TO HOLD THE NOTES
First prize, Reuben Rose poetry competition, 2004
There was a time
when the notes slept, hibernating,
breathing thumbed parchment,
quiet as cathedrals locked up for the night
while around parish hearths
stout voices sang their pious words
Then came wax cylinders
wound tightly as bobbins
and squashy shellac blobs
that pressed out and dried the notes to brittle patties
where winding roads and bumpy paths
guide scratchy thorns along their quavering circuits
Scant revolutions later notes hiss over speeding decks
in and out of skimpy see-through dresses
while jockeys whirl them back and forth
like dolls at a barnyard square dance
and singles stand around waiting to join the jig
Still fading, the notes, collapsing further
sought refuge in wires, shiny ribbons, skin thin wafers
that held hieroglyphics of their shrinking glory
while packets of ones and zeros
carried them from ear to busy ear
Amidst this impersonal mechanical going on
we set our feet upon the northern road
that leads between the towering peaks and rushing streams
where bird song, rosy apples, fields of cyclamen
and shady cypresses walked beside us down the peaceful ways
And in the valley, beneath the spreading oaks
a classroom beckoned, just a wooden shack
but from its open windows came forth such a blessed sound
that we, compelled by its beauty approached
There seated on simple wooden chairs four youngsters sat
at cello, viola and two violins
and as we watched them play and pause
and play again and annotate and then again
our hearts began to sing with them
and as we smiled and listened on
we knew the notes had found their home
ON THE BORDER
First prize in the 2007 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books
1.
Over hills once named in Phoenician
someone upstairs is moving furniture,
heavy stuff it groans massive over
stone floors, encountering bombed roads
and bridges it makes detours through
cobbled streets, hides in cellars
and tunnels, under schools, places of
worship, hospitals.
Someone is calling for blood, transfusion
offered but rejected. Revenge alone is
on his cracked lips, blood of the others,
Zed tribe people, blood of children buried
under rubble, blood congealing on litters
carried head high through streets by
shouting mobs—God is great, revenge, revenge.
Upstairs, the furniture moves again
trucks, laboring through muddy bypasses
on side roads from Bab al-Faraj—the gate
of deliverance, thundering from Azadi's freedom
tower, this furniture has many holy origins,
some distorted by history, today children recite
their names in pride: Katyusha, Khaibar,
Shahab, Jihad.
On the bills of consignment written in Nasta'liq
script, once reserved for prayer, the addresses
are lettered bold—this cabinet for Kiryat Shmone,
a coffin on wheels for Haifa, six mysterious boxes
for delivery further south, a blow to the vitals,
deep into the bleeding abdomens of sidelock-curling
youths chanting by the walls of their crumbling temples.
Blood, blood, they cry, fingers on blackened steel
triggers, as upstairs the bearded hawk-eyed warrior
intones the same message from loudspeakers on high.
Gone are the shining battalions poised for battle
on greening plains, gone the lumbering tanks devouring
fields to dust; wars are fought in streets today, in
homes, schools, playgrounds and libraries, in hospitals
and temples and everywhere the innocent congregate
listening to the furniture rumbling
upstairs, over stone floors, clouds graying,
horizons seeping blood in sunset as the angel
of revenge lights the fuse.
And the children in the shelters
huddle for a few last moments
under the iron beds until the light goes out.
2.
This year passed us by
without a backward glance
we went for a walk
down the road
To the place where the rocks
tumble against the apple trees
so far below a falcon
would need binoculars
To spy its prey down under his wings
crouching next to a tree
nibbling at last year's windfalls
and swoop like a knife
Talons extended a quick kill
and then lunch on an abandoned building
across the border
from where the predators swooped
Down on the sleeping town
and the children locked themselves
in shelters to escape
the shrapnel of their claws
This year we did not hear the sirens
at precisely eleven o' clock, sweeping
across the nation, cars hushed on the roads
Passengers standing at attention staring sixty years
into a pit of bones, still stirring
This year we stood on a hill and watched
the falcon circle above the hyraxes
sunbathing outside their rock shelters
we read poetry at meetings
Where the average age is still capable
of having memories of bones
this year we went for a walk
we didn't even try to forget
The unforgettable
we watched the hyraxes instead, fascinated
by their button eyes
This year we did not turn on the TV
did not hear about the truck bomb
that slaughtered 152 passers by
in Tal Afar
This year we counted wild flowers
ochre, cerise and violet, fresh after the rain
and in the night sky we did not notice the supernova
that glowed its sudden fire in the East
Perhaps extinguishing a thousand planets
and a billion lives in senseless war
guiltless we watched the sky
above the quiet trail beside the border
Between here and there
3.
