Deep Calls

A warning …           It is not enough to be in the same space. I am a master of masks and double mirrors. To find my path . . . ? (but why would you wish for such a thing?) You must perceive, recognize the ghosts Who haunt my resonant yesterdays, Spectered memories of how things really were. You must see beneath the tattered rags Of the mundane days I wear as camouflage. I will not invite you in. Subterfuge and artifice are my mother-tongue. The passwords are, ah, how does one say? – “ Caché [1] ~ le dessous des cartes [2] ” – Too far inside for anyone to find. Recondite and esoteric mysteries and memories Coat the inside of my world like concertina wire. You make a perilous and jeopardous request. The corpses of the cats should have been warning enough. [1] hidden [2] inside information

Avenge-meant I didn’t. All of us know, all of us: From the seasoned, wise sage with interlocking limbs inhabiting his high hill, To the truculent terrorist two-year old, tossing tantrums into hurricanes – It is the scientific fabric of the universe postulated—sure as hell--by Newton – We know that recriminations are the exhale that air the contrapositive. We crave the settled and appropriate finish, The backhand that whawps the volley back across the net; Is not merely expected, it is needed. It is justice’s congruity, parity, The balance and the birth, the yin and yang. It isn’t that we need it, The universe herself screams for it…or tries to, Yens to, convulses till she swirls in blue exigency. There is a void – and nature abhors a vacuum – Until the scorching aphorism rebounds. Existence becomes a torture chamber of anticipation. As when a cup is imbalanced precariously upon an edge, The when becomes the focal point of unrealized presentimen

A TRIANGLE OF SISTERS Two brought in,             One kicked out; Two beauty striving,             One beauty full; Two mother-led             One mother-lost. But What happened when she left? Without the base They had only each other to stand against. What do you do when what you hate is gone? When no breakfast is coming, will you simply starve? Can you put on airs in a vacuum? If an insult falls in a stairway, but no one is there . . . . Well, you get the idea. They lost so much more than the Prince.

STAMPEDE The green hills are Yellow-licked With new mustard. Bees and butterflies Flirt with flowers. A flock of clouds Wind and gust across the sky. Hawks, like siblings, Play tag to fill a summer sky. But I . . . I am encased In metal and leather. I stampede ahead With all the rest, Racing forward As if there were a finish line.

MORS, ILLIUS MEMORIA [1] Just ten shallow breaths Each one weaker than the last One cry and then gone. That last tiny breath In gale force blew out my life Blew out all my light With both hands I took The edge of darkness and then Sat down in that shroud Tortured by the light All light now too much to bear Dark became my life Taurig [2] and troubled Stormy-dark and sunless soul Bereft of delight Vacant and alone Travail becomes memory I am empty now I am here but gone In the wake I sleep and wake Breathe then breathe then breathe [1] DEATH, HIS MEMORY [2] gloomy, mournful, cloudy

ESCAPE AWAY HOME Home. I walk out of my shoes, My briefcase thumping to the floor, My coat and my day Discarded in a chair. Feet tucked beneath me, in Gram’s comforter, I am swathed against day-end cold. Coffee cuddled to my chest, I plan my escape. I munch on a granola bar, longing For waybread and South Farthing wine. The recipes both treasure-kept There, and far away. The steam rising from my coffee cup Is mist enough to let me Slip unseen beneath the lines To wander familiar paths. Fingers rippling through the leaves, I meander Seeking memories to select my way. Each vista has its charm. How can I choose? The Lay of Leithien to quiet fear As evil black creeps up behind? No, Weathertop is not The place to start. I’m called by bantering of old friends, By laughter and by merry tales, And poems forged beneath stars Shining on homey Rivendell. I

Allude [1] She stood, a cameo Surrounded by the perfect oval of her tall mirror, Amid the scattered this and that Tossed carelessly from the dress-up chest. The gown was a pale, barely-still lavender Scarred by careless coffee drips and after-date make-up smudges. She didn't see them, Didn't see the unmended rip at the hem from a misplaced heel. With an unconscious tug at the sleeve To pull it back up on her shoulder, She focused with the practiced eyes of a Milan couturier On the old lace tablecloth and the mismatched jumble of baubled barrettes Used to transform her braids into a crown . Stepping back, turning slowly -- this way, then that, She surveyed the effect As the light caught the facets in the diamonds of the tiara That held her bridal veil in place. She smiled And she saw her, Saw her clearly ... smiling back -- All but the few left down to dance upon her shoulders, Her chocolate curls were swept up to make a crown.

