"October Trees"
How innocent were these Trees, that in
Mist-green May, blown by a prospering breeze,
Stood garlanded and gay;
Who now in sundown glow
Of serious colour clad confront me with their show
As though resigned and sad,
Trees, who unwhispering stand umber, bronze, gold;
Pavilioning the land for one grown tired and old;
Elm, chestnut, aspen and pine, I am merged in you,
Who tell once more in tones of time,
Your foliaged farewell.
- Siegfried Sassoon
I will cut your hair.
But I will not wind it
around my wrist, nor shut
it up in my great-grandmother’s locket.
(It is a gleaming, ticking heart,
longer-lived than her pulsing one.)
I am too afraid of you,
making me your captive, Love.
(With that,
your leaving
would make my life endure longer
than I would have it.)
I sleep.
I cry out, and claw.
His russet locks snake,
waving, crashing, imbibing me. Now,
his hairs choke my mouth,
in the way that he claimed mine
clotted his breath, when he
lay in our bed,
behind me.
Through closed eyes, tears still
swell to wrinkle my brow, and drop
from among my painted lashes.
Are you asking? He possesses my dreams;
though, in waking, I am with you.
He visits me, always, as a crier of cruelest
prophecy: that I will not love you.
And I wake to the smothering, traitorous weight
of having seen his face, but
having drowned amongst your tresses.
“One Youth Dead”
Find her, made tiny by the looming rocks.
Clamor to embrace, like the weed that wreaks
its putrid smell of death in her hair.
You will find no trace of her beauty here.
You will find no trace
of a youthful truce.
You will find no trace, no trace of beauty.
At death, it escapes, taking youth’s bounty.
You will find no trace,
No haste.
The form! The form! Ah, her empress locks,
her slender hands, her eyes do look!
At nothing, nothing, formless being,
Time has sent her spirit begging.
You enclose your eyes in ample shade,
and refuse to look at the unmade maid,
hoping her beauty (her life!) be restored
upon the washing of the shore.
Ah, wash! Wash! She is no more,
and all her beauties were taken before,
before her tender heart knew love,
before her faith had took its leave!
Do you find, redeemed, her departed soul
before her youthful cheeks grow cold?
Do you sing a song to make angels come
to witness twice the death of one?
Do you sigh for one who has been so lost
because of her beauty, her youth, your lust?
Dare you cry upon her chest, grown still,
when war from millions more does steal?
A cooler wind blows down
Off Canadian planes, hits the
Water and stalls.
The season of scrolling iron
Gates revealing themselves
Behind baring trees
Is near. And I find carcasses,
Butterfly wings, rubbed
Raw of color, everywhere.
Remember when you
Pled with me, to be of
Some fiber stronger?
So that my color would
Not come off at your
Touch. You wanted no
Responsibility for feminine
Fragility. I lied and promised
Not to melt. And tried
To harvest a calloused
Shell. But it was spring
And life lent itself
To wings, of powdered
Creation, of dusted and
Flitting starvation.
The window is wrinkled,
Old, thick, glass and
Closed. The being flings
And smashes, flutters,
Crashes, and if you listen
Closely—screams in its
Flapping. “What are you
Asking? That I shed my
Colors now? Make myself
Inert, and rip away my wings?
Or else give them patches and
Make them falsely whole?”
You no longer touch me;
Yet you insist that I fly against
The window, bash off
The stripes of history
Which bear your likeness also?!
I will not.
I cannot undress
Myself of words, or
File off the scales and
Colors that are hers!
(Only, hers.)
“winter always follows”
There’s a man painting the door
to my soul. It needs repairing,
or at least redressing. And I see,
scrawled on a napkin, slanted
prose inside the bathroom stall:
“Warning: this is broken. Handle
with care, or the cover may come
off!” I find humor in this sadness,
passing my reflection on the dingy wall.
I saw your baby sister walking
down my street today. She wore
the sweater, no expression, that ties
me (physically) to an afternoon on the
rocks of
beautiful (as he does now. Do you still?)
in your sister’s sweater, with orange
sunlight making my teeth white, blue
water, moored boats, my jeans ripped
wide, until smoothly flowed my thigh,
framed in fabric, from which you became
unwilling to release me. Now, you look away
when I pass. Call a dog, laugh with
friends—too loudly, with too much gusto—
and I bury my face between scarf
and book of poetry. I await my newly
crowned king. He stoops to the
bench, and kisses me. I watch
--wearily—as the color drains from
your face, across the fountain.
It is a small drama, before I retreat
to the cool, damp trees, to remember
and repeat the thud of language
in my mind. The place where my
mentor was married is the same
place where I made my final stand,
told you that you were deceitful,
and had (in moments) treated me inhumanely,
and, that knowing all of this,
I sill loved you desperately. The place
where now a blonde girl, and
a brown boy hold each other,
listening to rustling leaves that will
fall away soon, and make the trees
bare, broken, beautiful—to sway,
ill-at-ease with their deathly lot,
knowing spring will come, with
new love. But in the memory of
their rings they keep my secret:
winter always follows, with its bereavement.
(perhaps for you, dear reader, this is a bit personal or controversial or icky. get over it. my musings take me where they will...)
(this "poem" is the result of a very interesting experience i had the other night. I was sitting in an appartment with some guys in a band, who just started picking up their guitars, pedal boards, and keyboard/synthesizer, to jam. Sitting on the couch, the musical energy was palpable. I dug out my journal and raced to jot down these lines while they were all playing, wordlessly. It was a creative surge that is rare for me, in the company of others, much less in a kind of collaboration with other "art"...)