Sometimes, walking the dog
along the path that skirts
the cascading waters of the Iron stream
turned overnight into a shouting river
as it rushes in from over the border
with Lebanon, a brave youth inside me,
lusting to test his muscles against
the current, clambers through
the raspberry brambles on to a rock ledge
above the waterfall's chorus, hesitates,
then, content with a taunting
'I am the king of the castle'
saunters back, hands in pockets
into my shaking skin as we continue
on our way, he, I and the dog, frisking
between sodden leaves and shadows
as the sun plays hide and seek
across the international border
Somewhere over there, past the border fence
beyond the fortifications on the hill,
from where artillery surveyed valley targets,
down the road now patrolled by a white UN troop carrier—
six blue helmeted soldiers daydreaming
of breakfast and paychecks—
somewhere in a schoolroom close by
one of those brown flat-roofed buildings
crouching on the slope, somewhere
perhaps, some bright eyed children sit,
who may perhaps one day, duck under the flags,
swim the river under the border bridge,
take my lusting boy by the hand
and frolic together in a shady pool
beyond the last waterfall, teaching each other
how to pronounce 'jump', 'dive' and 'swim'
in Arabic and Hebrew
LOLLIPOP LULLABY
High Distinction award in the 2007 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books
Whisk me away to the south of days
where three cornered hats perform gypsy plays
where wagon wheels bustle down autumn leaved ways
whisk me away to the south of days
Bounce me over the tumbleweed flats
where chestnuts are marbles and donkeys wear hats
where poodles do headstands and mats sit on cats
bounce me over the tumbleweed flats
Whistle me under a crooked old moon
where flats turn to sharps and frogs learn to croon
where summer nights sing a sweet raspberry tune
whistle me under a crooked old moon
Nibble my kneecaps and wobble my hips
with dandelion posies and rosy licked lips
where chocolate almonds eat coconut chips
nibble my kneecaps and wobble my hips
Pull up my blankets and tuck off the light
play cobweb music to spangle the night
let me peep a dream telescope in backward delight
pull up my blankets and tuck off the light
TO SING THE WORLD
Third prize in the 2007 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books.
Each language has its own music
And those who sing it are its harmonic true
From opening bars they recognize each other
They are as staccato to legato
As guttural is to milk
As icebergs from lagoons
They smolder and hiss as fire steams from water
As plucked guitars from tom-toms beating smoke
Consider: a flurry of Italians
Accellerando agitato as spaghetti around spoon to mouth
Ignitable as Latin is to love
And there, a day or two across the water
The dulcet tones of le Français, cedillad and accented
As accordions in the street
Each syllable a mistress, douloureux or sweet
Listen to Greece, her tongue all olive oil and X's
Proud as phrases carved on ancient stones
Bouzoukis lilting linking arms stepping foot after foot
Around breaking plates, while at a wooden table sits
Pythagoras counting his magic numbers
Discoursing on the healing music makes
Consider isiXhosa: fifteen different click sounds
The poetry of ancestors and dreams
Hear the language of night people, phantom figures
They close their eyes, surrender to the music of the stars
Consider translations: often golden words of beauty, works of art
Masterly forged doubloons that subtly miss the mark
True at times to libretto, timbre, image or melody. Never all
Listen to those that cry rivers, raise voices in anger or regret,
Argue in tones of bedlam, discordant and strident as Babel
Each striving to drown out the other
As across the sky a wild goose cries in Esperanto
Flying from tongue to tongue honking from land to land
Aliaj vivoj. We touch their wings, listen
Begin to understand
Each of us has his own music
We swirl with each other, against each other, over our green globe
In choreographies of dissonance and pride
We chant the languages of tribes with cymbals, swords or scimitars
Our words betray us, cascading from a past we cannot hide
Consider the language of flags: each emotion, each devotion,
Each declaration of respect or honor, each hymn an anthem
To divide us
[Consider the music of ants on leaves
Each language has its magic, its memories
The language of grass growing
The sounds of desert winds blowing]
Its palaces and echoing ballrooms
Its secret passageways, its trysts and feuds
Our voices twist and twirl around themselves
Each in its own cadence, temperament, rhythmic beat and break
The music of our world, vowels flowing around continents
Like chocolate snakes
Listening carefully, we discern
Melodies that slip between the words
The music of children playing
The things that whales are saying
The music of old age praying
Cadenza, coda, finalé
PEANUTS
High Distinction award in the 2006 Tom Howard/John H. Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books.
