Dance

Last Dance

Last Dance

Ten years ago,
in the Hospice for patients,
the shy lady in the corner,
body withered by cancer,
stood up to dance.

She bowed to the band
then floated into movement,
dancing alone.

She clung to the empty air
as she once clung to her lover.

Nymphs and shepherds
played sweet music at midnight
in this room turned sacred grove,
where naiads and dryads
emerged from the shadows.

Her dance-steps
were a draught of joyous water
from the fount of eternal youth
and lasting love.

Commentary:

Moo offered me one of his paintings for this poem. He calls it Keep on the green side. Every Wednesday, in the hospice, a local band came in to play. Some patients danced, others sat and watched, some stood on the sidelines and listened to the music.

I had the fortune to be present at the singular performance recounted above. I never found out that lady’s name and I never saw her again afterwards. She remains a mystery, like the naiads and the dryads, and the hamadryads, who inhabited those mythological woods where so many of us dream our dreams of one last chance and one last dance.

Clepsydra 25 & 26

25

… how will it all end
     does it not need closure
          something to bring
               the water-wheel full circle
                    a golden key to open
                         what

the museum’s door
     memory’s door
          the archives where
               so many memories lie
                    gathering dust

though some may tell the truth
     whatever that is

or does the story go on and on
     never pausing
          never ending
               wrinkle after wrinkle
                    threaded through time
                         after time
                              the candle
                                    burning

the clepsydra
     dripping all life away
          the pendulum
               swaying
                    back and forth …

26

… Westminster Chimes
     chiming the quarters
          church bells
               ringing out a warning

the hills alive
     alight
          with burning beacons

what new armadas
     sailing now off our coast
          what fireflies flicker
               their thunderous roar
                    frightening birds in trees
                         driving deer
                              into the woods

how many people
     cast forth like bread
          upon the waters
               to return ten-fold

hark to the bells
     ringing out again
          St. Clement’s
               St. Martin’s
                    the Old Bailey
hark to the children singing
     dancing in a circle
          never-ending
               until the music ends

and the last child
     is caught by
          the lowering arms
               trapped
                    a fish flapping
                         in the osprey’s grasp …

Commentary:

I wonder how many people still sing the children’s song about the bells of London? Images from it – intertextuality – occur throughout Clepsydra.

“Oranges and lemons,”
ring the bells of St. Clement’s.

“You owe me five farthings,”
say the bells of St. Martin’s.

“When will you pay me,”
ask the bells of Old Bailey.

“When I grow rich,”
sing the bells of Shoreditch.

“And when will that be,”
sing the silver bells of Battersea.

“I do not know,”
booms the great bell at Bow.

“Here comes a candle
to light you to bed.
And here comes a chopper
to chop off your head.”

The song appeared at children’s parties. Two of them joined hands, held their hands high, like London’s Tower Bridge, and the children, in a long chain passed beneath the ‘bridge’ as the song was sung. At the end, the children speeded up and they tried to avoid the last verse when the bridge’s arms descended and two children were caught. These then had to replace the original two gate-keepers and the game started again. At least, that was how I remember it being played.

It is worth remembering how violent in their imagery children’s songs can be. The games seem sweet, but they often have dark undertones, some going back to the Black Death – “Ring a ring a rosies, a pocket full of posies, atishoo, atishoo, we all fall down.” If you don’t know what that all signifies, go down the rabbit hole with Alice and the white rabbit and look it all up! And find out what a farthing is, and a penny farthing – go on – I double-dog dare you!

And remember – poetry carries its own meaning – or multiple meanings – and they are not always easy to find. Dig, my friends, dig. There’s gold in them there hills.

