Imagine My Surprise

 

Imagine my surprise

when I noticed that your body beside me

was a cello

and when you snored,

the sound was the most beautiful thing

I had ever heard.

Hush now,

do not speak

or get up, standing stiffly on your one leg.

There is no ceremonial dance to be done.

Our people have all fluttered

away, a cloud of crows

or treble clefs

dotting the air like ellipsis points.

They seed the sky and make it rain

golden notes

glittering dreams

wild and giddy

like experimental harmonics.

You have my ear, darling.

Speak and be 

the instrument of my glorious undoing.

___________

for Word Garden Word List Chouette

Music: Sunny & the Sunliners Talk To Me

Big Sur

 

Back in bus-and-duffel days

turned out, less to than away,

half-high, with no plan,

I went up the coast.

San Luis Obisbo, Carmel, San Fran

and on up to Portland.

That's where we go now

--people my age--

but this was then

when I had no means, no ways,

and just my naivete.

Out in the water, somebody said

to watch for the whales.

They live in the dark underneath,

and like me, come up, then back down

without learning a thing or so it seemed.

On the bus some guy liked

Gordon Lightfoot

You've Been Talking In Your Sleep. 

He spoke my language like a native

better than the pidgin kid that was me.

He told me a blue whale's heart

weighs as much as a grand piano

and can be heard from two miles away.

Bye daddy, behind me down the coast--

thanks for kicking me out.

I wondered, as Seattle became B.C.,

what if it's all just big empty water,

and me lugging some big booming beater for nothing?

Or what if I'm all ears

but the watersong was never for me?

What then? 

And what now?

I look out these days not at California coast

but at Michigan lakes,

cold and deep, choppy or still.

I know only that I still don't know

and never will.

________

for What's Going On? -- Whales and Other Wonders.

Music: Bobby Womack California Dreamin'

Your Only Love

 

A priest arrived by ambulance

to bless our sudden kiss

A doctor brought his bag but cannot

treat such things as this

My jewelry is just colored rocks

like pretty polished hollyhocks

in silver settings gone to curls

the same as any other girl's

but I could be your only love.

A flautist played our melody

in notes so fine and clear

That summer brought her midnights close

so that the moon could hear

the notes, the song so marvelous

the player played so long for us

the priest laid down his holy flask

the doctor blushed before he asked

if I could be your only love.

An urchin took a photograph

of you in uniform

You gave me spice and chocolates

to keep my fever warm

and lucky is the lucky bird

who calls and calls a wafting word

In this peculiar pregnant dawn

his curious and constant song

that I could be your only love.

________

for Word Garden Word List--13 Rue Therese 

Music: Denise King Stuck On You

Śūnyatā

 Sunya, reaching for your hand is like trying to recall a dream I haven't had yet,

but still you wait in the tattered chair

in the water-damaged bow-wooded house

where the bulldozers come to cry.

They shove up great golden cities out of bricks and candy wrappers

while you, Sunya, fanged monster, 

queen of the canopy, collector of 

sunflower sunshine in a woven shoe,

wait with that faintly mocking smile I sail inside of.

Sunya sister of Shiva, cigarette punk from down the block,

are you a tin can tied to the tail of the wheeling Heavens,

or Love itself

in a saffron sari,

taking my bones out with a kiss just to show your quick hand

to catch the  ball we both sway upon, under stars, in the ether, or nowhere at all?

Sunya, you are a man in the morning, a woman in the evening, 

a dolphin all afternoon

and I stand in the surf that doesn't exist

in my flesh that appears and disappears

dealing with a world that seems to be but isn't,

and wait for Sunya, summer plum winter branch marigold kat in an open window.

_________

for Dverse Poetics "the four elements." 

music: Mint Royale "From Rusholme With Love." Just try not to dance to it!

If God Had Meant Us To See The Sky, He'd Have Given Us Eyes On Stalks

Imagine my surprise, my perplexity,

groping around the living room while seeing the bedroom before me. 

Wherever I leave my glasses, I see what they see. They have abducted my vision.

Beware, junior. 

I can actually have eyes in the back of my head now.

Never mind the way I blunder into things.

Hello? Hi dear.

Oh, you say i forgot my glasses on your secretary's desk? 

Silly me! 

(That man-stealing harlot.)

Enjoy your meatloaf.

I made it by feel and it may have some unusual ingredients. 

Two forks? Pick one.

I always use the dog's dish as a salad bowl, don't I? 

Well, it makes a nice change anyway.

Ah! Thank you for bringing home my eyeglasses.

Now I can read your report card, junior.

And sign these divorce papers, dear.

Just give the meatloaf to Rover.

_________

for Sunday Muse #194.

The Man With The Glass Eye

The man with the glass eye
possesses smooth clarity of vision.
He rolls his glass eye
to dispense balm for frail children who then recover.

Look into his glass eye.
You will see yourself split into fractals--
all the selves you are capable of being.
He greets each one
warmly, personally.

At night, he sets his eye on the nightstand
in a glass of solution.
It shimmers like a planet there, from which horoscopes might be drawn.
In the morning he replaces it and is filled with intelligent resolve.