On a tour of Europe's history
this man is eating peanuts
fingers dipping with regularity
into paper bag, with skins, without skins
mouth opening closing, expressionless
Barcelona: Gaudi's masterpiece of the century
perhaps forever, eight monumental figures
human, superhuman, hymns of reverence
to the creator, stretch skywards above the city
dwarfing all, each centimeter a work of art
where faces peer from filigree encrustations
of magic in stone, revealing ever more intricate
delights. Armies of masons and artisans clamber
through its mazes, choirs of them pealing like bells,
tourists gape as the guide estimates forty years
more to reach completion.
Cameras flash, some buy mementos
he's eating peanuts again, head down,
looking into the packet for survivors.
Today is Istanbul,
stretched across two continents
an octopus of bridges, mosques, palaces, markets
riches and honking traffic, endless rows of restaurants
frown at hungry homeless, four thousand domes
and spires all praying in the morning mist
where the preserved splendor of sultans' riches
and harems hide legions of conquering armies
and then we turn a corner into colors, rugs, copperware
clothing, spices, halva, three-year old infants
begging in the streets, repetition
after repetition, pistachios, roasted meat
with yoghurt, chai tea, bottled water in ten sizes,
he's into the biscuits now,
crunches like a mechanical alligator.
Croatia flashes by, we pass through villages,
walls of houses crumbling moonscapes, bullet scars,
shell holes, children pitted against their neighbors of
yesterday, then rolling fields giving way to grapevines
and cloud topped peaks.
His fingers dip regularly, satchel open now
probing for replenishments, raisins,
potato crisps with red foreign lettering.
We pass a little cemetery set back from the road
between a grove of trees. He stops eating,
head turns like a cameraman following through the window
until we turn a bend and it is lost.
I feel the pain surge up like a spring of hidden water,
see your face appear once again in the tangled branches
of a tree, hear your voice, a cloud sighing on the horizon
lower you once again into that little grave, cover you
with a dun brown blanket, place a garland of roses, a few
stones by your head, set out to see the world, from the air,
from the waves, by bus by train, the months passing
in a blur, Amsterdam, London, Capetown, all the same,
identical citadels of impossible reflections, expressionless
dull grey slabs of pain sliding by in grief.
In Plitvice by the waterfalls, he stays in the bus, opens another
pack of peanuts. I walk past, then go back, sit down beside
him. He offers me the packet. Listen I say, I've been here
before, it was with my wife, many years ago, but now she's
gone. It's not much fun going alone. Would you like to come
with me. The water is so clear you can see the fish and
the petrified branches of trees under the water are white
and beautiful.
Together we leave the bus, cameras in hands, looking for
all the world like two happy tourists.
LAS MENINAS
High Distinction award in the 2008 Margaret Reid Poetry Contest sponsored by Tom Howard Books.
Las Meninas was painted by Spanish artist Velazquez in 1656. The painting depicts a princess and her retinue in the court of King Philip IV. Three hundred years later in 1957 Pablo Picasso embarked on a project to paint his own version of Las Meninas. One large full scale black and white painting emerged plus no less than 58 smaller studies, including 14 of the Infanta princess Margarita Maria and 9 pictures of pigeons painted from his loft in Cannes. Several of these have become famous in their own right, however Picasso was never able to complete a full color painting of the whole group to his satisfaction. In the end he abandoned the project.
1.
Behold!
Life is a work of art
Painted by an unseen hand
The artist, lord, composer—call him what you will
Is the original and all who come thereafter
Interpretations, commentaries, conjecture and discussion
Coursing down the centuries, a great river of life and labor
To spill out verdant and luscious, here and here.
