Morning Sky
—Photo by D.R. Wagner
AN OLD AGREEMENT
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
I have a relationship with
the stars.
It is something we
contrived long ago
When anything was
possible, before
We could even consider if
animals
Could talk, or trees or
even the planets
For that matter and that
did matter.
I would include the stars
in as many
Things as it was possible
to include
Them and they would
include me
When music was to be made.
Time has obliterated
anything
We were once capable of
discovering
With the edges of all
other creation.
All that remains is a
vague glow
That is still my luck to
discern.
When I sleep, the
trappings of my
Memory might show me a
legion of stars
And indeed I am accustomed
to their shapes
But now I must poise
myself on the edge
Of oblivion, still
faithful to the
Common dreams we once shared,
Still eternally bound to
their numbers,
Their names, their
infinity of beauty,
Still my obsession. But I am no longer
Part of that eternal sea
where
Their music is entirely my
own.
I find it now in dreams,
All the appointed places
still seen
Upon the staff that holds
all music.
But it wanders through my
body,
A strange, barely
successful
Landscape, found mostly in
my poetry
Where I stand unwinding
the labyrinth,
The communion of saints,
The words always
complicated
By an anxiety of purpose
That may or may not be
music to you,
May or may not be the
stars at all.
Everything still looking
so eternally real.
_________________
THE LIKELIHOOD OF
SUFFERING
—D.R. Wagner
I don’t think I should be
allowed
Out of doors after the sun
has set.
Certainly not when I can
see the stars.
I recognize the night for
what it is
And it urges me forward,
past
What is real, to angels,
to remote
Whirlwinds nourished by
mythologies
I barely understand but am
able
To realize as a mirror of
eternity.
And smack there, in the
yard
Or in the fields behind
the house
Comes an idea that the
landscape
Is gilded at its edges, an
evening,
Made entirely of gold that
will
Never change except for
the play
Shadows so blissfully use
as conversation.
I should just close the
book,
Stop trying to find what
kind of instrument
I am. Why these huge
ghosts?
Sometimes entire galaxies
of them
Prepare exquisite doors
for me to
Anticipate what death
might be wearing.
Will it sing like a
nightingale?
Will it not really belong
to me,
But be other, part of
another
Matter and I will be
caught
Outside looking at the
stars again
When the entire adventure
ripples,
Magical and massive just
that
Far away from me when I
Truly should be paying
attention?
I expect nothing. Frail and yet
Eternal I will stand at
the ramparts
Waving to some approaching
shadows,
Shouting to them, thinking
they
Might be my friends.
___________________
LARGO: AUGUST AND THE MOON
—D.R. Wagner
I thought that August
would stay.
I know it never had in the
past,
But this year if felt like
it had
Something to do and would
remain
Longer than usual. Perhaps to count
Something like after a
battle,
When soldiers go out on
the battlefield
And collect the dead,
counting
Them, sorting them, trying
to identify
Who these dead men had
been
Or what really happened
there
After all. The clouds of flies,
Of course, the smell,
everywhere.
But this was not August at
all.
It was his mind loping
slowly through
Days hoping there was
something that would
Totally capture him,
quicken the pulse.
The sun seemed to have
little to do.
The days were hot. The sky blue.
A beautiful blue to be
sure but only blue.
Because we turn our lives
into words
We have the fortune, good
or bad,
To have our pockets full
of as many
Moons as it is possible to
imagine.
And we need not be able to
identify
Them at any given time. We might
Use one accidentally as a
quarter
Plunked into a parking
meter without
Thinking what that could
mean,
Or toss it high and watch
it curl
Itself into a dragon that
troubles
Children as they try to
sleep.
It is always ours to use
and use it
We will. Then one night, when
Everything is still and we
are heaping
Words into the flow of
night after
Night and employ it as a
unique
Device that makes
everything fit,
We look up and there it
is,
Hanging there in the night
sky,
White and fickle and without
a name.
We create clichés to bind
it to our
Foreheads, glorious and
sublime
As we try to name it, as
if we created it.
This became a game of
moons,
Of myriad descriptions of
moon,
Curving or smiling,
endless variations
That seemed to have import
but
Were always within
reach. A search
For an unknown name that
would
Still convey the single
idea: moon.
