Sun Bird
You fill a hole in my life
with a strange unfamiliar
super glue
that bonds me to you
ties unseen unknown
bind us and stop me
from being alone
we neither touch
nor hug
yet a secret stream
links us joining us
mind to mind
manna from heaven
descends on the desert
more powerful
than mortal love
Two natural phenomena affected Monte Albán and its population. The first was drought and the dried earth with its brown and yellow tinges is clearly visible in these photos. The second natural problem came from earthquakes, for this is indeed an earthquake zone with active volcanoes causing tremors at regular intervals. The temples, even today, sometimes need repairing as earthquakes have been known to destroy even the reconstructed temples.
In fact, the abandonment of Monte Albán may well have been caused by an earthquake that cracked the enormous natural cistern in which the population’s water supply was stored.
The Danzantes are strange, grimacing characters that have been carved into prisons of stone. They may be captured warriors awaiting sacrifice or the chieftains of conquered tribes humiliated, perhaps tortured, and then flash frozen into stone photographs where for centuries they have danced out their torment. Whoever and whatever they may be, they still dance on Monte Albán.
My poem, The Dancers and the Dance, captures a different form of dancing. It is taken from my book Sun and Moon: Poems from Oaxaca (2000) and contains echoes of the vibrant folkloric culture that thrives to this day both in the city of Oaxaca and in the Oaxaca Valley. Here, traditions are remembered and relived. Each year, on the Day of the Dead, for example, families place food and drink alongside photos of the dearly departed on altars inside their houses and their doors are thrown open to welcome their deceased family members as they return along the marigold paths that lead to their former homes.
The Dancer and the Dance
1
she comes here to dance for me
only for me does she dress this way
she shows me her dreams
unfolding them one by one
silk and cotton garments
drawn fresh from her scented closet
thin copper bracelets
carved wooden mask
only her eyes reveal
subversive flesh and blood
2
she orchestrates her story
skin drum
rattle of seeds in a sun-dried pod
single violin string
stretched across an armadillo’s shell
I too am tense like an instrument
waiting to be played
the bones of my love
reach out towards her
3
when she makes her music
familiar spirits return to the earth
dancing in a sash of moonlight
she recreates an ancient spell
gold letters plucked from dark scrolls
no wands no words
just water’s purity
flicked fresh
across lips and face
she binds me with the string of notes
she undoes with her hair
our bodies form an open altar
we worship with mysterious offerings
drawn from wells set deep within us
4
Rain falls from the sky
Moon turns his face away
suddenly in darkened alleys
clouds hold hands and dance
dense streamers of light
dangle from street lamps
shadows remember their forgotten steps
gently she draws me to her
I try to follow
frail whirlpools of withered leaves
fragment weak sunshine
in light’s watery pool
5
her magic grows
I take my first step
an unmapped journey
into desert space
we move to old rhythms
across moon flecked clouds
raindrops fall more slowly
faltering drum beat
diminishing water
6
high above us
the ghost of a melody
shaking its head
wringing its hands
we return at last
to light and air
the moon’s vacant face
scowls in an empty field
someone has plucked the stars
one by one
and threaded them like a chain of daisies
now there are no sky flowers
to adorn the night
7
noche de rábanos
someone has taken a knife
and peeled an enormous radish
this cartoon moon face
this full skull hanging from nothing
this lantern lighting from above
now my lover sculpts time
and space
into small chunks
each sacrifice
a jewel between her fingers
I pin to my chest
three small notes
and a skeleton of words
8
inside my dancing head
the fires have gone out
without her hands to guide me
my feet have turned clumsy
scars layer my wrists and ankles
star crossed bindings
cutting against the grain
I gather a harvest of stars
she holds them in her eyes
her fingers are grasshoppers
making love in my hair
when she kisses my fingernails
one by one
we both know our bodies
will never be the same
9
together we weave a slender cage
she cuts out my heart with her tongue
placing it on an altar inside the bars
she locks the tiny door
a silvery key wrought from moonstone
my fluttering heart grows miniature wings
next time the door is opened
my wings will fly me to her lips
my heart is a caged bird on a tiny perch
it chirrups a love song
its image in the mirror answers back
breathless it scrapes its wings on the moon
its body striving upwards to the stars
10
on Monte Albán the danzantes
sway to soft music
their shadows dance in and on stone
as they have danced for centuries
wind rustles the grass
moon casts sharp shapes
darkness ascends the temple steps
huge fingers grasping upwards
an owl’s feathers clutching at the skies
at dawn tomorrow
the sun will rise beneath our feet
we will squint down on its majesty
we will pluck the ripeness of its orange
in our outstretched hands
11
our last night together
I pluck a blossom from the tulipán tree
a final offering of my love
she gives it back
I place it in the pocket of flesh
where I once kept my heart
tomorrow when the flower breaks
it will stain my shirt
a damp splash of blood
no longer running in my veins
the scent of our happiness
will cling forever to my fingers
Swings
They told me that one day
my feet would be up in the air,
and the next they would be stuck
on the ground.
A roundabout, they said,
a merry-go-round,
with all the fun of whatever fair
happens to be around that day.