Painter, philosopher, theologian, musician and magician
All take their place before him.
Behold there he stands, brush in hand
Huge canvas daunting over stage.
Designer and design, his eyes see all.
All glows with inner light, suspended
In that perfect moment when
Imagination becomes reality
2.
In this tawny chamber
Brown merges to brown
And glowing calm
Where Margarita Maria poses,
Hooped and gowned
Between attending maids,
Her serene adolescence a light
That melts her frozen retinue.
Dwarf and dog prod and nod
While he, brush in hand,
Refracts the light and considers
His composition on a canvas
Framed and ribbed, large enough
To fill half a stage, its portent
Faced with richness
Of the mirrored royal couple.
See how the light shines through,
The inner light—Infanta—
His finest work. Tonight
He dines at the King's table
3.
The idea had not conceived itself
Across my brow, yet here in this exhibition
Its eyes traced mine from every corner
Every wall, frowning or glowering they
Led me through the rose and blue
Entrancing me, confronting me and
In the end inviting me with impudence
That lured my soul, to take a breath, plunge into
This river of shape and texture flowing through
Time's mind. The water rushes by, they cried,
Come catch the sky, capture the light and fling
It on the stage, his studio is yours, come grasp
The brush, paint until your blood spurts forth
Onto the canvas.
It was then I saw the heavens before me
A checkerboard of possibilities spread across
The stage: faces and eyes, groups of figures each
Absorbed into its own bright rhythm of color,
Trees and sea (and pigeons!) with bright pecking
Beaks and roosts.
While all this time, in center stage, there stands Infanta,
All costumed in her look of pensive wisdom, her maids
Surrounding her, protected in her fancy dress of light.
Oh Margarita Maria, betrothed to your portrait,
You died at twenty-two. What could you know of History?
4.
Princesses have a way of reappearing
throughout history, like legends and fairy tales
they are passed down for centuries; especially
child-princesses, for which little girl does not dream
of being a princess? Maria was no exception.
That summer as we boated down the Tagus river
I related to her the story of Margarita Maria
how the artist who painted her had made her
so famous that people from all the world came here
to admire her beauty. Tell me again, she murmured,
eyes closed to her imaginings. How her maids of honor
dressed her in finery. I want to hear again about the
royal dog, about the court dwarf; how king and queen
admired her from the mirror. As the river drifted by,
I too floated away on a dream.
Now here I am, alone in my attic, watching the pigeons
hop along the windowsill, my pen making sketches
over the page. Margarita Maria, how beautiful you are
reflected in this warm Spanish sunlight.
5.
Maria spent a whole month dressing her princess
no plastic dolls or cut-out books for her, I painted
a tiny figurine of Margarita on a piece of board, clothed
only in her petticoats. We carefully sawed her,
sandpapered her limbs to smoothness,
mounted her on a swiveling platform.
Off Calle Manuela Malasaña, in a small down-steps shop
we purchased remnants of silk brocade, calamanco, damask and
organza, mostly shades of yellow but also sky blue, bright reds,
added a serious brown close to the background hue of
Velasquez's own royal chamber.
Together we set to work, snipping out bodices, skirts, sleeves and
sashes in gay industry. Fourteen dressed up Infantas emerged
including an exquisite model which we have nicknamed
Fransiscana de Paula, Maria de los Remedios
6.
Divertimento:
I can feel the serrated knife
Of wonder thrill between my ribs
As I climb the steep wooden stairs
Of this attic in Cannes to tug the rope of memory
And let the sky's somber passion fly in
Frequently there are moments
When between labors I watch
The pigeons fluttering on the sill,
Skimming and skittering
In the heavens and thus inspired, can
Hardly wait to inscribe their hues and
Patterns in the dawn light, envisage in my
Mind the star-bound logic of infinite
Variations as the Creator's hands leap
After each other and fill in one-by-one
Those flawless complementary hues
It is true, I know it is heresy
When I allow the soaring of my intellect to
Interfere with the perfectly matched
Modulations of time worn traditions;
Yet as I climb the stairs,
Behold the wonder of fast approaching
Daylight, this is the muse that overcomes me
Generations of pigeons have fluttered
From these eaves for centuries
But now I am sure the time of change
Is drawing near, when intellect will
Combine the beauty of the sunrise,
The fluttering of the pigeons
And the intense painful wonder of it all
Into one shimmering crystal collage
Linked, interweaving and perfect
One last insight and the picture will be complete
Others might pay homage, but I need
To transcribe this vision of wonder,
Capture the fluttering pigeons on
And between the weave of the canvas
7.
