fire
from his horse-hide hair.

A red speck on my shirt
burned through to my skin.

Today
a heart of fire
burns in an iron barrel:
who will be chosen
for the daily sacrifice?

A sharp blue guillotine
poised between buildings:
the morning sky.

Scorched circles,
open mouths:
wide-open butterfly eyes
burn holes in the crowd’s
dark cloud of a face.

A street musician
stands in the shade
beneath the arches
playing a marimba.

The sun tip-toes
a sombre danse macabre
across bamboo keys.

IMG0009_1 3.jpg

Sunlit bubbles float
dreams across the square.

Obsidian’s Edge 3

7:00 am
Breakfast

Yesterday,
I sacrificed a chicken.

Unborn,
it lay within its calcium cocoon,
dormant,
a volcano sleeping deep beneath thick snow.

Tap, tap, tap,
the silver spoon bounced
off the hairless shell:
a sudden crack,
a spurt of orange blood.

Today,
I tap with my silver hammer
on the grateful grapefruit’s paper skull.

Silence.
No movement
within the honeyed
comb of pith and cell.

High in the church tower,
a hammer blow falls on an echoing anvil:
the cracked bell lurches into life.

Rooster crows his thick rich cocoa rico:
blackened torsos of fire-roasted beans.

Squeezed orange, racked by the inquisition,
its pale yellow robe spent and exhausted;
wasted disc of a worn-out, decadent moon.

Naturaleza muerta:
the orange expires on the table.

Still sticky its carcass,
its life blood is a sacrifice:
thick, rich, golden liquid,
as fierce and sweet as
sunshine on a branch.

Tabled motion:
my hand reaches out.
Arthritic fingers clasp,
but cannot hold
the golden glass.

The tequila’s wrinkled worm
tickles my fancy.

Grasshoppers
fried in garlic
no longer make me squirm.

Two Tigers
rage in my head.

IMG0034_1 2.jpg

They crave mescal
at this hour of the day.

Obisidian’s Edge 1

At the Edge of Obsidian

“everything burns, the universe flames,
nothingness burns itself into nothing
but a thought in flames: nothing but smoke”

Piedra de sol
Octavio Paz

“todo se quema, el universo es llama,
arde la misma nada que no es nada
sino un pensar en llamas, al fin humo:”

At the Edge of Obsidian is the second book in The Oaxacan Trilogy. It was published in 2005 and outlines the events of a single day in the City of Oaxaca (Mexico). I have always loved the Medieval Books of Hours and wondered if they would transfer themselves into a book of hours based on a day in a place with which I was familiar. This is my effort to do just that. I will publish regularly from this book, beginning at the beginning with the church bells and the early morning light that waken the sleeper from his dreams.

6:00 am
church bells

The alarm clock shuffles
its pack of sleeping hours:

a clicking of claws,
needles knitting outwards
towards dawn’s guillotine;

a knife edge
sharpened on this keening wind
sets my blood tingling in my toes.

Bright jungle parrot,
its querulous caged voice glimpsed
darkly through dawn’s looking glass.

Tochtli was caught by the ears
then thrown against the second sun
sizzling in the sky.
His sharp teeth burrowed,
burying themselves deep in the fire’s red light.
The second sun turned into the moon;
now we can see Tochtli’s face,
simmering in its dwindling pool.

Old myths, like languages,
grow legs and wander away.
They gather in quiet corners,
in village squares
where the night wind weaves
dry leaves in 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 themselves into a cul-de-sac:
a wilderness of harsh black scars.

Dream words:
scalpels carving
red slashes on white-washed walls,
trenchant shadows, twisted dancers,
old warrior kings
bent into pipe wire shapes.

Suddenly, beneath my balcony,
the handy man
tumble-dries a tv ad
in the washing machine
of his song sparrow throat.

Earthing Earthling

Earthing Earthling
(for ProofofLife)

“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.

IMG_0158 (1).jpg

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.

Dreams

Dreams are important in Oaxacan mythology. 
Do we create them ourselves?
 Or do they come to us as celestial messages? 
Can they exist without us?
 Or do we form a symbiotic relationship.,
each dependent on the other?

Eight Deer or Tiger Claw / Ocho Venado or Garra de Tigre is a Mixtec Hero;  
his name is composed of two parts:  
(1) day name (ie the name of the day on which he was born) Eight Deer and  
(2) nickname Tiger Claw.  

His symbol in the códices is a small circle with a comma like a tiger claw. 
Nuttall is the twentieth century editor of the Zouche Nuttall Codex  
in which Eight Deer’s history of conquest is recounted. 
Nine Wind / Nueve Viento is another Mixtec Hero  
and the founding father of the race, according to some códices.

Dreams

Once I 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 caught 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 enchantments:
bubbles born from a magic ring.

Eight Deer, eight years old, sets out on his conquests.
Nine Wind births his people from a flint,
or was it 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.

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