Living Room Table Top
—Poems and Photos by DR Wagner, Locke, CA
I WAS BORN INTO THIS
I was born into this.
May this be true.
The sky sings.
My love is like
A red red rose.
It can be heard
As a song.
I was born into this.
May the river carry me
Through all the rains.
I hold the parting
Glass. May it be
Enough to be heard
Through all of time.
I was born into this.
I have Caledonia
In my very blood.
Through all of these waters
May this voice be heard.
I am the mists that wrap you
At eventide into all parting.
Locke from DR's Bedroom
IF DREAMS HAVE WINTER
If dreams have Winters
And stars have memories
If the seas are a great song
And mountains fabulous stories
The music is our bones
And words the movement of the dance.
Even now the planets swirl about us.
The moon is a precious gem.
All animals rejoice with their hearts
With wild bands of color depending.
DR's Studio
(Work by Kiny McCarrick)
THE RAINS
And now the rain.
And what did I see?
Nothing to fear.
I kept myself from falling.
I never knew I could call
Out to Athene. I barely
Knew her name.
In this rain nothing
Has words, save man.
What walks in beauty?
I have a song here.
The forest seems to have
Rooms for dreams if we
Remember even a single Alleluia.
This then is soft as a fen.
Never more than a melody
And still as the breath of dawn.
At last the voice of rain.
I use my mouth to make words
Of streets full of puddles
Gutters full of a million whispers.
BUTCHER OF LOVE
Blankets of waves.
I stood on the shoreline,
Rainbows springing from my forehead.
What don’t I know?
The night has such soft hands.
What comes from the body
Where sleep has its own stars?
I steal away from the butchers
Love sends like a Pentecostal
Hymn. I shall never be the lullaby
They push through their miraculous
Horns. I am inhabited by ten
Thousand hands.
Do I make this sound
Voices bring to my heart?
Ave, Ave, I remain a creature
Wonder uses to come and go
Through that rainbow.
Choruses of them gathered at the
Corners of my mouth expecting
An event. When I look up
You are as clear as a carol.
I will steal away to say these
Things. Magnum Mysterium.
SHE WAS REMEMBERED FOR DANCING
She was remembered for dancing.
No one knew her name.
She lived long before we began to speak.
Perhaps the stars knew her
But the stars do not speak either.
Perhaps they saw her dance.
But the stars are too far away
To care about dancing.
She was as beautiful as a story
About Spring.
They named an arched bridge over
A canal in Japan after her.
She was thought to be very beautiful.
Perhaps the stars knew her.
Two Glass Doves
SOMEWHERE
Somewhere, oh I don’t know where,
My heart is flashing signals to your heart.
You may not ever hear of them.
You may not ever see them
But they are there.
I have chalices for you.
What are dreams but chalices?
What are you but dreams?
I pretend that I am a song.
I know you are a song.
I will play you on this old heart,
I look across the halls of space.
Perhaps we are there.
Perhaps there is only dreaming.
Can one call this love?
Is it even dreaming?
Am I only a motion in a thickness
Precipitated by desire.
Unable to understand even itself.
I’ll try to call this a song.
I could be entirely wrong.
You could be the song.
How will we learn to sing?
___________________
Today’s LittleNip
Scarecrow in the hillock
Paddy field—
How unaware! How useful!
—Matsuo Bashō
___________________
—Medusa, with songs of gratitude to DR Wagner for a return visit to Medusa’s Kitchen!
—Anonymous Photo
Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.