Last night I lay awake for hours, those
Pigeons sighing and cooing in their roosts
Sang of sadness and disappointment, repeating
Their tunes in mutterings of who, where and why.
Somewhere between witching hour and fancy
I fell into a dream. It was a ballroom, domed and
Vast where harlequin-like characters all masked,
Danced in slow circles around a revolving stage,
A carousel of horseless riders. Within their robes I saw
Slow motioned troubled faces, I recognized a few:
A dwarf danced with two maidens, a queen
Sang to a dog. On two tall ladders clowns
Climbed to the ceiling, brushes in their hands they
Swathed reds, greens and blues across the plastered
Vault, each in his own endeavor. As colors spread, remained
Unmingled, I felt, nay I knew, they were uncomfortable
With each other, while down below the dancing ceased
And in a voice of thunder, the king called out—desist!
At that the ceiling came apart in sections like broken
Kaleidoscopes—angles of color split off into a thousand
Whirling shapes and pieces—like armies they fought
For possession of each area, charging and reforming until
Again the king called out—desist, and color drenched from
Each painted face in pale confusion.
As all the cast looked upwards, fighting stopped like wounded
Clock hands until all movement froze. I stepped out on the river
and it shattered into shards of centuries—like broken ice.
8.
And so the river rushes onwards
Bending and flowing, sometimes unseen
Across the landscape, at times it even
Vanishes underground to emerge
Years later, with the sound of caverns
In its voice. My life moves on too
From one village to next, visiting some companions—
An old savage, a man with a hat
Sculptors, artists, cats and musketeers and
Women—many women.
Of Margarita these days I rarely think,
Life is good and she is beautiful, perhaps
One day some young satyr may discover her again
Sitting by the river, singing her song
Epilogue—Pablo's Eyes
Nosed eyes splayed all around into
what has become a legend, a semblance,
limbs twisted into rapturous concavity,
arms dancing cubes of intimate sprawl,
fruit-ripe nipple fullness, relaxed depravity
daubed over furniture of red green or orange
splashed with streaks of brown, blue and droll
all odd and clown-like in grave and questioning smiles
In all this ebullience of shape and color
it is the eyes that penetrate your heart,
your mind, your intellect, your gasp,
eyes peering all-angled, oval, opposing, geometric,
laughing into offset spread-eagled proportions,
gazing out of the canvas from whichever
patterned frown they and you find each other,
they stare at you all wisdom and pupil, those eyes
watching you from every pose and twist,
all-seeing, juxtaposed in gravity or jest
And should you penetrate their magnets, you may find
yourself penciling impressions on tablecloths
entranced by the magic of this wise old child,
your eyes obsessed with brush and mind
AFTER THE WAR
Third Prize Reuben Rose poetry contest, 2006
Now that the guns are quiet
the hills awaken, don green clothing
Now that the missiles cease their roar
the birds hop out of hiding places
make short trips over still smouldering trunks
Now that the air begins to clear
patches of blue appear
damage assessors arrive, inspect, measure
jot inscriptions in notebooks, make calculations
Now that the guns are quiet
children emerge from shelters
kick balls, ride bicycles, flip skate boards
The grocery store restocks its rows
of yoghurts, cheeses, fruit and vegetables
Now that the guns are quiet
deep in the ground, fingers make tallies
count bodies, dust off prayer books
draw up lists, encrypt messages, mark maps
An army of ants crawls from hidden cracks
warriors carry shiny new weapons
wasps begin the task of hive reconstruction
black and red hieroglyphics
Now that the guns are quiet
lilting cadences cry out from turrets
calling the faithful to prayer
Now that the guns are quiet
somewhere in a cave
a skull winds a turban in coils
hiding thoughts, hiding plans
Until all that remains visible
is a sharp beard and a pair of flat eyes
unfurling from the gloom