Someone, not me, flicks a switch,
music plays, the carousel horses
move up and down, slowly at first,
then faster and faster as day, music,
and horses all gather pace.
There are no reins. If there were,
I would heave those horses
back towards whatever reality I left.
But what is reality now?
These hot flashes that warm my flesh?
Those cold flushes that make me shiver,
then turn up the heat
until I am sweating again?
Shadows grow. I pull less strongly
on the swing boat’s ropes.
My journey slows. The showman
raises the bar beneath the wooden hull.
Wish it or not, my time is nearly up.
With a bumpety-thump,
my journey grinds
to its inevitable end.
Comment
Moo is having a bad hair day. Somebody glued all his paint brushes together and he hasn’t painted anything for a long time. The painting above dates back to April. Oh dear. Poor Moo. I shall shed a little tear for him, when he is not looking. I wouldn’t want him to know I care, so please don’t tell him. I wish I could unclog his paint brushed for him. but I am not very good at that sort of thing. In fact, I don’t think I am particularly good at anything right now.
Everyday is an adventure now. Every day something happens. Sometimes for the better, more often for the worse. Like a knocked my morning cup of coffee over. Like I burned the toast and the fire alarm went off. Like I squeezed the orange and the juice went all over the table cloth to join the wine stains that I made when I reached for the salt and I knocked that over s well. And don’t let’s talk about filling my fountain pens and leaking ink everywhere.
So – look on the bright side of things. Every cloud has a silver lining. Hooray. Down every rabbit hole, there is a little rabbit. Dig deep and you will find it. Or not. If not, then find another rabbit hole or buy your own rabbit, stuff it down the hole, then dig it out again.
Never surrender. Never give up hope. And look – there’s a rabbit, just going down it’s rabbit hole. Don’t go away. I’ll be back in a little while, as soon as I have caught it. Welsh recipe for rabbit pie – “First, catch your rabbit.” And watch out for those fleas. “Little bunnies have tiny fleas upon their backs to bite them. And lesser fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum.”
My AI investigation tells me that Augustus De Morgan (1872): The 19th-century mathematician popularized the rhyming couplet known as Siphonaptera (the biological order of fleas):
Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite ’em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
Alebrijes step out from dried wood and stand in the shower of paint that falls from the brush’s tip. Yellow flash of lightning, pointillistic rain, garish colors that mirror those of the códices. The carvings take the form of fantasy figures, anthropomorphic animals, and mythological creatures.
Sometimes one individual selects the wood, carves it, then covers it in paint. Occasionally an entire family takes part in the work of making the alebrije. One person collects the wood and prepares it for carving. Another carves and sands it. A third works on the undercoat, and a fourth applies the final patterns of paint.
The great debate: does the form in the wood
reveal itself to the carver
or do the carvers impose their own visions on the wood? In the case of the team, do the family members debate and come to a joint conclusion?
These thoughts, exchanged with wood-carvers in Oaxaca, all with different opinions, have led to a series of interesting conversations. What exactly is creativity? Where does it come from? Do we, as artists, impose it upon our creations? Or do we merely observe and watch as new ideas float to the surface of our minds? How does the creative mind really function? And, by extension, how much of the sub-conscious creative sequence can be placed into words?
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.
Or is this the true source of inspiration?
Tuesday’s Child
1
Thursday’s Child has far to go …
so too does Tuesday’s child,
especially this one, when he sets out
on a Tuesday on a long journey.
Just by chance, I caught this cormorant.
“Behind you, quick,” said Clare.
I turned and ‘Click!’
2
Such a miracle:
the first steps of flight
taken over water.
That first step heavy,
the second one lighter,
and the third one
scarcely a paint brush
pocking the waves.
3
The need for Tuesday’s Child
to take flight lies deep within me.
Fleeing from what?
Running towards what?
Who knows?
All I know is that the future
lies to the right of this photo
and the past lies to the left,
and I don’t know
what either might contain.
4
But I do remember the words
of Antonio Machado:
‘Caminante, no hay camino,
sólo hay estela sobre la mar.’
traveler, there is no road,
just a wake across life’s sea.
5
We may not know what lies ahead
but, like a ship at sea,
we leave white water behind us
and that wake tells us
where we have been
and what we have done.
‘Paciencia y barajar,” / Patience and shuffle the cards Miguel de Cervantes wrote, a long time ago, in the early seventeenth century. I think of it as watching and waiting. We must learn to observe, to stand still and watch the world around us. Who knows what lies there, just beneath the surface, waiting for us to find it?
We know our work is lonely and we thrive in the loneliness of the blank page, the blank screen. We stare at the water’s surface and wait and watch and then we shuffle the cards, the keys, the letters on the page, and something emerges. What will it be?
Carpe diem / seize the day: with the moment seized, we have time now to think, to polish, to work at it until it is ready. And yes, there is pride in that amber eye, pride and a sense of satisfaction.
We know our work is never done. We worry at it, work around it, gnaw it as a dog gnaws at a bone. Little children gathered round our grandma’s stove as the cookies cook we ask impatiently “are they ready now?”
Impatience is our enemy. We must wait in silence: wait and watch. Sooner or later that silver flash of inspiration will light up whatever page we happen to be decorating.
