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

Samarkand

 

A man wearing only a sodden overcoat and one dress shoe

led a seasick stallion by a rope along the beach

slowly, so slowly

like their ship that descended the ghostly green.

He said to me, "No kiss of yours can replace deck and cabin,

keel and hold. No woman is as precious as the next breath."

Sadly, so sadly

he wandered away, wearing only one earring and a felt hat. 

I was, then, a Multilingual Sister of the Silent Bell

and led the abandoned animal through our courtyard

carefully, so carefully

so as not to disturb the stillness with the thunder of his heart.

Wearing only a sundress and carrying one rope sandal,

I know now that summer pavers are warmer than a drowning man.

Slowly, sadly, carefully,

I flowed that day like water from the stone of Samarkand.

______________

for Word Garden Word List--Keith Reid.

Music: Chantel Chamberland Temptation

Indian Rope Trick

 As a child, it was always expected that I'd climb.

For the rope trick to work, the jamoora assistant must be obedient,

but I was always more likely to be a burning bride,

going up fast, but on my own peculiar vertical gradient.

In the trick, a rope is left coiled in a basket

at some distance in an open field like a baby at a fire station.

It will then begin to rise like a bhoot as the fakir tasks it,

straight up--it's only disbelief or cartoons that add the ululations.

I was the skipper's little daughter, my father in his linen suit

who read me Longfellow--The Wreck of the Hesperus--

and planted without knowing it, the ghost, the bhoot,

that sank my obedience and scotched the trick for both of us.

When the rope has risen, the child is sent out to climb,

disappearing in the clouds, not answering the fakir's call,

He follows behind with a knife and rose in his smile,

to chop her up, bring her down, and reassemble her after all. 

Do you believe in all that?

Or the tales the Upanishads tell?

Do you believe the Victorian accounts as fact?

And the zombie obedience of jamooras as well?

Of course, the trick is just bullshit.

I disappeared into Ginsberg and Grover Lewis--that's real--

reassembled myself, got high then got straight,

and put my queer shoulder to the wheel. 

________

For First Poems: Door To The Wilder Eye at Earthweal, hosted by my dear friend Hedgewitch. She wants to know what instilled in us "...the  maker's rage to order words." 

Notes: The earliest poem I can remember being thrilled by was Longfellow's poem about the Hesperus. My father read it to me and showed me the book--which I still have--so that I could find it again and read for myself, which I did many times. Later, I found the same visceral feeling of discovery when introduced to Dickinson, Ginsberg (from whose poem "America" I have taken my final line), and my man Grover Lewis, all of whom crashed into my orbit and altered my trajectory by the time I was 18. I come from a family of achievers, and my great love of poetry, music, baseball, and not much else came as a sharp disappointment to my parents. But, the die was cast, and as Emily wrote: "The Soul selects her own Society--Then--shuts the Door"

The Indian rope trick goes pretty much as I have described in the poem. It is probably a Victorian fiction from the time of Empire, but who knows? A jamoora is a child assistant, blindly obedient to the fakir or magician performing the trick. The term can be used simply to describe a mindless conformer. A bhoot or bhuta is a ghost. The Upanishads tell a fable similar to the rope trick, except this time it's a juggler whose juggled objects disappear, then come back down and reassemble. 

 

The Post Office of Souls

 

At the Post Office of Souls, there's a late letter

and the hand that wrote it is the hand that delayed it.

The sorting machines are made of jacaranda and white iris--

only the postmistress is fully automated, an Egypto-Mechan perfect fit.

Stamps roll out from dreams and are hard to remember.

Women hired to sleep them also catalog--they are pregnant with postage

and have your address on file, a complete roster of your life in miniature.

They deliver you, cradle you, sing you on through to your dotage.

The aisles are of indigo water mermaid clerks circulate under

estimate arrival times, currents, allowing for windage and mercurial local poohbahs.

Open an envelope, catch the scent of lilacs, bribe Anubis with a kiss

and receive safe passage, receipt of contents, S.W.A.K and certified, you cannot lose us.

________

for Dverse "Compound Me." I have used "underestimate."

Austin

 "Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack

I went out for a ride and I never went back" --Bruce Springsteen "Hungry Heart"

When I met you I was nineteen and on intimate terms

with Beat poetry and Budweiser,

sitting at the bowling alley bar, Howl in my hand,

sweat from a gin and tonic on the margins.

You'd read the books I hadn't even heard of yet,

an ex-teacher ten years ahead, 

scrawling The Wall, Jean-Paul Sartre in pencil inside the cover of a book I've still got

and I miss you every time I see it.

