Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA
A ROOM
There was a room in which we took shelter.
It had a door much like a forest
Would have a door, had a forest a door,
And a single window that looked upon
Whatever one must look upon
When one thinks of the sky as shelter
Or the heart as a roan horse
That enjoyed stepping in a particular
Manner, believing someone might
Be enjoying its prance and circuit
Of that visible space below the window.
I will give you a castle and the
Moat filled with diamonds and the
Drawbridge fixed with the reddest
Rubies, bright as a tiger’s eye,
Walls as white as its teeth.
We will stand there clutching
Toward forever, gathering colored
Stars in an oaken bucket, then
Leave all of this as a sailor
Does any port, intent only
On what the sea might bring
Once all the land has
Fallen from view.
Santo
GETTING OUT OF THE WAY
I will move to the left
And there will be room for you.
A thin wall of letters you can see around,
But no. Just another flurry of words.
When we were children it was all so
Much easier to see. The words had
HEY!
They carried a lot of information,
(e.g.) that HEY back there two lines ago…
That was us looking up toward
That open space
Where I moved left.
I’m asking for a little help with this.
Come on over and have a look.
If you are seeing anything
Like I’m seeing, we’re off
To a good start. I’ll plan
On seeing you here often.
Just look how much room
We have, just because
One moved to the left
Of the page.
Page.
Left.
A DRINK WITH THE MOON
I knew the moon before
It had a home.
I would meet him or her
(Depending on the season)
And we would have a drink
Together. The moon always
Laughed when I would
Order moonshine.
Green River, Utah
CHESTERSON’S ROPE
Why would the edge
Keep him from falling?
Having purple skin could
Just as well count for as much
In any dream.
But here, he could lean
Extremely far forward
And the tips of his fingers
Somehow aligned with the edge
And things did not seem
As much of a nightmare
As he was used to having:
A big slab of nightmare
Dense like a side of bacon,
Yet transparent.
It was close to morning.
Certainly much closer to morning
Than to, say, a changing
Of the tide, which would
Have made more sense,
A reason to have a cup of coffee
And look for someone to talk to
So the confusion about the edge
Might have some real part of it.
No one in the room seemed
To notice his purple skin.
It did have a soft glow to it.
His pores were very small
Which made his skin glisten slightly
So, perhaps, it didn’t look
All that purple
And it was smooth.
•
He could feel the words
Touch his skin like cat tongues,
But softer. When the words
Touched him, he
Could hear them breathe,
Almost like spurring
A wound so comfortably
That when the edge gave way
He didn’t vomit.
His mind wasn’t filled
With the rooms of possibilities
Nightmares carried
In their trunk of devices:
Car keys
The upward glance of a child
A moonlit road running
Much too close to a river
A litany of forms
Backlit by a string of
Rectangular-shaped light,
A glowering sky, by open hearth,
Steel-making furnaces.
This will be your childhood,
The rag man had told
Him when he brought out
The empty soup cans and
Broken bicycle chains.
He pointed to the horizon.
Much too close to any edge.
It was gray. All shades of gray.
The last thing he recalled
Was a little dog with
White tufts on the ends
Of its ears.
It yapped twice.
Perhaps that is what
Woke him up
So completely.
Fingernails dug into
His palms so deeply
His hands began to bleed.
“That’s no nightmare,”
His grandmother said.
“That’s just a bad dream.
I’ll go make some coffee.
You wait right here.
The sun will rise shortly.”
TO THE ATTENDANTS OF THE SUN
In November, the new moon
In the arms of the old.
This season doesn’t welcome
Travelers. It has things it must do.
I’ve brought some gray and black clouds
As an offering, a plea for rain, but it is red
Berries on golden leaves the season wants
Today and the attendants of the sun
Do as bidden. Every day they have
A new master. I will wait with these gifts.
The time will come when the day wears deep
Shadows for clothing. Even now they carry
The sun to the edge of the horizon.
The small creatures scurry away from night.
The wind mumbles instructions, then swathes
Itself in bamboo leaves and branches, bowing
And greeting the middle of November as if
It hadn’t expected it until a few minutes ago.
Where I live, the moon has its own café.
We have one paved street and just where
Main Street starts to rise to the levees the
Café glows yellow and green with moon songs,
The planing of the mornings.
From the high
Towers the first birds announce their sightings.
The crows hurry to the East to prepare the treetops.
Tits and wrens and doves and thrushes line
The electrical wires. Glean what you may,
They say. There is already snow in the mountains.
________________________
Today’s LittleNip:
THE VESSEL
This poem is not
As empty as it might
Seem.
There are mysteries
Contained here
And a truth, a terrible truth.
_________________________
—Medusa, with thanks to D.R. Wagner for today's fine poems and pix!
D.R. Wagner
