Poets of Light

 

You said you like the curtains drawn

that lips are best in the dark

and that such things as kissing your ring

should be done in a circle of salt

that the kind of love

that you speak of

when your seance is channeling

old Poets of Light

wearing cloaks made of Night

appears and then quickly is gone.

You promised that on our wedding night

your kiss would wear a new face

a stand-in for your heart would come

and deal the Ace of Spades

for love of the black

you've stuffed in the crack

between three, and two, and one

where my love grows ill

on your window sill

and dies with all its might.

________________

for Dverse Poetics: prelude to a kiss. 

Music: Labrinth Jealous

Chorus

 Our Lady of the Golden Voice

who makes the shepherds howl

and leaves the clerics' eyes all moist

then gifts them salted towels

Oh Lady fair, oh Lady cruel

riding a treble clef

admit us to your Music School

to chisel loose each breath.

____

for quadrille Monday

hosted by Linda Lyberg

Poets

 

--function best inside of ambulances,

whether driving or

receiving the EMT's fist on their heart as the sirens sing.

--must always be admitted only to hospitals with gardens,

preferably in some Spanish-speaking

hotbox of stucco-and-tile Catholic gin confusion.

--operate in a fog as reluctant circus cannon balls,

making door knockers of their own bones

and entering-and-breaking every secret heart in mid-air.

--arrive at the wedding of themselves to themselves

reciting vows from codebooks

once the property of some demolished poet-angel (body never recovered.)

--have no hero except the homunculus oracle

who keeps them awake all night

weaving flowers around their ears, lit and inextinguishable. 

--translate that thing you always felt but couldn't say,

wear codex clothing

and trespass the afterlife with a Gladstone bag and a talking bird,

in failing health, strong as vinegar, needed but not wanted in all 50 states.

_________

Georia O'keefe

for Word Garden Word List--The Legacy of Ladysmith

and shared with The Sunday Muse # 247.

image at top: BLOOMS by Anna Shuleit.

image at bottom: Charlotte Gainsbourg

Music: Paulo Nutini Iron Sky (utterly amazing)

Word Garden Word list--The Legacy of Ladysmith

 

Hello poets! Have you ever bought a book from a remaindered table and been delighted to discover that you love it? And did that make you wonder how it ever ended up on the sale table? (Hint: we live in a world where Nicholas Sparks is a successful author. To me, that's concrete evidence that we exist inside some kind of sadistic simulation.) In any event, our List this week is taken from just such a novel: The Legacy of Ladysmith by John Kenny Crane.

writer at work

This novel came out in 1986 but it wasn't until 1995 that I bought and read it. I never forgot it afterward. It concerns a writer, Jason Glass (I wonder how he feels about bananafish?) who is researching a mysterious Scottish medical officer from the Boer War named Roberts Menzies. The book is both a sprawling historical tale rooted in actual history, and also a modern-day mystery that takes Jason Glass from St. Louis to Castle Menzies in Scotland and points in between. 

Castle Menzies

I don't know what became of author John Kenny Crane after he wrote this. There is almost nothing about him on line except that he published more books long after this one. Perhaps the long break signifies discouragement at having written such a gem, only to see it remaindered? In any event, I intend to re-read it presently, after I finish posting this!

What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words provided and use them in a new original poem of our own. Then just link, visit others, and sit back in your castle affecting a brilliant Scottish accent!

And now, your List:

ambulance

cannon

codebooks

coy

demolished

fog

foreign

hero

hospital

index

initial

knocker

peculiar

reluctant

riddle

river

spectacularly

syntax

translate

wedding

Coffee Can Cosmos Can-Can

I wrap myself around a stem,

serpentine.

A green throat waving, a 

Chinatown

dragon

but its teeth are on the leaves

to devour 

the sun,

and here I am 

in my taxi yellow dress with black frilled cuffs

a vagabond imposter,

a fool in the sky.

The Tiger Moth and I shared a womb,

our mother

a razor blade in an oxblood robe,

sash tied off like a wound.

Colorful sister, 

displayer of dialects across each wing,

our delirium

has made us.

Look at the dough-ghosts jeering

as they

sag in a bag of ashes.

Shine, inventing parlance with every flutter.

I wrap myself around the wolfs-bane,

my house a blue

roof over

green walls.

I carry solace sticks in a wicker basket,

tincture of Tiger Moth,

and false sun for pale children slate-stone weary.

I slip into the sky

as if it were a jersey

a Merino

atmosphere

that needs me, like you need me

though you don't know it yet,

poor cold

baby,

mon pauvre petit ange!

______

a second poem for Word Garden Word List--A Season In Hell.

Image at top: Clémence Poésy 

Music: The Rolling Stones "She Comes In Colors" 

Hyena

 

Charming razor, second-hand heart,

faceless blank walking the orchards in a black duster,

you've brought wine

and dying birds

for my birthday, five months late. 

There are no seasons scenting your skin anymore,

you're a false summer,

holding up a pennant

that says, "I am here. Drop everything." 

In love with folly, and mock moons, I turn into midnight and let you in.

So tenderly I used to touch the icicles in your hair.