Clepsydra 11

Clepsydra 11

11

… gone too
     that Raggedy Ann doll
          held together
               by her patchwork heart

cross-stitched lovingly
     with needle and thread
          the sluggish drip-drip
              of her cotton blood
                    proving
                         she is still alive

neither mummified
     nor rat-and-mouse-gnawed
          in limbo perhaps
               but not dancing

asleep maybe
     dreaming in the museum’s oubliettes
          with their closed doors
               their cellars and attics
                    stuffed with memories
                         all dusty and worn

memories
     that only come alive
          at midnight
               when the full moon
                    awakens the shadows

boys and girls
     come out to play
          and walk and dance once more
               beneath liquid moonlight

the celestial lantern’s
     liquescent flame …

Clepsydra 6 & 7

Clepsydra 6 & 7

6

… I say I walked alone
     along a long lonely road

nobody could cross that threshold
     nor enter that inner sanctum
          where hungry metal monsters
               lay in silent ambush waiting

nobody could share that sacrificial altar
     the single bed with its iron frame
          on which I lay on my own waiting

uniformed attendants
     locked themselves
          behind their concrete defences
               away from the radiation
                    so dangerous

while I waited
     for those circling stars
          that would burn
               and scar me
                    to descend …

7

… and single beds
     were only meant for one
         
just me
     strapped in
          tied so tight
               lying motionless
                    as I waited for
                         the bed to rise …

upwards
     into that dark night of the soul
          and I the sole sufferer
               under a claustrophobic sky

behold my body
     a mass of red and green striations
          burned by pin-pricks of light
               walking across my body
                    follow the red map
                          painted on my body

burns and blisters
     body and mind scarred
          scared by knowing
               all this suffering
                    might be in vain

others walked this road before me
     some never returned
          empty places at breakfast
               hushed whispers
                    faces turned away

when the tide turns
     it brings with it
          the joy of life
               a spark of hope
                    life’s waters
                         resuming their flow …

Comment:
All that happened to me ten years ago – but the memories are still fresh in my mind. At night, I often watch those planets circling, closing in, those star ships, guns blazing, burning my skin. So many of us have walked that lonely path, lain on that bed, faced those demons. Holst’s Planets – it amazes me that the music still plays in my mind, the celestial dance still goes on in the ballroom of my head, and the memories refuse to fade, though the burns on the skin have vanished and are long gone.

Limbo

Limbo

I live with my head in the clouds.
What clouds you ask – Alto-Stratus,
Nimbus, Cumuli-Nimbus?

No, I reply, none of those.
At one level I build cloud castles,
in Spain, as they say in French.

But, at another level,
I find myself lost in the medieval
cloud of unknowing, this mental limbo.

Here, grey mists weave spider-webs
of doubt that glisten with dew, and sparkle
with the two-edged sword of thought.

Here, I feel my life-web tremble
and I realize that I alone can walk
this way and try to understand

how frail threads catch small flies,
how words tell stories, but not the story
of all I know, nor where my world will go.

Comment:
Once more I have linked verbal and visual images. Moo’s painting above – thank you, Moo, – called Limbo, depicts a limbo dancer while my poem expresses the reality of that internal space in which creative spirits sometimes find themselves. It is a sort of Limbo of the mind, in which thoughts appear, dance along the frail threads of the mind’s web, yet never really materialize into formal verse or poetic patterns. This is also the lost world of the dreamer. But remember, the dreamers of the day are dangerous people, because sometimes they make their dreams come true.

Songs of Praise

Songs of Praise

Who has seen the early spring wind drifting
its thought-clouds across the grass, moving
shadows over the lawn’s green, thrusting spikes.

Sometimes, I speak my thoughts aloud, hoping
that nobody can hear or see them as they leave
migratory footsteps across my mind.

Autumn now and I watch the wind twist
leaves from the tree. Yellow and red,
they flee from me. I do not understand
their reluctance to stay, their urge to tear
away and leave. The birds must leave for they
cannot bear the cold, cannot stay without food.

At night, when I close the garage door, I sing
hymns to the trees and to him who always hears.
Each note forms like a pea in the pod of my throat
and launches itself skywards, migrating upwards,
in a feathered flock that celebrates in songs.