I was like a little firefly and you the night,

warm as July, funny as the best bonfire story,

drunk as skunks and amazed with each other,

we made Detroit seem like a thing worth doing twice.

I get that ache, you know, like looking at a night road,

maybe the one you took out of town to an interview that never was.

Couldn't you have given me your unhappy restless heart?

I would've done anything to soothe the blue if you had let me.

From nineteen to thirty is a long stretch.

Maybe it began to feel like a bad fit when I sobered up.

Didn't you know, you were my favorite high and I'm sorry

if your suffering got by me, and I lost you forever 

From being so sure you would always be there.

_____________

for the Sunday Muse #152.

Easter Sunday

Late April 
Sunday morning 
silent but for
shifting winds.
Dead leaves 
hurry toward 
the roof peak,
then, dizzy,
off the edge
to thin air.

I miss you.
I don't--
miss you. 
I've put my 
sweater
on and off a 
dozen times.
My dog likes
facing into 
the breeze.
He can't
decide, can't
stay still.

Easter morning,
Sunday silent 
but for
shifting winds.
I listen
for your car
on gravel
and for 
birds who
out-quicked
the cat.
They are
restless--
they search and
search.
I get up to 
leave, but 
stand there.
My dog looks
a question.

I miss you.
I don't--

---.
___________

for Sunday Muse #52. I am hosting. You are invited!
 

Dogma Doppelganger Double Mocha Shake

You don't have to stay here.

Split, via

the inspiration in your mind

or the needle in your arm.

Pack your bags,

pack it in,

pack a punch,

be out to lunch,

but this--

this life

this body

this beehive of the mind

can be hoisted on the lift of the universal bump shop.

You don't have to

stay here

do this

answer the bell

stay in or out of Hell

read this poem

live this life

stay large or small

or anything at all.

Dig it.

_____

For The Sunday Muse #49.

 

Upon Receiving My Woodstock Chimes

Asian pear tree branch

mother of April's white blooms 

hosts brass temple bells 

____

A hai...ha...hik...

A three line poem for "Season Your Poetry"

Someone activate the holo-doctor. I feel funny.

 

Here Comes Some Bitch

Here comes some bitch up to your door
over to your table
knee-walking across the goddamned bed
to tell you she's sleeping with your honey and there's nothing you can do.

Here comes some lunatic with bad hair 
who's got nukes but no sense
no filter
no off switch and by the way slept with your honey, too.

The first thing I'd advise is--don't panic.
Most things can be solved by litigation or homicide,
and those that can't can usually be put out of mind with intoxicants.

Then again, maybe you've been through all that,
teeth gone, hair gray, with a thousand cats on the davenport.
Maybe you pitched that bitch out the window,
the upstairs window, and never felt so good about anything before in your life. 

Good for you, Toots. Bitches love free flying lessons.
______

 

Bad-Ass

Here is the truth:
I was a mouse-girl, a shooting gallery duck,
knocked flat a dozen times a day.

I didn't have a lot to say.

If you kicked your big clown shoes out,
I'd meet them half way and feel like I'd had an appointment.
I was a "kick me" sign from the time I was alive.

Damaged goods.
Not pretty.
Head in the clouds.
Just like my father. 

So here came Momma with the big test-your-strength hammer. 
Metronome BAM!
Off to school I went, for more 
BAM BAM BAM!
Lookin' at my shoes, not much to say.
Waiting for the next hit.

I coulda grown to be a nun or a serial killer,
But Momma had dibs on God and I was too shy to turn evil.
Now looka me.
Bold as brass when it suits me to be.
Momma's dead, both inside and outside my head.

Mostly good.
Not pretty.
Head in the clouds.
Just like my father, down to the mental case girlfriends.
Can't stand lies, so I'm still lonesome.

Here is the truth:
I'm Athena's owl with big bad-ass talons
and feathers soft as well-lit paradise.
I got here in a roundabout way.
So what?
I'm here,
and will screech and strut just as exactly as I please.
_______

for Wordy Thursday: Silence Breakers.

 

 
 

Songbird

Out of a jewelry box--
in summer--
came a soul.

Creating a body from candle wax,
and fashioning feathers from locust leaves,

it said itself a songbird.

From the hand of the Boho Goddess--
in plenitude--
came night, bouzouki stars, pendant suns.

Little songbird, no bigger than a breath--
how empty the world--

and the wooden box
of my heart suspended--

when you're gone.
_____