Saturday, July 23, 2005
What I read tonight....
For those of you who missed it, here's what I read at the open-mike.
Let's not call it poetry. Let's call it prose with no plot and no character development. Works for me.
Living Well, or the Best Revenge
Revenge is a dish best left to the vultures
Their keen eyes glittering
as they swoop down upon the glint of gold fillings
in the August sunlight.
Bitterness is not for the young,
Or the wise,
The hopeless,
Or the desperate,
But rather for the dead – the zombies, the inferi, the impostors
Who are not living
But merely reciting lines
As actors pacing backstage before their cues.
They exercise dead vocal chords with all the fury
Of a life lived in vain
And a death left in soulful agony.
We have a poor memory for pinpricks and bruises,
But a fine recollection of heartache,
And a keen remembrance of betrayal.
I remember those balled-up heart pieces that lay on your bedroom floor
Like newspapers,
The headlines as surreal as the dream of another fabled Sunday morning
In your ruffled bed with no sheets.
GIRL ALIVE THE WHOLE TIME, SAYS A SOURCE
HEARTBREAK A GENUINE CAUSE OF DEATH, EXPERTS ANNOUNCE
HIDDEN MEANING IN THE LIGHT FILTERED THROUGH THE WINDOW, PREDICT METEROLOGISTS
And I remember not the pain of organ failure,
Not the wrenching torture of your words,
And not the horror, or the panic.
Instead I feel that stubborn heart,
That beats still,
In pieces,
As the vultures circle overhead.
Death in
On a day when the sun beat down through the plane trees
and the cafés played their jazz on the sidewalks
comme toujours.
Such a hot August day
When I was just old enough to enjoy espresso,
And still young enough to think I knew good wine when I drank it.
Such a sad, strange day in the cemetery at Père Lachaise,
When I knelt down in front of Jim Morrison’s grave
(Though perhaps his bones lie elsewhere).
The gendarme flashed me a warning
with his strange, slow eyes and laid a hand
protectively on his loaded gun.
“NON!” he announced as I bent to pick up a subway ticket
that lay amidst a sea of objects on the tomb –
plastic flowers, and buttons, and chewing gum wrappers, and condoms.
The last one puzzled me, for Jim was far beyond sex
And into the realm of the soul,
And had been for years before I was even born.
For a moment those brown eyes of his
Flashed in my mind,
And for a split second, I understood.
I felt that racing of heart and mind,
That creative bloom –
And then the trickling poison
That closed it up forever.
I understood that desperate desire
for the calm of the morning,
the normalcy of other people,
and yet the knowledge that we would always be,
somehow, a little different.
Death followed me downtown
With such indifferent eyes,
And I lost another friend that hot, dark day.
This time it was to that mythical yet-all-too-real consumption,
The tuberculosis of Chopin, and Lawrence, and Keats, and Poe,
and so many of the Brontes.
And I remembered her, my friend,
Who had lifted me up as a chold
And left me a little doll
Who never did grow up for her.
I went into that tiny church,
One of the most sublime I saw in
If only because she was with me.
It smelled heavily of lilies
and unmistakably of Old Europe,
and while I could not pray for her
I lit a candle in thanks.
It was a small bit of gratitude
for two short and brilliant lives,
extinguished so quickly,
yet leaving such lasting imprints on my mind.
Conference of Moonlight
The night I climb into your arms
Like moonlight through your window
will be the moment all time meets
a conference dark and thorough
The time that passed
the past that didn't
will question through and through
the future that I long for
a future thin without you.
For my dreams are like pieces
of the puzzle in my mind
but it is an image faltering
if you I leave behind.
Boundless
I still dream of that beach
leading to the island where you were married
an endless stretch of rippled sand
a stream with birds
that called across the rocks
where I wrote the words to tell you
that you have left your mark
helped me to grow in thin soil
like the thorny branches of that island
helped me to understand that I controlled
the bird, that lay wounded in my hands
helped me to remember that
it's all up to me.
The waves that broke unflinchingly
on the rocks
the water that stretched to
the sudden realisation
that we could live outside
boundaries, beyond walls and restrictions
We could move forward
to a place where only love matters
love of the sunshine
and the sudden rain
the twisted tree and
downy moss
the quivering salmon
shining in the afternoon
and most of all
that soul to understand
that love without consequence
beyond age
beyond life
beyond death
eternal as nature
and boundless
as the sea.
-N