Railway Bridge
1
walking away
from Swansea sands
me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals
a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform
the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge
I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke
filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal
sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle
they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corner
Railway Bridge
2
walking away
from Swansea sands
me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals
a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform
the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge
I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke
filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal
sting and stench
they linger and cling
unforgettable cobwebs
in my mind’s dark corridors
and never forget
that short sharp whistle
Comment 1:
Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.
When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?
McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.
Comment 2:
So, what happens when we change the photo? What if we add a branch line or two to the original poem? How does this affect our idea of creativity, poetic creativity? What happens when we add a different sketch from my painting buddy’s wonderful set of drawings? Oh-oh, that’s not my painting buddy – that’s a set of graffiti on a passing railway car. Sorry, painting buddy, please forgive me. But hey, wait a minute – de gustibus non est disputando – there is no arguing about taste. Somebody painted that box car and enjoyed doing it. Where does art begin? Where does it end? How formal can it be? How informal? How many railway stations do we stop at? I guess it depends on the length of the journey. But one thing I know, don’t get off the train until you reach your destination!
Railway Bridge
walking away
from Swansea sands
me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals
a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform
the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge
I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke
filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal
sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle
they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corners
Comment:
Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.
When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?
McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.
Swansea Sands
walking home
over the railway bridge
sand in my hair
sand in my socks
sand in my sandals
sand like sandpaper
sanding me down
tides rise and fall
sea gulls call
the bay so big
and me so small
as tiny as a tiny
grain of sand
Comment:
Not Swansea Sands at all, sorry. But a sandy beach all the same, here on the southern shores of New Brunswick, down by St. Andrews. The theme of the poem comes from Blake’s ‘to see the world in a grain of sand’. It might not be Swansea Sands, but there’s a great deal of sand down on the southern shores of NB. I worked on this poem with one of my writing buddies, who visits me regularly. We shared an impromptu creative writing session over the kitchen table in Island View a couple of days ago. Alas, as you probably know, there are no islands in Island View, and there’s not a grain of sea sand in sight. So we improvised.
We started with a central idea – a grain of sand – and from there we talked about how to generate a poem, from scratch so to speak, in three steps.
(1) The first draft.
Write as it comes to you – just write. Just bounce from word to word, line to line, like a supercharged, literate budgie. Take about 3-4 minutes for this. Then read it aloud to partner / writing buddy, checking on sound and rhythm.
(2) Second draft.
– Eliminate words and ideas that do not fit the central image. Remove anything loose or unclear. Then read it aloud to partner / writing buddy, concentrating on sound and rhythm.
(3) Third draft.
Polish and finalize the poem. Sometimes a fourth draft is needed, but in this case we settled with the third draft. At this stage, pay careful attention to the poem’s ending (closure is always difficult). Reorder, add, and polish, as necessary. Then read it aloud to partner / writing buddy, checking on sound and rhythm.
From the initial image – to see the world in a grain of sand – I generated two poems. My partner / writing buddy generated a short story that would fit into their current sequence of childhood memories. Other ideas for further poems also came through.
Conclusions;
Image generated
not by Big Brother
but by Little Brother
who left the Frying Squad
to become a painter
and mind-reader
Waist Land
Jack Pine Sonnet
living in a waste land
surrounded by books
he writes in his journal
things false and true
in memory of the old days
when the world seemed so new
a life built on sand
slips through his fingers
wouldn’t it be grand
if the sand stays and lingers
refusing to pass through
the hour glass’ waist
so time stops to flow
then he could say no
leave me alone
there’s more sand to fall
I don’t want to go
Comment:
It’s a bit like a cliff-hanger, isn’t it? Hanging on by our fingertips and not daring to look at the depths down below. We know they are there, but look, there’s a tiny fossil in the fissure in the rock, so much older than us, we’ve got a long time to go to catch that up. And remember – 80 is not old, if you are a stone!
Treading air – great fun. Not as good as treading warm water in the local YMCA. Just a lovely sense of balance, floating there in the warmth, no weight on arthritic joints, and the world around us amniotic, as it was in the beginning. Ah, those original waters, we have all swum in them, the rich and the poor, the black and the white, and all shades in between. Even King Charles and the late Queen. And remember, they may speak of blue bloods, but all blood is red -and, if you cut us, do we not bleed.
Speaking of bleeding – blood-thinners – my favorite doctor’s latest joke. I cut my arm the other night, getting into bed. Didn’t even notice. Pillows and sheets soaked in blood when I woke up and my scalloped arm, stuck to the sheet, opened itself up and started to bleed again. Feels like seventeenth century Spain, the wounds of the dead man re-open and start to bleed when the assassin appears before him. Certain truth. Obviously 100% guilty.
And they tell me that in South Wales people are adding cooking oil to gasoline to make the petrol go further. Scotland Yard sent the Flying Squad to South Wales to sniff people’s exhaust pipes to see if they were cheating the tax man. I asked my friend – “Is this true?” “Ah, yes,” he said in his lovely Welsh lilt, “and we call them the Frying Squad!”
rogermoorepoet 