Creativity

Striations

Striations

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.

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.”

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.

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.

A Golden Oldie
Click on this link for the original post

https://rogermoorepoet.com/2016/05/

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
Striations

Water

Water

Water: does it remember when the earth was without form
and darkness lay upon the face of the deep?

Water gathered into one place and the firmament appeared.
Then light drifted apart from darkness and with light
came The Word, more words, and then the world …

… the world of water in which I was carried until
the waters broke and my life sustaining substance
drained away ejecting me from dark to light.

Here, in Oaxaca, the valley’s parched throat
longs for water, born free, yet everywhere imprisoned.
It languishes in bottles, tins, jars, and frozen cubes,
its captive essence staring out with grief filled eyes.

A young boy on a tricycle pedals past my apartment.
He carries a dozen prison cells, each with forty captives,
forty fresh clean bottles of warm water.
“¡Peragua!” he call out to me. “¡Super Agua!”
he holds out his hand and asks me to pay
a handsome ransom to set some of these captives free.

Real water yearns to be released, to be set free from its captivity,
to trickle out of the corner of your mouth, to drip from your chin,
to slip from your hand and seek sanctuary in dust and sand.

Real water slips through your hair and leaves you squeaky clean.
It is a mirage of palm trees upon burning sand. It is the hot sun
dragging its blood red tongue across the sky and panting for water
like a great big thirsty dog.

A Golden Oldie
Click on the link below for the earlier version.
https://rogermoorepoet.com/2016/04/28/water/

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
Water


Alebrijes

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.

A Golden Oldie
Click on this link for early version.
https://rogermoorepoet.com/2016/04/27/alebrijes/

Click on this link for Roger’s reading.
Alebrijes

Le Mot Juste

Danzante
dancing with joy!

Le mot juste

Searching for what exactly?
For the exact word, le mot juste,
the word that sums it all up,
catches the essence of the thing
and holds it in the mind forever.

Le mot juste? Think color.
Think color blind. Think blind.
Think of the world we see
reduced to grey scale.
Think of the seven colors
that stripe the rainbow sky,
each with a unique name:
it seems so easy, so simple.

But the world has changed.
Think now of the computer,
its screen more accurate
than the human eye and color
coordinated by a million or more
tiny little pixels that multiply
the seven rainbow colors
by a million or two and every
color numbered beyond
the recognition point
of the human eye: le mot juste
reduced to precision of number.

Think flowers. Think scent.
Think of the limited ways
we describe the smell of things.

I look across the breakfast table
and see my wife of fifty years,
a teenager reborn, walking into
the café where we first met.
I search my memory and my mind
for the words to describe that beauty,
that surge of excitement,
but I cannot find les mots justes.

Click on link for Roger’s reading
Le mot juste

Worm Squirm

Worm Squirm

I have been revising lots of mss. but haven’t done anything new, apart from revisions and paintings. Very little has appeared on my blog recently and this is the first post after an absence of five days. Oh dear. Facebook has been barren too. Still: can’t be helped. Better days are on the way.

Here’s Worm Squirm. It’s part of my series of Pocket Paintings / Peintures de Poche, so-called because they all fit neatly in a pocket. They are easy to carry around and yes, I have something bright to look at, even when the skies are grey. Inner grey or outer grey, there’s nothing worse than a grey day. Everybody needs a spot of painted sunshine to brighten a grey day when it dawns.

It’s been a great year for painting foliage, too. Nothing better than to carry a pocketful of painted leaves to remind you of the natural beauties of our picture province. So make it a sunshine day, even if the skies are grey!

Late Fall

Late Fall

Late fall with falling leaves,
trees stripped wind-blown bare,
and winter drawing close.

The huntsman, the archer,
the Cerne Abbas Giant,
Hercules and his club
walking high in the sky, a dog
forever at their heels, ever faithful,
ever true. Star-jewels line his belt,
where the star-sword swings,
the bow, and all his magnificence
displayed before us.
Bow down before him and rejoice.

The year is turning,
or has turned and we are turning
with it. Back to our pasts,
on to our futures, or else we stand
here, gazing skywards,
our feet mired in the present,
minds locked, nowhere to go.

Click on the link for Roger’s reading.
Late Fall

Troubled Times

Troubled Times

Last night my favorite teddy bear went AWOL.
I got up at 3:00 am and sent out a search party.
Sharp eyes spotted the copper band I lost last week.
It had been hiding under the pillow.
Then, joy of joys, they spotted Teddy’s black velvet band,
the one that ties up the hair that falls
over his shoulder and gets up my nose
 and makes me sneeze.

They hauled him out from under the bed.
I picked up the phone and cancelled the 911 call
before the masked men in their jackboots
and their PPE could break down the door

“Alas, dear Mabel: I would if I could but I am not able.”
How those words resound in my ears.
Left ear, right ear, and, like Davy Crockett, a wild front ear.
I will not haul up the white flag and surrender.
My towel is in my hand and I will not throw it in.

‘He who fights and runs away
lives to fight another day.”
I will survive for another day.
Meanwhile, I’ll call for General Worthington,
 the fellow who can always make the enemy run.
“Will you have a VC?”
I said “Not me:
I’d rather have a bottle of Worthington.”

Alas, they don’t make Worthington anymore.
And Watney’s Draft Red Barrel has bitten the dust
and gone down the path the dodo walked.
All my friends are in the doldrums, watching,
as Admiral Brown abandons ship, mans the boats,
and hauls away into fairer weather and cleaner waters.

You say you do not understand?
‘Blessed are the poor in intellect,
for they shall know peace in these troubled times.’

Click on the link for Roger’s reading.
Troubled Times.

Two Dead Poets

Two Dead Poets

I enjoyed the WFNB readings last night. Thank you, Ronda, for organizing them, and thank you Susan, for hosting them. It was nice to see so many young friends gathered together on my zoom screen. I would have said ‘old friends’, but we don’t want to be reminded that yes, we are all getting older. Best wishes and many thanks to all who attended and congratulations to all the award winners.

Anyone interested in reading the rest of my memoir can read it by clicking on the link below. I will post a live reading of it on this blog later today.

MO – modus operandi –

  1. Click on the first link. The text of the story will appear on a different screen.
  2. Click on the live reading. The podcast – audio will appear on another screen.
  3. Turn on your volume.
  4. Turn on the podcast.
  5. Return to text screen (1. above).
  6. Read text while listening to the voice.

This will give you a unique audio-visual experience.

Two Dead Poets

I just completed the live reading. A Tour de Force. My longest single reading ever – over 12 minutes. My voice faltered a couple of times towards the end. My apologies for that.

Two Dead Poets
Live Reading

Selfie with First Frost

Selfie with First Frost

The back ground is dark green, or should be. We have red and yellow leaves, of course, this is New Brunswick, Canada. And the white flecks are the frost on the grass. Lovely.

Look closely and you can see bits of me reflected in the glass of the painting. That’s why it’s a selfie. Not a total one, but a teeny little bit of one. How much of ourselves do we ever capture, in a photo, a painting, a poem, a piece of prose? Not much, I guess. And is it the real ‘us’ anyway? I very much doubt it.

Does it matter? No. If you want to see the real me, come and visit. But, be prepared: I am not who I seem and I am desperate to hide the real me from the real world. You may catch glimpses. And that’s about it.

And I have a cat, just like that. Runs to the basement, hides beneath a chair, sits and purrs in her basket, sleeps on the bed at night, winds herself round my knees at feeding time, is and isn’t, just like all pussy cats. And aren’t we all like that? Here today and gone tomorrow. All that joy and all that sorrow.

Enjoy us while you can. And can-can while you can-can!