DARK SHORE

DARK SHORE

—from Matisse's Goldfish

—for Roger Kent

Philodendron, hibiscus,

and a lemon geranium jungle

explode on a tropical sunrise

against the pink wall.

Four bored tangerine-colored fish

in a round tank mouth food

and spit it out again

where it settles on pale green rocks;

a luminous fog on the pink table

near the rattan chair

filled with blue shadows.

In the black & white tiled hall

of the colonial mansion

we stir baskets of fragrant maile leaves.

The basement elevator shaft

belches decay into the hall.

The wheezing lift

and Roger's emphysemic breathing

keep time as he shuffles to the bedroom

for his late afternoon nap.

Thin-ribbed philodendron vines climb

to the tall ceiling, piscine leaves

fan delicate membranes,

slow dancers feeding on air.

The hissing oxygen tanks

reflect fiery hibiscus fish;

the small pebbles of their eyes

along a dark shore make no sound

against the barely discernible rise

and fall of sheets.

2/22/1985
rev. 6/85
after a CPITS class with Duane BigEagle

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

LOVE IN THE AFTERNOON

All back in breast, your mouth,
my mind semicolon slow velvet clouds,
sweet, almost painfully tender,
like two people in the same dream.

Our arms encircled the ground—

Shaken from the herd,
pine needles shudder in summer wind.

There's that moment between dreaming and waking
where time and consciousness don't exist.
Like the hearts of twin doves,
my breasts drift into a pulsing slumber
against your back—
what better place to rest?

2/22/1985
after a CPITS class with Duane BigEagle

LOVE IS LIKE, —after Breton

LOVE IS LIKE

                        —after Breton

           

My love is like a blue gardenia-scented night,

or a lone tree first seen by sailors too long at sea,

where there is no time for crowded lamps

or stars in the darkness.

My love is like a candle burning

at both ends of the church

where the darkness ends like the pavement.

My love nails the graveyard of a smile to the earth

when he is angry; cataracts skyrocket across

the liquid corridors of the Nile

and lemon sphynxes drift unheeded

inducing the dunes to mate with rocks

and with dopplered sound.

By the execution of desire, vain fruit ripens

because my love is a phantom mirror

to reflect stray music.

2/22/1985
after Duane BigEagle's CPITS class

 

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE

  — after a painting by Gauguin, The White Horse 

By the stream of white irises,

a green bird watches a riderless white horse 

thrust his nose into the indigo water.

Splinters of sunlight flash up 

like slim birds from a fresh-cut orange. 

The man on the roan horse looks over his shoulder 

thinking he heard something fall into the water.

His friend strokes his horse's brown neck

and both horses paw grass tufts into the water

uncertain of what lies ahead.  

 2/22/85
after a CPITS class with Duane BigEagle

see Savage Dream
The White Horse

first draft

The man on the roan horse 
looks over his shoulder 
thinking he heard something 
fall into the water.
By the stream of white irises 
a green bird watches 
a riderless white horse 
thrust his nose 
into the indigo water. 
Splinters of sunlight 
flash up like slim birds 
from a fresh-cut orange. 
He strokes his horse's brown neck 
as it paws the water, uncertain 
of what lies ahead.  

 2/22/1985

BLAME IT ON THE MOON

BLAME IT ON THE MOON

During the full moon,
my birds flock to your chest
and turn into the moon's silken young—
they alight, and slide down to where
you've furrowed and tended the earth
between us and we discover 

glistening stars in the tilled darkness.

2/1985 these small poems are hard to date, as I tended to fiddle with them as I was honing my sullied craft. This calligraphed ditty is an earlier draft, probably written in a CPITS workshop

Measuring the Fall

MEASURING THE FALL



Time is like a full river standing still, going forward and backward into black oceans. Friendless ripple on the muddy pond like in the southern hemisphere where the water is upside down and the sky has fish. This river that flows past our houses leapt the dream of its banks last night. Flotsam. Jetsam. White horses after rain, wings lift off from the backs of clouds as if the race to learn how to fall as gracefully as rain were a thing learned, instead of listening at the back door for the subterranian red depths of a lone heart beating during the storm. The river covers the fields, vineyards, the tops of trees with wild abandon, and branches take root in the brown passion of it all because the flood comes before the spring tide; we can canoe over the watery roofs of orchards, and watch for rouge-tounged eddies swirling in the treetops. The past is never quite finished with us. This river measures those without fault, and those without design; this time you appear on my doorstep like an apparition, the slender seducer, the rain, flooding the way home. To fall again on the bed with you is not a waste of time but another reckoning, another beginning from where we left off.


2/1985

ARTLESS SONG

At sunrise, the winter stalks
shed the silken wraps left by the moon.
From behind flannel sheets I sing
an artless song of the night.
The houseboards crack and groan
as the gas heater hisses.
The quail scuff the oak leaves
looking for grubs and seeds.
The day-spider tugs at her webs
and the worm disappears, as if in a dream.
Already, the sounds of the highway
enter this room like a waterfall.
The pale sky holds signs of a deeper hue.

2/1985
added 11/16

The White Horse (the savage dream/riders in the jungle) no efile

no efile

RIDERS IN THE JUNGLE    

after a painting by Gauguin,

The White Horse  

By the stream of white irises,

a green bird watches a riderless white horse

thrust his nose into the indigo water.

Splinters of sunlight flash up 

(like slim birds from a fresh-cut orange.

The man on the roan horse 

looks over his shoulder 

thinking he heard something fall into the water. 

His friend strokes his horse's brown neck 

and both horses paw grass tufts into the water.

uncertain of what lies ahead.             

2/85

See The Savage Dream  filed as 2/1989; it may be older

don't know the date of expanded version, below. It was in my 1989 folder, but that's when I filed Savage Dream.