I buy two liters of white mescal, cheap and rough, without the second brewing: fire water, not smooth. Two liters: she sells them in an old Coke bottle she’ll seal with cellophane, and a rubber band. Six worms I buy. Bedraggled fighters dragging smoky trails as they plummet through a yellow sea.
In the shop next door I buy poinsettias. When I get home, I put them in a vase and watch them, red-eyed, watching me. Bloodstains scratching a white-washed wall.
Misshapen gems in a ceramic prison, their beauty breaks me down: a fragmented world, decimated words, metaphors born from worms and mescal.
The eyes I see are not eyes because I see them: they are eyes because … twin brown ovals … they watch me as they float in a liquid mirror within the upraised glass held by my hand.
Outside, beyond the balcony, sun -blood melts like sealing wax. The bougainvillea strains sharp stains through a lonesome slice of sunlight giving birth to flamboyán and tulipán.
My lemon tree leans over to listen. Glistening pearls of dew embellish its morning throat. Christmas decorations these postage-stamp minstrels, thronging each branch, filling me with song.
Butterflies, winged flakes of archaic paint, flutter from temple walls leaving them barren. Church towers, strong when terra firma shakes, quiver insubstantial. Mescal melts the morning, a miracle, this quiver of shimmering air.
Last night, a cataract of flame flowed down the cathedral wall. A 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: this slice of 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. Sun tip-toesits danse macabre across bamboo tubes. Sunlit bubbles float dreams across the square.
Five reasons why a Teddy Bear is much better for you than a Kitty Cat. I know, I know: cat lovers will go wild. They think cats are such lovely cuddly things. And they believe strongly that nobody can resist a warm, loving, darling, purring bundle of fur. Well, I can resist cats. And I can give you five good, sound, solid, 25 carat reasons why Teddy Bears beat Kitty Cats any day of the week.
One Teddy Bears do not need to be fed on a regular basis. In fact, one piece of kibble will last a Teddy Bear for a very, very long time. And you can’t say the same for your cat. So less expense, no need to feed, don’t have to put that fresh water down every day, no constant fawning attention when hungry or just plain greedy, don’t have to worry about treading on the cat’s tail … In fact, a Teddy Bear wins out every time.
Two “Don’t mention cleaning out the kitty litter. Promise?” “I promise. I won’t mention it.” “Word of honor?” “Word of honor. Fresh Walnut and all that.” “You just mentioned it.” “Mentioned what?” “The kitty litter.” “I didn’t.” “You did: you said ‘Fresh walnut.’” “So?” “So that’s what keeps the kitty litter from smelling.” “Does it smell much?” “Quite a bit. I hate cleaning it out.” “Why?” “It’s so smelly, filthy, grainy, lumpy, stinking …” “So, why do you do it, then? What you need is a nice, clean, environmentally friendly Teddy Bear. There’s no cleaning up after a Teddy Bear. Who’s ever heard of Teddy Bear Litter?” “You said you wouldn’t mention it.” “Mention what?” “Kitty litter.” “I didn’t, you did.”
Three Teddy Bears don’t have off-spring. You don’t need to neuter them, and they don’t need taking to the vet. Nor did they sit and wait in family groups for their photos to be taken. What we have below is a fake photo placed there by the unscrupulous enemy for their own pro-cat propaganda purposes.
Four Teddy Bears are very obedient. If you tell a Teddy Bear to “sit” or to “stay”. He does so. Immediately. And he stays where you put him. There’s no clash of wills and egos, no conflict at all. Teddy Bears are easily trained and very obedient. Also, they don’t want to go out in the garden and wander beneath the bushes to shriek and whine when the moon is full. Now, if you have cats and you want them to sit and stay still, you must give them something to watch or to play with. Chipmunks and garden birds aren’t cheap, you know, and they are less trainable than cats. How long do you think it takes to train a chipmunk to just sit there quietly to entertain your cat? Especially when it’s being hissed at and the cat is bouncing the window with anguish? Also, Teddy Bears don’t climb on furniture, nor do they break ornaments, nor sink their claws into your hair as you pass beneath them, nor do they drop on you, unexpectedly, from great heights.
Five Five and finally, when there’s a moth, a fly, or a mosquito on the ceiling at night, you can’t train your kitty cat to fly into the air and snatch it off the ceiling. But as for Teddy: grab him by one leg, preferably the back one; give him his commands “Ready, Teddy, Go!” and hurl him skywards. With a little practice, he’ll nail that nocturnal buzzing monster every time.
No: all things considered — and I promise I won’t mention, you know what, that little box the cat sits in — there’s nothing better than a Teddy Bear. Wise, silent, friendly, cuddly, obedient, friendly (did I say that?), needs no training, always there when needed, waits patiently for you when you’re away, never stalks off with tail in air, never gets out and hides in the garden where you can’t find him, adorable, cuddly (did I say that already?) … Give me a Teddy Bear anytime.
Was that where my life went, a spent candle trailing dark studies among the packed lines of your poems?
And you, was your life gutted by that same guttering candle by whose light you scrawled your tight black spider rhymes?
Were they all meaningless, your insights and my words? So few now know who you were and what you represented and I, your scholar, a mere shadow of your shadow struggling in the straggling light of a far-off continent, far from content at knowing so much about you. Intent I was on spreading light and the word to a world that thinks the two of us absurd.
Our world is spinning on its edge, placed on the perimeter of space, and going nowhere. Specks of dust we sit and contemplate the vastness of what exactly: our fortunes, our spirits, our houses, our power, our lands? Out there, in the vastness that surrounds us, worlds without end will never know we existed.
Bleak and blank our names, our deeds, our status, the statues they raise in our praise. And what of our thoughts, those sparks of electricity that link us lip to ear and mind to action and each of our actions transformed by a dance performed by circling planets that shape our wills?
Who programs that universe now? Who plays what trivial games of snakes and ladders in which we are the dots and dashes, pinballs among a million trillion strings of flashing lights?
Dreams are important throughout 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?
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.
March 1 is St. David’s Day: Dewi Sant, patron saint of Wales. While we are here, immersed in cold and snow, in Wales, spring is arriving, the daffodils are out, trees are budding. This poem is a reminder that winter will end and sunshine and spring will return. So for St. David’s Day, I wish you joy and hope.
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.
“Meeting her, unexpected, with another man, and me, with another woman, all four of us looking bemused by what the other had chosen in each other’s absence — suspense and silence — then the halted, faltering politeness of a nod, a handshake, ships passing in the night, signals no longer recognized.”
The iguana that guards the front door of our house. At night he comes alive, goes round on patrol, checking and securing everything and everybody. Beware the jaws that bite, the claws that clutch!
Striations
There are striations in my heart, so deep, a lizard could lie there, unseen, and wait for tomorrow’s sun. Timeless, the 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. “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 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, this full moon drifting high in a cloudless sky.
Comment: a fitting ending for the month of February: ubi sunt? Where have all those days gone: Ou sont les neiges d’antan?
rogermoorepoet 