If you meet the man with the glass eye,
do not ask what happened to his "real" eye.
It is in your head,
whispering sweetly.
_____

for Day 10 of my 39 poems in 39 days.

image: Tete d'homme barbu by Picasso.

Emily, 1919

Hello, brother Statue.
You are glorious, your war never over,
yet even the lawn rises in spite of your noble pose.

The trenches here are manned with daffodils.
I have felt them, gobbed with afternoon sun, 
drunk as sailors on the stuff. 

Did you know I was in love once? For five days.
There was an administrator, and the way she spoke, 
with those hard R's and soft K's,

I longed for her interview
and to offer my responses, as I do for the daffs, 
but inside, and without words.

By the end of the week she was gone, like your comrades I suppose.
Now you have new ones--
with avid wings and so they must be angels.
Go to the light, brother Statue. 
I've heard that said.

Dr. Bigelow will unwrap me tomorrow
and....then? Why, then I will be twenty-two again,
and gather my cook books and crochet from their grave-boxes.
If I find your comrades, I will kiss them for you.

Then, I might even hire a car.
My hair wild from the wind, I'll just show up, 
like one of your homing pigeons with a message.

Brother Statue, if you hear an opening door, a hard R and a soft K,
be gentleman enough, old friend, 
to turn--discreetly--away.  
________


For Izy's Out Of Standard: "Waiting for...."

 

Emmylou, At Last

The camera had been drinking, not me!

I've heard those rumors. You know the ones. That I have some kind of fangirl obsession with the singer Emmylou Harris. I don't know who started them, but let me just say right here and now...the rumors are absolutely true!

I was in a record store in Royal Oak, Michigan, where I lived at the time (1975), and they had a wall of record albums displayed. Two of the LPs were by some chick called Emmylou Harris: "Pieces Of The Sky" and "Elite Hotel." The first had a sort of soft-focus image of an ethereal-looking pretty gal, and the second had an image of a gal wearing high boots and sitting on the steps of a hotel, looking like she had attitude to spare. Guess which one I left the store with? Once I heard "Sin City", "Wheels", and all the other great songs on it, I was hooked.

But my favorite of her early albums was the next one, "Luxury Liner." Those songs are like the soundtrack to my young life. I checked the songwriting credits on my two Emmylou albums, and saw that some guy called Rodney Crowell had written several of my favorites. Who's Rodney Crowell?

Time went by. A lot of time! My "Wrecking Ball" cd got a lot of play when I was getting divorced. The next one, "Red Dirt Girl", might be my favorite of them all. All that to say, Emmylou's music has been a constant in my life since I was twenty. "Tulsa Queen" can still make me cry. "Amarillo" still makes me crank up the volume. "Big Black Dog" makes me smile.

A couple of years ago, my dear friend Sherry Marr sent me "Pieces Of The Sky" on LP. I had never bought it, over all those years. I love it, and so, naturally, I went out and found about five more Emmylou albums on vinyl, to go with my cd's (and now mp3's). 

But now, a confession: I had never seen my idol perform live! Enter another friend, Lynn. When she found out that Emmylou and Rodney Crowell were going to be playing Royal Oak, she let me know, and said, "You've got to go!"  (A lot of people tell me I've got to go, but Lynn meant it nicely!) So I did. Last night!

When the band walked out on stage, people clapped and all, but when Emmylou came out, you could just feel the great affection her fans have for her. In all honesty, the band seemed a little off during the first couple of numbers, but then they hit their stride. They played "Pancho & Lefty", "Ooh Las Vegas" and "Boulder To Birmingham", which pretty much brought the house down. Then they played "Luxury Liner." I don't recall the guitarist's name, but man can he play! I do remember Rodney Crowell saying that the guitarist is Australian, and that he describes his homeland by saying "the stars are so bright you can hear them." 

Emmylou talked about how Rodney Crowell sent her a parcel of cassette demos. I loved hearing her talk about stuff. I'd love hearing her read the phone book, probably. Anyway, they played "The Traveling Kind", and a song I had never heard, which made me cry, called "When We Were Beautiful", which I'll include a video of at the end of this post. (It isn't from last night, but the band line-up is the same.)

Emmylou wore red shoes, tight faded jeans with the cuffs rolled up the way she does, a white top, and a loose brown jacket. She looked great. And of course, that hair.

They wound up with "Ain't Livin' Long Like This", a great song I associate with Waylon Jennings, but it's written by Rodney Crowell. They also played an old Ray Price number called "Invitation To The Blues" and a song off "Pieces of The Sky" called "Bluebird Wine" that really made people tap their feet.

So. It's true. Emmylou is awesome, amazing, perfect, etcetera etcetera! At the very end of the show, a handler brought her dog out on stage, and she talked a little about adopting shelter animals and spaying and neutering. Then they were gone, but...not quite! On the way out of town, we passed their tour bus parked at the curb, and who should come striding out the back door of the theater but Rodney Crowell! Bye, Rodney!

Here is that video: