Atonement of Atomes

This poem first appeared on Jason Evans' excellent blog, The Clarity of Night, as an entry in the "Midnight Road" short fiction contest.

Photograph courtesty of Jason Evans

ATONEMENT OF ATOMES


on that dark day
of the crucifixion
the sky opened up
and the moon
illuminated our sins

was it sweat or blood
that ran that day
was the altar marble
or pale cold skin

why still the darkness
creates our shroud
that hangs off beaten bones
and stirs us to awaken now
as undivided atomes

we were electrified
by an Ionic Savior
his words in us were charged
did not we feel them
stirring in our wombs and
burning in our hearts

we lost an electron
on the midnight road
but in our souls we keep
electricity to light the way
and tears of blood to weep.

A POET IN LITHUANIA

Painting by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

A POET IN LITHUANIA

The narcissus bulbs
she forced in shallow
pots of stone and water,
stretch up, papery white,
in the window,
tall, slender sentinels.
Some of the weaker stems
droop over in agony
against the frosted glass
of March’s night.
The newly arrived storks
shift in their man-made
nests on the roof above her,
impersonating the souls
of the dead poets of Vilnius.
With her heart,
she listens for a whispered
word from them –
some thrilling word
to help her write,
but none will come.
Instead, she hears
the hollow rattling
of their bills clattering
far into the night.
In a few months,
the storks will lift
from her roof in a quiet hush,
catch a warm stream of air
and without a single
flap of their wings,
they will glide
all the way to the Baltic Sea.
Unable to concentrate
on words any longer
and with no lover
in the city now,
the poet will beg
the storks to take her
with them on their flight.
For her passage, she’ll promise
to speak for them,
as they have no
voices of their own.
But the storks,
afraid of losing their independence,
will refuse to take her along.
Forlorn and detached,
she will crumple page after
scribbled page, and throw them
into the blackened fireplace –
long into winter’s night,
as she waits for the skies to turn white
with the wings of the returning storks.
For her - it is not enough
to pen the poem;
she wants to breathe it.

FOR A MOMENT

FOR A MOMENT


we stop
we hold
our breath
we watch
we listen

by the look of things
by the sound of things
we guess a miracle
has taken place

we grasp hands
just for a moment
the wall of silence
opens up between us

we laugh and cry
we sing and sigh
just for a moment
we touch beyond

what we have been
to each other all these
years for a moment
and then
the moment is gone
and so are we

RETICENCE

RETICENCE


Masquerading as a goddess,
she looks out upon the city
as her lover sleeps.
The city looks different to her,
now that he has come back.


She marvels at this,
as she presses her face to the
dark, cold glass of winter,
studying the lights,
and the buildings -
the bridges, and
the streets below.


Knotted tendrils of hair
fall over her shoulder,
and her legs tremble,
as she looks back to
her lover who beckons
to her now.


Glancing out the
window one last time,
she sees dark animals
running on a windy hill -
and pockets of luminous light
in a dark and foreboding sky.

Breathing Poetry

My poem, ICONS, is featured on the wonderful new blog, "Breathing Poetry - A Collection of Words and Emotions." ICONS appears on the January 16 post.

Although, you may have read ICONS here, when I posted it back in the fall - please do YOURSELF a favor and (click here Breathing Poetry )to read the OTHER poems found there. It is a veritable feast for the eyes, not to mention the spirit! Nancy's blog has art, poetry, poetry quotes, contributor's links and more.

I HAUL THINGS

Relief Sculpture by Merissa Garrison

I HAUL THINGS


I haul things.
I drag them behind me
from place to place,
from year to year.
They are becoming
a mountain of
remembering,
casting a shadow
on all four sides of me.


the shadow on the first side

For years, I hid behind
burgundy flowers of dusty damask,
enclosed in a chamber of glass,
looking at the world
through my own fingerprints.
When the real sun had given up,
the artificial one would take its place
above the elm trees, stippled with disease.


the shadow on the second side

When I held myself up
in the afternoon light,
I saw my reflection on
the silver side of leaves.
The sun set my hair on fire,
which slowly baked my brain
and made me sleepy.
I drifted off to fairyland,
where everything sparkled
and where I felt inviolate.

the shadow on the third side.

We stayed for years under
a catalpa tree. I stretched
out beside you in spring,
summer, winter and fall.
Once, when I was heavy
with child, you planted
watermelons beneath the tree.
Soon, they were climbing the
rock wall and disturbing my sleep.


the shadow on the fourth side

My birthday came cold
and late in the day. My gifts
were a blue sky from Germany,
fans from the Orient, an owl
from the enchanted woods, and
words – given to me by an old
friend from the Netherlands,
to help me make it through
one more bleak winter.