SAELIG Silly Is foolish. Not at first. It started as saelig And meant holy and innocent. When did the light become dark? Was it shame that laughed at innocence? Or, is our penchant for good just laughable? Hearts still yearn for beauty, still long for light. It takes courage, a wild heart, to stare down scorn. A mocker’s haughty mirth needs sanction. It cannot stand long alone. Will not the gentlest spur turn our wayward swaggering hearts aright again? Truly don’t our hearts long for good, truth, beauty, light and pure innocence? Completely, utterly witless to stand in darkness and disdain the light! It’s just silly .

Reflections The Prince, he Hadn’t seen her. What he had seen As she arrived, was That envy-drunk eyes  Flicked from him to her, To the enchanting new guest Gowned in stardust, magic and lace. He advanced, bowed at a gentle incline And spun her away into mirrors and light Till, to them, she was just that girl in his arms. Lost in mirrors, Lost in candlelight, In a dizzying kaleidoscope Of mellifluous ball gowns and jewels, In reflections of reflections of reflections She was lost. Spinning and spinning And twirling around She was lost. In taffeta, silk, satin, and tulle, In amethyst, topaz and aquamarine, In opal and sapphire, diamonds and pearls She was lost, lost In thousands of candles In hundreds of chandeliers In mirrors and mirrors and mirrors, In reflections and reflections of reflections. Reflecting, She saw That In the Mirrors, In the Candlel

Egress [1]     They saw the mantle in his fist. The air crackling with all the words                   left unsaid between them, he met his father’s eyes and tried to sear the memories into his brain, tried to close the coffin lid. He pressed her lips with his ~ like the pages of a book press flower petals ~ to keep her. Then, he turned and walked away. Side-stepping, leaping over hooves and horns and tails and entrails, he escaped the half-plowed pasture like a general leaves a conquered battlefield. Holding the mantle in a strangling grip, and with ever increasing strides, his feet gobbled up the distance between him and Elijah. [1]  1 Kings 19:19-21

Yom Hu'ledet Sameach [i] With haunted eyes Peering out across the hills, He asks me,                                              or no one, “I wonder…what do you think became of them?” I think of them; I wonder       --  as I often do -- As I lay the plates On the table that they left In payment for their stay. I think of them in this bleak, grey season since the slaughter, grey with sackcloth, grey with ash. That night As if with a rock from a spinning sling We were hit with the squalid smell Of unwashed shepherds. It was then, Then, as we went down to clear The raucous, rude, mess of men away, That he told me of them. “Ah Eli!  And where was your head? You didn’t put the camel drivers in the stable? Her with child, Eli? With child!!?” And then A cry that split the night; And silence fell, And shepherds fell upon their knees, And tears fell in muddy streams Down leathered faces.  We cleaned a room,

Damsel in Distress “Tis the breath of the Ice Dragon.” she’d say, peering deep into the inscrutable fog. “He’s come for me again. He’s not found me yet, but  . . .” “Really, Grammy?” I only half believed her then, well ~  maybe a tad more than half,       as I shivered in her arms          wide-eyed in terrified delight. A deep chuckle rumbling in her chest, she’d light another candle and throw another log upon the fire. “To ward the great wyrm”, she’d say all serious and severe.     Even now the memory of those words sends a thrill through me colder than that dragon’s scales. “She must have wandered out in the night…we’ve searched, but. . .” The convalescent stench coating every immitigable word. I knew. I knew when they showed me the note they found crumpled in the chair beside the fog-soaked window that dreary March morning: “He found me." I blew out the candles and quenched the fire before I left. There w

So I took a poetry class.  This and the following posts are what I wrote there. To Hell With It  ~  ForgetRemembering It is like a thousand thousand voices screaming in my head, all the voices screaming splicing sound and image  each over the top of others demanding    salient           voice on voice,      half faces on ripped photos                    phase on phrase, clashing, crashing,  and simultaneously retreating into scathing silence, burning eyes replacing fiery voices. Departure into now – desertion from a war, war I didn’t start and can’t escape, war that annihilates the me; here and now, leaving someone else that I have come to be. Taking earphones, I turn the calendar up to a million, letting the cacophony of now drown out at first the voices then the very room where I stand. When the retreat is complete I feel at least safe, merely haunted. If you pretend loudly enough, you can always walk through ghost