—Photo by D.R. Wagner
VEILS
—D.R. Wagner, Elk Grove
We were returning once
again
From having tried to reach
the villages.
It was impossible with the
rain and the hail
Storms. There were great winds as well.
We lost two horses on the
seaside cliff trail
And almost lost Ramon as
well. He said
The wind lifted him back
on the trail.
It was four hundred feet
to the shore below.
We were told that night
about the Veils.
They were not ghosts but
they had no bodies.
They looked like sheets of
rain but with the form
Things of the world take,
like men and animals.
They are not angels. They often help us but
They cloud our eyes and we
begin to feel in ways
We have never felt
before. They seem to enjoy
Strong weather of any kind
and grow larger
In the presence of
danger. They are nearly
Impossible to see. They have voices that are
Simultaneously loud beyond
hurricanes and tornados
And yet are heard as sweet
whispers inside the head.
We were told it was
Veils that took our horses,
That lifted Ramon back
from a deadly fall.
They trade one thing for
another. They are mistaken
For miracles. They have songs and are able to carry
Fire far into the deepest
woods and keep it hidden
Until a perfect moment.
We were told not to fear
the Veils but to learn the
Songs our people have sung
for generations to them.
They could hear these
songs and would recognize us
As more than wandering
spirits or companions of death.
They will hear us and
protect us if we sing these songs.
They trade one thing for
another. We must discover the
other.
________________
THE CAPTAIN WAS LYING TO
US. FLOWERS DO NOT
SING NO MATTER HOW VIOLET
THE SLOPES
THEY GROW UPON. ‘DO NOT
ASK QUESTIONS.’
HE SAID. THE MORNING
SHIFTED A BIT
TO SHOW THE DARKER
BLACKNESS THAT LIE
JUST AHEAD OF US. WE HAD BEEN FIVE
DAYS ON THE BOATS.
—D.R. Wagner
They hammer sheets of gray
lead
Over the entire surface of
the earth.
Next they will tell us
that we live here.
This is the homeland. We will have
A name tomorrow. We are told
Not to expect it to arrive
Any time soon. They show us how
Steel can be made into
many forms.
They expect us to play
guitar, clarinet,
Piano, a music written by
the tides.
The city reaches higher
and higher.
They want a power they
think we have
Because we have the
ability to read.
Before we can react the
water
Is up to our ankles. The distances
Become very vague as if
most of the land
Were a thick, drying muck
that
Is most difficult to walk
upon.
The sun keeps rising and
setting, rising
And setting. The entire place something useless.
There is no reason to be
tormented
By such a landscape. We will live here.
People will come from
great distances
To speak to us of our
poverty.
We will show them the
rusted gates,
The worn paths to
cathedral-like
Buildings that seem
restless in their
Architecture. We await adjectives that
Will help us describe the
moments,
The days, their imagined
repetitions.
_________________
THE SWORD
—D.R. Wagner
It was never as we
expected it to be.
Initially, it had appeared
as the blue
The oceans had laid claim
to so long ago.
So perfectly clear but
with a sense of not
Being able to see at all,
a miscellany of legends
Bound together to resemble
fine steel but unable
To find its own way. It depended on our hands.
It was totally unaware of
itself and of us.
Certainly it was to be
used to take life from
Things, living things, not
moons or stories
Or history for that
matter, but it could change these
If it found them alone or
strung out on some voice
Bound to flesh and willing
to give up everything
Just to be discovered
centuries later as a footnote
In a book about the sea or
the defeat of, at best,
A down-at-heels empire
suffering from insomnia
When the sharp edge was
introduced and could
Be forced to sink into a
great death.
We had the pyramids, which
were certainly not
An illusion and they were
ruled by swords. Even
Islam itself and the Great
Norsemen all saw
Themselves armed with the
sword and always
Terribly frightened by the
unknown. They wanted
Eternity but had had no
lessons in it and so did
Not obey any order but
their own. Campfires on
The deserts or upon the
cold of blasted plains,
Drawing maps with the tips
of their great blades.
But we had come here
late. Few of us could speak Latin,
Read the sagas or the
ancient books. We had only been
Playing at a war that
started long before we discovered
Ourselves here; pulling
the swords from the sand, out of the
Ice, the mud, standing in
terrible rains. When the rains
Finally stopped there were
thousands of us standing
Together on an endless
plain, all armed with these
Weapons, praising
nightmares, building hells larger
Than any empires. We had arrived much too late.
We believed the swords to
be ourselves and not other.
We live in the hollow of a
dream, constantly killing
Each other, constantly
weeping for losses we cannot
Understand, unable to find
the words that would wake
Us, to find the curve to
trouble eternity with such a simple
Desire as the
understanding of a single word: peace.
—D.R. Wagner
A LIQUID WING
—D.R. Wagner
A liquid wing as song
heard forever
Even if we had no
recollection of how
Or where mythology began
to devour us.
I began to walk away from
all visions.
I could still smell
blood. It
Reminded me I was nearing
Seventy years of age and
truly knew
The agonies men
espoused. My own
Hunger was seated in a
half-light
Where it stared out at the
Corridors thrown up like
mausoleums
For the unremembered.
I thought I might be dead,
But I was not. I had just
Descended past what I knew
When Ulysses explained
about Hades.
The lions walking up and
down
The banks of the river.
I could finally see myself
among them,
Walking with them.
_________________
THE SONG OF THE SOUTH
—D.R. Wagner
South of the doors of
desire,
South of the gargoyle
claws,
South of a need for
breathing,
South of all the outlaws.
Hooked through the mouth
hard while dreaming
Waiting inside the machine
Placing our freedom in
bottles
Trying to keep the house
clean.
Believing in voices of
angels
Standing on the tips of
our toes
Looking to find a new
doorway
Stopping to burn all our
clothes.
Remembering where we have
come from,
Breaking the locks on the
doors
Speaking the smallest of
whispers
Searching the far distant
shores
I’ve tried it all over and
over
The results are close to
the same
I’ve changed all the
relative homelands
They’ve left me with
nothing to gain.
I dance with the midnight
beside me.
I dance with the heat of
the sun.
I speak with the voice of
the angels.
My work it will never be
done.
_________________
CHIME
...for
William Blake
—D.R. Wagner
I was unwound. I speak in tongues.
The deep trains begin their
low
Distant chanting far away,
oh so far away.
My sister enters covered
with flocks of birds.
They are brilliantly
colored
And do not harm her. They
Are her songs. They carry her
Voice high into the
heavens.
We slide into a vortex
unable to determine
Surfaces of the ocean from
its depths.
Angels of light transform
us.
We try to laugh but it is
impossible.
We are feeling too much at
one time.
Even as we walk the
streets
Thousands of things are
being born.
They will transform the
world
Before we reach the parks.
All around us they begin
to eat
The animals as quickly
As they are able. It is never
Enough. Gunfire begins.
‘Proceed in an orderly
fashion to the exits.’
The fire trucks are heard
coming closer.
Someone picks up a guitar.
Someone else a drum.
We begin to make music, to
sing.
We hope the song never
stops. We promise
We will never be asleep
again.
__________________
Today's LittleNip:
Originality is not seen in single words or even in sentences. Originality is the sum total of a man's thinking or his writing.
—Isaac Bashevis Singer
______________________
—Medusa
—Photo by D.R. Wagner