I haul things.
I drag them behind me
from place to place,
from year to year.
They are becoming
a mountain of
remembering,
casting a shadow
on all four sides of me.

FROM "THE SISTER POEMS" SERIES

The Star by Edgar Degas

JO


hello dreamer
you were the dancer
on sleek legs
of muscles hewn
on toes of hope
on dusty floors
arms outstretched
in a pose of
crucifixion
twirling magically
and then dying


cool ivory skin
smooth like glass
I touched you then
but did not know you
but I loved your magic


in you I saw
the reality of dreams
the beauty of youth
the ever stretching hope
of things to come
and the world as mine


you were me
and I was you
we didn’t know it then
until arm against arm
we saw the reflection

MISSING VINCENT

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

MISSING VINCENT


When I saw you in Paris in the spring of ‘87
your eyes were yellow-green and steady.


Your head was made up of short, broken strokes
of carrot color hair, styled like my father’s.


You were surprisingly neat. I noticed that
your blue cravat matched the buttons


on your jacket. Even in detached Paris,
you were emotionally motivated.


Your compassion for toil-worn souls
was still apparent. Even though your


palette was light and airy then,
I knew that your heart still belonged


to those who ate potatoes
in the semi-darkness.

WORDS

WORDS

What can I say to you
that has not already
been revealed in these tiles,
scattered in magnetic profusion
on the face of my cold, flat life?

Honestly, if I could write to you
without words - I’d do it.

What words can give you back that morning,
when you ran to the top of the mountain
to see a red tail hawk resting in a chestnut tree.
Yes, I saw you running, your hair
a silky river streaming behind you.

If I had words to send you, I would want
you to swallow them like a tonic,
because I know, they would be potent.

But my words lay hidden, like onionskin eggs
placed in cold clumps of new, spring grass –
wizened eggs, petrified now,
in their waiting to be found and counted.

Back when our days belonged only to us,
my lips gave the trees permission to whisper
our names to the larks winging overhead.

And now,
now a silence of words gathers at the rim of
my life and prevents me from saying all those
things that I should have said years and years ago.

Words…
written, spoken,
lost, broken.

ETERNAL

ETERNAL

The first fire of day
catches in the corner
of a gray November sky,
as winter trees bristle
on the spine of the mountain,
like hair on the back of
an angry dog.

I turn my face
to the ancient wind
and listen.
I hear the young ones singing.
I hear the old ones wailing.
I hear their voices telling me
something…something.

SPINNING ON ONE'S OWN AXIS

Art work by Picasso

SPINNING ON ONE’S OWN AXIS

Like smoke from the
leaves of autumn burning,
my thoughts stratify over
the fields in thick
layers of contemplation.

Only the sound of my voice,
calling out my own name,
cuts through the miasma
and swirls crazily upward,

where it splinters into a
thousand words that shard
down into the ears of the deaf,
echoing like an insidious litany.

Go home now.
It’s too late.
I can’t help you.

TOMBSTONES

TOMBSTONES

rise up
in a stubble
of gray warts
across the great
green body of
the memorial lawn
fungus of the
dead and gone
telling us about
who we used to be

ICONS

ICONS

I started out life flanked by my
mother’s wild flower garden
and the Kanawha river,
that ran cold and choppy
over the shoals that held
fresh water mussel beds,
ancient in their ruin.

I was captured at an early age,
held prisoner, then protected
by the mountains all around me.

At night, I was lulled to sleep
by the rhythmic clankety-clank
of the coal trains,
pulsing up and down the tracks
- like blood in veins -
keeping the people alive.

LAMENTATION

Painting by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

LAMENTATION

Someone said it was
time to go. I was loathe
to leave the whispers behind.
We traveled huddled together,
a knot of professional mourners,
with pasty masks covering
our suntanned faces.

“Listen” broke our stride,
and we stopped on our path
in the middle of our thoughts.

Galloping out of nowhere
a troop of tumblers arrived
for our entertainment and distraction.
How could we have torn our cheeks
and gnashed our teeth, when we were
much amused by apparitions of acrobats,
who were able to leap and rise above
the curtain of our false grief?

Like ghosts always do, one by one,
they jumped and somersaulted into
the thin air around us, tumbling and
flying above our heads. We watched
them until they disappeared from sight –
somewhere way up the path over
a stand of buttonwoods.

Again, someone said it was time to go.
In unison, we adjusted our false faces,
shuffled in step, slumped our shoulders,
and hung our heads. We had to get back
to mourning the dead.

