All night the captured dreamer must ride on the back of the
(first pub. in Poetry Depth Quarterly, 1999)
______________________
When I traveled to the town of Sorrow,
bringing my old suitcase
full of stones,
and I was long in arriving
where it was cold,
where it was raining,
where doors hung blindly
waiting for me to choose one
but the town was full of doors,
no knobs, no numbers,
a town of old hotels where all my
old loves were waiting,
dreamed, and lying shadowless
and strange.
Had they forgotten me?
Was I soon enough to hold them?
where I am thin
sorrow pours through
I permit
the passage of sunlight
through these holes
I fold my darkness
like an old quilt of winter
all those squares
taken from old garments
I have been cold
all my life
now I am cured
of my unhappiness
I permit birds to sing
across my landscape
I open my trees for them
(first pub. in Poet News, 1989)
Through the door—the light,
abstract and meaningless.
The door itself is a passage.
It frames all who enter—
to stay or leave.
It leans a bit toward or away
from the light. It gives
permission. Always allows.
It makes the difference
between forever and never—
the point of view. It has no knob.
It swings, or is a curtain.
It never tires, holding up the walls
that depend on it, that need the roof,
and the floor—the meaning of the door.
(1) why number
these passages of thought
as if to dissect words
from themselves,
as if to portion them
into comprehensibilities . . .
(2) like rooms of the mind
entered and left,
roamed for their strangeness,
for the differences of their moods,
for the sharp pungencies of memories,
for the doors between images
that open and open like inspiration . . .
(3) why number these stanzas
of words
that fumble with effort
or flow into eloquence,
like silken birds
that leave their cages
and brighten the containment
of your mind-house
(4) why number such meanings
of little speeches
so they can return, in sequence,
grief after grief
since they are repetitions
looking for their own beginnings?
(5) will they remember themselves?
the shadows
have hardened into reality,
the cages
ring with lost singing.
(6) you are your own mirror
placed on every wall
reflecting and reflecting
your effort to know yourself
as you will always do
for you are never completed
—Olga Blu Browne, Sacramento
Yesterday began breaking against the
edge of darkness where memory cannot
reach.
Listening to the sound of shadows, where
silence isn't always heard.
Behind this hour is the veil of death
and poetry's torn pages.