If there are graves in Heaven,

that is where your bed beckons

and always there is a woman reaching up from it,

a hallucination who would do anything for you, even as a phantom.

I told my girlfriends back when you caught me in your spring snare

and I starved very prettily

in your net like a sachet,

I said, "I have kissed a hyena and borne its laugh.

Collect my bones and boil them, my mother-song will stun every April blade.

Charming razor, second-hand heart,

frost your sham love with French cream so that I can bear the taste

as I spit it out.

Bring your playthings

so that I can crush them with the pestle of my tongue and destroy them,

especially my old devotion that spoke such fine poetry in your scavenger ear.

________

for Word Garden Word List--A Season In Hell.

Shared with The Sunday Muse #246.

Image: I Dream of Reaching by Ivan Pili. 

Music: Beth Hart & Joe Bonamassa Your Heart Is As Black As Night

Word Garden Word List--A Season In Hell (Une Saison En Enfer)

 

In Paris by Forain

Hello once again, poets! Athur Rimbaud is our source for the List today, specifically his collection A Season In Hell. (I'm saving The Drunken Boat for a future list!) 

Dicaprio as Rimbaud in "Total Eclipse" 1995

If we were to gather, we cultured and discerning sensitive poet types, in a genteel atmosphere replete with chamber orchestra and little tea cakes, if Arthur Rimbaud were to appear, he would likely show up drunk or high, dirty, crashing into the tables and loudly mocking both us and the musicians. He might cram cakes into his mouth like an ape, say a few words guaranteed to offend, and then leave. Well! 

I am an other. 

Rimbaud's poetry is shocking, intense, unapologetic, wildly gorgeous, profane, and ingenious. It's filled with bizarre and unsettling imagery and is clearly the work of a unique soul. One wonders how a flame so bright didn't just burn itself out, and indeed, all of Rimbaud's poetry was finished by the time he was 20 years old. He went on to travel widely, always expending himself and searching for something I doubt he ever found. 

What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words I have selected from A Season In Hell (as translated Louise Varese from the original French) and use them in a new original poem of our own. Then just link, visit others, and affect a marvelous faux Frenchiness for the rest of the day. And now, your List:

asleep

catechism

charming

delirium

dialect

erotic

follies

French

hallucination

hyena

icicles

lazier

orchards

phantoms

playthings

season

sham

solace

vagabonds

wolf

Word Garden Word List--George Hitchcock

 

Hello poets, and welcome to the new and improved yet old-fashioned Word List, now with more Friday! Nobody seemed to be coming by mid-week, leaving the Word List lonely and mopey, so now it has new permanent digs--it will appear from now on on Friday afternoons. 

This week's List is taken entirely from a slim volume of poetry entitled The Piano Under The Skin by George Hitchcock. It's an amazing collection. Here's a sample, called On the Edge:

you're on the threshold he said

take the knife and cut the river

loose from its mooring put away

that syllabus you're on your own

all the monuments have been recited

too often it's time to trim

their beards and slaughter

their stone horses and what is

this tiny cyst in the middle

of the last crusade?

George Hitchcock (1914-2010) was a jack of all trades--an actor, poet, labor activist, publisher and playwright. The volume I have taken your List words from is from 1978. What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words provided and use them in a new original poem. Then just link up, visit others, and marvel at your own incredible virtuosity! And now, your List:

butter

cicada

cinders

confetti

consumptive

exploded

fractions

geysers

gibbering

gong

lions

mandolin

mask

masquerading

pagoda

plumed

revolver

scaffold

syllabus

wag

The Mandolin, the Bouzouki, and the Oud

 

As we mount the scaffold

(and when

have we not been climbing?

when?)

let there be 

the marvelous kiss of a lively mandolin.

the wry, sensual bouzouki

or

at least, 

the mournful deep pool of the oud.

Let the hangman arrive

on a plumed black Arabian,

the doula with her arms around his belly.

(and when

have they not been so entwined?

when?)

Let her feed him Greek Easter bread from her fingers

with blackberry jam

and churned butter.

There is no word for him 

or us

to say.

Allow him these joys before his task.

Let there be wags

irreverent, wearing bright smocks.

(and when

have they not appeared costumed this way?

when?)

let them tell jokes and ribald stories

so that we might forget our aching knees and hearts.

Let them tilt back their heads 

lifting geysers of Athiri wine up to God

alone in His white pagoda.

Let the blind boy in his dusty thawb 

hand us grapes 

as we ascend.

Let him strike the gong 

announcing our circular travels.

(and when

have we ever left these stairs, even in dreams?

when?)

Let a young woman lead a gray donkey

peacefully across the streets we leave behind.

Let the sky be almost clear and blue

but for one cloud, one bird,

and one sun unblinking.

Let the rope be strong and well tested.

Let the holy man sleep,

his book falling from his lap like a restless child.

Let our memories 

explode like confetti,

and sleep like lions.

Goodbye, the world will say

and then again, always again,

Hello.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--George Hitchcock

and The Sunday Muse #245.

Music: Zorba's Dance-Sirtaki

Message

 The Word List is moving to Friday. No one comes by before the weekend so I am moving it. I will post some time Friday afternoons instead of Wednesdays.