SORROW

SORROW

I saw your foot
move into my frame,
while I sat motionless
beside the bed of an invalid.

Cry for me,
your foot said,
cry for me!

I have walked around
the earth three times.
I have cut me in half
on the bone of a whale.
I have balanced on the
backs of sweating men.
I have been severely bound.
I have waded through nuclear ash.

I can’t cry for you,
I said,
at least you are a foot!

Suddenly, your soiled rags
could be seen beneath the curtain.
You picked them up with your toes,
as if your toes were fingers;
and one by one you
buried them beside you.

MYSTIC HOUR, BLUE AND PALLID

MYSTIC HOUR, BLUE AND PALLID


I am becoming Baudelaire’s sick muse,
mostly because of the nightmare visions
I have of myself – hollow eyes, steel hair,
knotted, twisted, burning – silent.

I once carried a dream, as if it were
a child, close to my breast - dying
now – consumptive, a blood veil
covering the one white iris.

You asked me, once, what sense could be
made of the delicate scent hovering around
our bed, as we floated to the moon
to light our torches and to fan the embers
that we thought were dead.

I had no answer then, but this I know -
this long weeping that you hear now, will roll
from age to age, from one generation of
muses to another, until we can no longer
inspire the poets who need us so desperately.

WAITING FOR TED

WAITING FOR TED

Amid bags of fruit
and coolers filled
with bottled water,
we sat on the bus
waiting for Ted.
We passed the time
in hushed tones
of polite talk and
civil manners, while the hour
to go came and went.
The bus driver shifted
and coughed, as he
ate a donut - wiping

the powdered sugar
off his fingers

onto his clean pants.
An old hippie jumped
off the bus and walked
around studying a map of
an arboretum, as he clicked
his heels and hummed.
The ruddy-faced art
students giggled nervously
in the back of the bus,
eating cold toaster pastries
and reading banned books,

waiting for Ted.
A young woman
fixed her already
perfect make-up
and smiled at herself
in her compact mirror.
Then, just as the
morning sun slanted
through the front
windows of the bus,
Ted showed up with his
big silly face and his fake
radio announcer voice.
Someone flushed the toilet
in the back of the bus,
as Ted bowed and Shakespeared,
“A pleasant morning all.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed

heavily - as I reluctantly
moved my mesh bag of apples -
so that he could sit down beside me.

DEATH OF A GIANT

Painting by
Merissa Gilbert Garrison


DEATH OF A GIANT

The immense white birch tree
in the back woods is dying -
its broken limbs now pasted
to the sorrowful sky,
as woodpeckers tattoo
its papery white skin
with black funerary designs.
Clusters of insects and blotches of mold
congregate and multiply in its folds
of scalloped bark and toothless grin,
as gatherings of birds in silence, grieve -
on rotting branches like feathery leaves.

ART EXHIBIT

ART EXHIBIT

I saw your boots at the door.
For years, I thought they
belonged to your father.
I didn’t know your friend
had given you his own boots
to wear when you were ill.

Whose coat did you wear?
Was it yours, or did it belong
to one of your neighbors?
Seeing only the memory of it,
cut black in a triangle corner,
it was hard for me to tell.

Studying your boots
over the shoulders of your admirers,
I noticed perfect scratches on them,
made by thorny weeds
that did not impede your daily walks,
nor hinder your getting well.

I never spoke the words to my companion,
- With his boots, I’ll start my own journey -
but leaning into her,
I saw the image of what I was thinking
painted on her face
in illuminations of ochre and pearl.

Can I borrow your borrowed boots
to trample down the weeds growing
up all around me?

Can I wear them
to walk myself well again?

PHOTOGRAPH FOUND IN A CIGAR BOX

Your Kodak paper eyes stare
up at me from your cigar box coffer.
They invite me to know you.

You lived in a Victorian house on Main Street
filled with books on phrenology.
Your husband was more delicate
than you would have liked a man to be.
On Wednesdays, you met with friends for tea.
You had neither the time nor inclination
to work on jigsaw or crossword puzzles.
Secretly, you wished for a child.
You brought a calico cat back to life,
after it had been struck dead by lightning.
You named him Hot Shot. He became
your confidant and lived on with you
for another fourteen years.
You had a passion for Japanese art.
Your corset was never tightly laced.
You learned to ride a bicycle when
you were twenty-three years old and
like your mother, your middle name was Grace.
And every chance you got, you would dance
in the willowed back yard, being careful not to
step on the blue chicory stars
scattered here and there beneath your feet.