But it was not a place to
dwell.
There was no magic in
August,
Like one day when perhaps
That giant wolf we had
heard about
So long ago would come and
indeed
Slay the moon. But it was not to be.
I dragged the boat down to
the water’s edge.
It seemed golden under the
reaping moon,
Something unknowable yet
familiar.
I laughed at the
strangeness of the moment;
August was going
quietly. It was glorious
But it was finished and
September was
Right on time.
—Photo by D.R. Wagner
THE GOOD THUNDER
—D.R. Wagner
We brought out the good
thunder
To the edge of the edge of
the meadow
Where the elms are still
incredibly tall
And over two centuries
old.
We could ask it to dance
and we did
And it did and the sky
split.
Hey, hey, the sky split
and
Our lips split from the
yelling.
The blood had a color
never
Seen elsewhere.
We brought three horses
there,
Fire in their eyes, and
begged
The palest of the blue
riders
To mount them and circle
Us faster and faster until
We could see the Western
Lands
Rise from the sand, until
we could
Come to believe all the
stories
These ancient gods could
tell.
_________________
‘IN MY EYES THERE ARE NO
DAYS’
....Borges
—D.R. Wagner
Even now the terms are
dying. They are
Suspicious of time. And rightly so.
Time nibbles the edges of
everything
To fulfill its murky
omnipotence.
We become unable to recall
simple things,
Tremble in the yard like
thieves
About to be discovered
with the treasure
Of nights and days. Time will sell us pain
As a miracle, the senses
as lasting forever
And we will not know how
to address it.
Others will see it in our
faces. We will
Read stories of the lives
of others,
Thinking we know them, or
that we knew
Them and we may well be
correct. We will
Not ask to continue
here. We have
Other birthplaces, other
lives.
*
That image must be of a
street
Crowded with others, as
night
Comes to define the
tenacity
Of the place. We sit down
At an outdoor table at the
cafe
And question one another.
‘Who are these people?
Why do they come to these
places
At all?’
_______________________
INTO THE WHITE CAVES
—D.R. Wagner
Just before we were able
to remember
That we were not supposed
to enter
The white caves we crossed
the threshold
To having the ability to
navigate in and out
Of a dream state at will.
If we could know we were
falling through
The air we could catch
ourselves there,
Choose exactly where the
air could take us,
Either higher or into the
teeth of the thing.
This allowed us to bring
our lives to the edge
Of the immortal, tear the
skin away from reality,
Allowing us to feel the
arrows or not, no longer
Afraid of nightmares or of
finding ourselves
In situations where we
might come to harm.
But we had entered the
white caves. There
Only words were true. There was no life without
Them. We were not breathing but found
ourselves
Looking through the
letters on the page, seeing
Ourselves captured in them
but unable to live
Without the windows they
have come to provide.
____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
MY FICTIVE LIFE
—D.R. Wagner
My fictive life so guarded
from itself
By strenuous histories so
full
Of myself I barely
recognize
The shore when it
appears. I throw
Myself against it, imagine
I am
Far above in a black
castle, watching
Starlight reflect upon the
blank
Mirrors I have recalled
from
An even more improbable
youth.
I fall asleep to waves
crashing,
Cannons firing, the
frightened
Cries of men whose faces I
would
Never see see, hovering in
stories
I will never be able to
more
Than imagine. Their perfect loyalty to me.
___________________
—Medusa, who notes that the Fall issue of Convergence is now online at www.convergence-journal.com/fall12 Look for work by Gale Acuff, Im A Bear, Myles Boisen, Doug Bolling, Holly Day, Karen Greenbaum-Maya, Anara Guard, Patricia Hickerson, Erren Geraud Kelly, Pete Madzelan, Rebecca Meredith, Allyson Seconds, Nina Sokol, David Thornbrugh, and Brenda Yamen.
D.R. Wagner and John Dorsey at the Shine Cafe
Wednesday, August 22
—Photo by Lisa Jett-Gallup, Elk Grove
[For more photos of the Poetry With Legs reading,
see Medusa's Facebook page
for a new photo album by Annie Menebroker.]