Words, migrant birds, their flight unplanned,
will not stay still, will neither perch, nor gather,
nor feed from the outstretched hand.

Click on link for Roger’s reading.
Songs of Praise.

Butterfly Ghost Dance

Butterfly Ghost Dance

I woke up yesterday morning
to find frost on the ground
and a white layer over the green,
green grass of home.

The sun rose, and emerald
patches shone through
while the frost stayed layered,
icing on the lawn’s
Thanksgiving cake.

Occasional leaves lay a scattered
orange carpet. White threads
seemed to move as the breeze blew,
shadows shifted,
and the sun warmed my world.

Then I saw them, the ghosts
of summer’s butterflies,
long gone the live ones,
but their spirits drifting
over the grass gifting me
with warm, sunny memories
to contrast with
that first fall frost.

Click on the link below for Roger’s reading.

Butterfly Ghost Dance

Dancing Bananas

Dancing Bananas

“The only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad,” Salvador Dali. It is a great honor to borrow his words and to be able to make the same declaration: the only difference between a madman and me is that I am not mad.

Mikhail Bakhtin: carnival, the world turned upside down, the world going bananas and those bananas dancing, as you can see in the painting above. It is a mad moment frozen in the still time of paint. And why shouldn’t bananas dance? Some one out there will remember Thunder Bay, 1981: ‘you just have to go bananas’ and the bananas duly appeared at half time instead of the oranges. Saint John, 1985: same thing.

And now the dancing bananas have emerged once more to fill your minds with pleasure and your hearts with joy. Go, bananas, go. Bananas-a-go-go. Way to go, bananas. And I tell you, given the current state of society, going bananas is the only way to go. So, in the next election, I shall form the Banana Party and we can all stand firmly, shoulder to shoulder and shout “Oh, Mighty Banana!” and “Go, Bananas!”

Ah yes, and my next painting? Maybe it will be Banana Custard or Banana Splits, not that I have ever done the splits!

Three Witches

IMG_0252.JPG
Weavings on a back-strap loom,
figures hand-braided from straw, then painted.
When the witches cast their spells,
these tiny figures dream themselves into life.
We gaze spellbound at their dancing.

Three witches: one spins the yarn,
one measures the cloth,
one wields the black obsidian knife,
trimming each tiny thread.

Infinitesimal clockwork figures
balancing on wool, their mouths opening
and closing, silent, like goldfish.

Wooden teeth comb each thread,
the shuttle always moving, weaving whose fate?

Interlaced castillos, scintillating cities,
grecas floating lighter than this relámpago,
this lightning that lightens the air.

Last Dance

IMG_0177

Last Dance

The shy lady in the corner,
body withered by cancer,
stands up to dance.

She bows to the band
then floats into movement.

Dancing alone she clings
to the empty air as she
once clung to her man.

Nymphs and shepherds play
sweet music at midnight in this
room turned sacred grove.

Her dance-steps are a draught
of joyous water from the fount
of eternal youth and lasting love.

Comment: Another Golden Oldie pulled out of the magic hat of a forgotten manuscript. Such a joy to rediscover these things. Draught is the English form of American draft, incidentally, as in draught cider. I hate how my spell-checker corrects my spelling, even when it is correct. Wednesday was dance night in the hospice. At seven o’clock a band would arrive and set up at one end of the dining room. Tables were cleared away and chairs placed in rows so that patients could sit and listen or move onto the dance space that awaited them. This one old lady, shy and very much worn down by her treatment, stood up when the last dance was called and floated in an ethereal space that was hers and hers alone. The other patients stood around in a circle and applauded as she danced  and the band played on and on until everyone was dancing and the room was filled with joy and forgetfulness. Such is human strength, even in the face of apparent and imminent disaster. Dance on, my friends, dance on.

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