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Saturday, March 19, 2016

Laced Together By Dreams

The Beautiful Blue-Green Rock
—Poems and Photos by D.R. Wagner, Locke, CA



“I SIMPLY STATE WHAT WAS

TOLD ME BY THE CHINESE PLATE”
                           
                     —Eugene Field




The fog has closed the garden.

It used to be just across

The gravel road, bound by

A wooden fence.



Now it is entirely gone.

Even the oranges, bright

As ideas yesterday, have

Disappeared.



Everything has become a ghost.

Nothing has feet.  The fence-

Posts float in and out

Of sight, part of a morning vision.



I drink hot Jasmine tea, stay

Behind the window, looking out.

_________________

THE HEART IN SNOW



Finding the footsteps

Of the heart in the snow.

Miles off the road.

Not a light, not a spirit

Going to call me on.



I remember quite well.

I remember quite well.



Looking in the windows
,
We were dancing.  I couldn’t

Hear the music but we

Looked happy for a moment.



Tonight the moon through snow.

Wind, not even bothering

To cover its tracks,

So very few anyway,

Follows the heart.



 White Quince Blossoms

 

THE SOLDIERS



And I thought of the flowers

That held the guns

And opened the yellow moon

To conflagration 

As they marched

And marched

And marched

Giving the single

Gift of their death

As they were picked
For bouquets.  The pretties
Given to the short edges

Of the memory of death.



Spirits all.  Clouding 

The skies with 

Tumbling light 

And thunder

And rain.



Day after day of rain,

Fields in flood and mud

All memory now.



And memory itself

Has so little self

Or, from our brief

Waking, none at all.

__________________


SHIPBUILDING 



They have opened the deep mines.

Places we can no longer remember.

We call them by the names of time awarded

Them when their dreaming was marked by

Footsteps, ochre and quiet yellows.



We keep them in our rivers, guarded

By drums and clarinets.  If we can listen

We can hear their songs filled with lavender.

Here, you are welcome to walk once again.



She spreads her apron and recites some

Songs she remembers from her grandmother’s day.

Perhaps you will recall when I loved you?

You have forgotten my name so many times.

I have been your lover for over two thousand years.



They have built towers to us but you no longer

Recognize them as ourselves.  We have given 

Them to history, an old woman walking up 

Long steps to find her home above the sea.



I am of the mines.  I live in your blood.

All these visions are sailboats to notice,

In the evening, from your bedroom window.

I will call to you with the voice of the stars.

You will only notice the waves touching the shore

Under a moon that somehow seems to know you alone.




 Don't Recall



OTHERWORLDLY



I say to myself

These are the faces

Of people from dreams.

They are constantly surprised

Like drunks suddenly

Seeing themselves in a mirror.



Not a single event here

Has any kind of order.



The sky is a scrim

Overprinted with unreadable

Characters, important

As lucid dreams and

Worth about as much.

When I lifted the bedcovers

All was embalmed and preserved,



Waiting.  I walk up to your

Door.  “This is what happens

Tomorrow.”  You are reading

This now so as not

To be alarmed when

It dissolves before

You while you are having

A morning coffee.



I soon will be dead

Or, perhaps, it is you who

Will be mistaken for 

Someone else and tomorrow

Evening I may still be here,

Telling this same story

As if it were an entirely

New and wondrous thing.

_________________

IMPERATIVE



Of course you are everything.

Otherwise I wouldn’t

Love you, would I?



The ghost of the 

Wandering days.



All I have is this

Sweet little dance

To give you.

All has been taken.



Wait.  Oh here, I have a rose for you.

You can take it home

With you tonight.

I’m ready now.

I’m ready now.

What’s your plan?



Did you ever have one?

Was I always alone?



You cannot take me home

Tonight.  I’m going out to

Walk under the stars.



What is left?



You can feel this.




 Onion Coming to Flower



FOR MY FRIEND E.R. BAXTER III



An empty room

But still full of lupine.

I have ceased to notice

The walls disappeared

Long ago.  I can see 

You walking with Loraine

Around the curve in the path,

Toward the barn.  I can still

Hear the lowing of the cattle

In their indoor enclosure.



Loraine is gone now, much,

Much too soon and you sit

Drinking tea and smoking

Cigarettes.  It is hard to move

Much or very quickly since

The tractor came over on you

A few years back but it has 

Managed to construct a room

Outside the house where I can 

Still see you both together,

Young and beautiful, laced

Together by dreams and something

Amazingly as beautiful as your love

For each other every time I saw you.

____________________



A LETTER FROM THE EVENING



The window in the bedroom is only slightly open.

Enough to allow the silence, should evening care 

To bring it.  Tonight it is carrying rain and perhaps

That is a perfect silence.  The cold and damp 

All but stopped the roses from opening.  The many

Colored brooms blow across the gardens, some get lost

In the bamboo.  I think the perfect poem might still 

Be in there somewhere.  Maybe it was there only 

In the morning and for a short part of time.



I’ll sit here looking into the gathering dark, feeling

That tiny breeze through the bedroom window.

I will continue to listen, to look at this letter from the evening

And trust the perfect poem is still there despite all

That is impossible and unpredictable.



 Apple Blossoms


Today’s LittleNip:

MISTAKE



That’s not a memory

You’re holding, sweetheart.

It’s a gun.

___________________

—Medusa, with hearty thanks to D.R. Wagner for today’s fine poems and pix!




 Prayer Flags on the Garage