There is an attic
In the mind
Where what you were
Is kept intact–
Do not go there
Alone.
The cricket box
With it’s broken hinge
Closed at the wrong angle
Stood silently ajar
Clothed in brass and tacks
Misshapen un-oiled hardware
When opened curiously
Through layers of dust
Disturbed by an old man
Looking for something lost
Long years with clouded vision
Is happy in the discovery
The cricket is still inside
When the lid closes
The Attic
“Today I will climb to the attic and raise the blind
Where narrowed heat lies thick and stale, confined
In that closed room; and I will jar the window loose
And pitch what is no use
Among those piles of yesterday’s
Right clothes, knick knacks sold on highways
Claiming I was there,
Furniture forever spare,
And, hidden in that yellow haze,
That tiny box of letters stuffed so tight
With lovely lies to fill an empty night.”
So saying she ascended with a sigh,
Breathed hard and deep, and then began to try
To sift and sort vast rummages of time;
But moving up there, wordless as a mime,
She felt a present chill of missing hands,
New urgency from packed away demands,
Stares from gone eyes, a silent moan.
She was alone.
She turned and went back down the stairs with sorrow–
“Perhaps. . tomorrow.”
Poetry tag! Your turn, Aussenseite.
The Trunk
There comes a day when youth
Is put away, when truth
Becomes some latches and a lid,
When bright and eager eyes are softly hid,
When one quick heart is to be lain
Awhile, a lock and key away from pain.
Those years misunderstood
When everyone seemed good
And love worthy–they might have died
From all demanded of essential pride
Had not we put them up, air tight, away
From yellowing of slow decay.
We look with old surprise;
We call them happy lies
Of innocence survival wants
No more. But how an opened feeling taunts
With distance where a fastened hasp
Made obsolete our freshest grasp.
Assented , I will be the mark
Which you so far alluded, or merely I am?
Hark! Not for want of polemic, nor of disdain for conforming
To those which have in past, seemed to go on for ever,
Ascending higher into the the consciousness of being
The attick where Dorian grey still hangs, but who’se visage now, the one before, or after, the crucified one, only a man , this man,
The plasticity of his decay, one immobilized and betwixt his posturing grimace , and admirable
Noble savage mask, ; both of which together overcame
In a rapid oscillation , so as now
The mix is real to posterity,
The atticks contain secrets in code,
Where you better decide to lock the door,
Or one fine day lead them upstairs and show,
As she really intended Venus to ascend out of the sea,
OR, just a woman , descending the stairs.
Thanks, Orbie for your good response! Welcome aboard.
A Leaf Among Leaves
Entombed between the pages
Of a tome,
A touch of leaf once green
Went flat and brown;
It bled its image onto other leaves;
And time, which sheds all tales
Of pressing needs,
Still kept its secret of a distant touch.
Breath of season nudges colours to change
Trees bend and quiver to natures coercion
Leaves drain languidly, green to ochre then dry
Bustled by winds, that make each an orphan
The leaf dances wild vacillating on the gale
Beige with passing, his skin whisper thin
Across the tall rows of dusty corn stalks
Rustling their arms skyward to catch him
Falling slowly past the murmuring brush
Gently reminded of the commotion of élan
Missed on the treetop preeminent, observing
Touch is what makes the breadth of a man
Now resting the body on cold mother earth
Beneath bare blackened limbs, once seen grander
The insects devour, and return to the dirt
The concepts based on status and grandeur
Food for a Dance
An eddy of drying leaves dancing in the wind–
I’ve seen this falling, Mr. Eliot,
And would say September
Is the cruelest month, preparing
Supper for Spring out of lives
That must give way
To future appetites.
I sing a song of futures
Fill albums of possibilities
Vinyl filled with soul
CD’s of reflective pop mania
Cassette tapes of stories
The jukebox in my head
Hums constant and loud
Swaying imperceiveably
Shades of blues and gold
Echo off my ear canals
Never escaping their fate
A chorus of hope and promise
Just about drowns out the past
Good positive poem. I can identify with it. My mind does songs that often crowd out my negative thoughts.
Paraphrase–As a Faulkner character said, “Why call it past when it has never passed?”
Rain on the tin roof sounded
Lullaby. I fell asleep
While the old victrola played
“Pharaoh’s army got drownded;
O Mary, don’t you weep”–
And I was no longer afraid.
Sweet sounds drowned out
My fear and doubt.
I was much older when I questioned why Mary should not weep. Should she not weep for the dead Egyptian soldiers? Or should she not weep because God saves his own? But I was a child when I heard that song. Some sounds just comfort one.
duplicate
At night I find myself railing at the starry skies
Searching for the eyes I’ve never gazed upon
Dreaming of dancing in the bright moonlight
Cheek to cheek with nothing beneath my feet
Heartbeats, discordantly thrumming in harmony
I’ve watched a hundred million twinkling stars
Rise gallantly and fall, grow too bright and burn out
Even streaked the sky myself to end smashed aground
My sadness is covered with dissipated stardust
Of stars caught that ended fragmented meteorites
Hopelessly pulled down by my romantic notions
Each sleep it gets harder to close my eyes
I fear the evenings that the clouds hide the sky
Muffling my dreaming to less than a whisper
Or snuff out the night and my hope all together
And in the morning, the sun appears anew
I lose my lovers, fast asleep with their day
Hungers
Virginia, where are you this morning?
I cannot prevent my own moving.
I dare not stop lonely for looking
In deserts of an old dream.
The sun demands that I blossom,
Fulfilling myself with petals
Until the hunger of meadows
Finds its fulfillment in me,
You say you are empty with loss?
Do you know how it is, Virginia?
You are feeling the urge to be final–
Renewing that empties us all.
The rest is an old lie still screaming
Down from a Western madness–
A lie to stop flowers from blooming
By freezing them in a glass case.
I wither with seasons, Virginia.
Stems have been stunted by drying–
But the sun never ceases demanding–
I bend to his hunger with mine.
My hunger, it sits like a child conceiving
Playing with its toys in chaos and wills
To expose all my weakness for believing
Somehow my plate always will be filled
That romance and beauty can come from within
And all around me are free to partake
Engorging themselves 'til I’m just bones and skin
And nothing is left but my lonely heartbreak
Delighted is he, who lives deep in my gut
He twists and sours, 'til I can no longer bear
Shutter the house, throw all my windows shut
Knowing all of my dreams have become a nightmare
I crawl up inside, pull my bed sheets up tight
Listening for the child who goes bump in the night
Slow Time
I lose awhile the harried world’s hysteria,
Seeing you so winsome in Wisteria.
If I could only mend my mind with mystery,
Could balance on the double edge of history,
I would tell the world how time may linger
Lovely on a petal or a finger.
Aussenseite,
Your poems are brilliant/beautiful. You inspire me to keep on trying. So many contemporary poems don’t do that.
Poetry is deflation of the Ego.