Pages To Angela

i) Angela

so where are we today
when this discourse returns to our heads,
yes, sometimes we do wish to be dead
or can’t believe what’s been said when
we attempt to touch words
or find a reconciliation
        – look at our dreams which once
        glistened like prisms of icicles
        until tomorrow's promise
        returned as yesterday's nightmare
        where thoughts obsessed about how times eyelids
        closed with little desire to open as we felt our
        disconnecting lives tie slowly into knots
(don’t run away, try to feel comfortable
and please introduce yourself by an-
other name: i feel people could start
over if they would pretend
to be another of the imagined
people they are inclined to be, take
a chair and some tea, we shall talk
of wallpaper, servant of excellent
messenger, act of poets together for
talk (i’ve never told how i like
voices sound twined around rhyme or
how i feel about your lips which some-
time i would like to touch again with more
than poems), about chicken scratches
on white sleeves of trees; listen for
shadows will grow numb and wind will
glisten with spears of ice, we may
have our last chance for survival),
        look about us and how it has all changed:

the roads are rougher,
sidewalks grow more grass,
people grow fewer smiles than worried brows,
trees with lighter leaves, silent bird songs
                                of species passed into surrender,
but sometimes before all goes under
shall we still sing and smile
sometimes and hope (i hope
we can last,               i hope
we may both know of many people,
                               of children with curly
                               locks of laughter softer
                               than rain upon the grass;
                                 i hope
the sun may shine, the eyes close to open
again, hearts beat strong for a long time
                              – i’ve seen
               a place near this town where
               a piece of nature stands defiant
               to man’s chisel; voices are
               quiet like single water drops
               into half filled buckets before
               the grace of so many grasses
               and winds in whispered roar)
and have thoughts about more to existence
than the seeming indifference
of dust blown back into the face by the wind

for our mouths are now lined
with the ashes of our ancestors
while our eyes water themselves clear
for one more gaze into the present . . .

1) Wallpaper

near the edges of the room
cobwebs grow soon
over patterns pasted
across the naked walls,
cover it like one would
cracks of the mind: a little
   plaster over the disasters,
   mixed glue added to the
   disguise, then patterns
   chosen for the moment (a
   blue for the bathroom,
   perhaps the bedroom in
   peach, no not such a bold
   pattern for the kitchen,
   it couldn’t be painted
   over by one coat), followed
   by betrayal at the hands
   of moisture cracking over-
   tures into the mind:
   ‘remember me? think you
   can be free so soon? join me
   as my lover
   in the plaster dust.’

certain sanity built between boards,
breath steady rhythm,
every crack a voice, every creak
a face to observe silent intensities
crescendo in your skull,
pressures real and not real,
a creation of your own mind as every-
thing must sometimes be; but
perhaps in turn you are imagined
by the walls who do at least show
a purpose by holding the ceiling
and the floor apart, who stare at your
soft flesh and watery eyes, who
look beyond your wallpaper to see
who hides between your cracks: the
petty fears, prufrock paranoias,
secret loves pains, thoughts so close
bones scream at mention such
gremlins haunt your closets: look
at you shudder, areas of your
body grow damp, and laugh at your
temporary nakedness while
the wind whirls leaves in and
out the gutter.

but sometimes
when spring opens the window
and thoughts caress
across the sheets the same boards hum
softly in unison with your bed’s sway,
      sometimes
when tears dampen dusty corners
creaks dance lullabies to tired eyes
while spiders play silently in the shadows
           of rhythm,
      sometimes
when no thoughts subdue the mind
with overtures of the past
all sit to watch the moon and
window shapes flap.

2) Servant Of Excellent Messenger

though i be
a servant of excellent messenger
though i be
a servant of remembered trial
no one ever told me in the monkey bars
this only amounts to survival:

you never mention
except past whispered lips
chased dreams you are not sure of
or viewed openly
except through cautious eyes
where the sun colors through
where the sky burns blue

you never minded
such christian tongues
as dogs do forth for the songs
and their singers
or such laughter
as the sky drips in tears
on clouded days and sidewalks
when even the sun is quiet

you never attended
the words of excellent messenger
until human failures
made your breath fear wet
and realization claimed
only remembered trials
show the way the arrow
points on your cubic block of tears

so be you now
in search of mingled words
to explain the morning dew
before it dries beneath blazed sun
or be you now
in search of untwisted fellowship
to the inward you
and the journeys out that began,
be then no more on shadowed fence,
at least when the worries have ebbed
and worship grown past
the sandbox tractors of our youth

for you’re now whispered mythology
by this servant of excellent messenger,
though i be
a servant of remember trial
whose excuse is to hang up the phone
twice before he dialed

3) Act Of Poets Together For Talk

eyes shift uncomfortably
between moods of
a child who discovers a smooth round stone
to a spider ready to jump anything warm;
eyes draw together, trapped, hypnotic,
drugged by curiosity of themselves
and the eyes which return their gaze
only to dart away and place secrets
back into hidden boxes of dark closets.

hands nervous in the spotlight
lay naked in trembles
wishing to touch a pen,
wishing to lay warm in another hand
or around another neck;
they shake slightly in open view
or perhaps do grasp a teacup.

bodies find no chair, couch, or floor
quiet comfortable; they long for
stares over paper with glares
of white blankness, shifting in the ever
turning tempo of the moment, realization
of capturing the ever moving instant now.

voices stutter, sputter,
cough, and drone
in discussion of people, places, and poems:

‘have you read byron by moonlight’
‘do you know ginsberg is madder with wine’
but what of patchen’s poems made of prints’
‘hearst is a feeling of what you can find’
‘burns has become more than a favorite’
‘do you enjoy the timelessness of coleridge’
‘i have a growing love for the persians’
‘sometimes people make me dream of a ledge’

. . . too much revealed
both draw inward, touch-me-nots
who are aware of the thick air,
the smells of the room,
stains on their clothes,
tea spilled on the tablecloth . . .

one opens a sheet of paper
covered with marking of his insides
and lays it on the table almost
like an ancient charwoman
showing someone
her last piece of heritage.

voices stutter, sputter,
cough, and drone
in discussion of this poem:

‘you have captured it well whatever you do’
‘thank you, but what of my alliteration’
‘i’ve given it consideration . . . and . . .’
‘you understand’
‘but it’s hard to talk of another’s work’
‘yes, you might as well try to eat earth’

dust grows wicked on the shelves
of their voices in sputter and drone,
on the bodies isolated alone,
upon the hands doubtful what to do,
in the eyes drawn together now,
both wish to kiss, understand,
mingle a tear, laugh, bite a hand

and draw away into something
more than misery, more than joy,
but less than silence.

4) Chicken Scratches On White Sleeves of Trees

don’t close the door so soon,
leave it open, let the breeze in-
to the room; it’s warm outside
and the sun smells fresh;
children play baseball in vacant
lots and ride bicycles by my window;
the cat long restless has escaped
to play marco polo of the alley.

draw my pen close to the paper
and start to create marks,
slowly at first and then
increase the speed with unremarkable haste,
listen to realize what tastes
such a cannibal form
may place in your eyes and throat:

lines become wine
to be swallowed for pleasure, sorrow,
solitude, or themselves alone;
pages fall away into fable papers
wrapped about plants from foreign
countries, inhaled are the metaphors;
liquid and smoke
rhythm remains in my brain
– sometimes i views these words
and feel like a heretic
in blue denim pants.

don’t pull the curtains, i
wish to taste the breeze with my
fingers and make images of
     grass dancing in the ground,
     memories laid to bake in the sun,
     friendships and other mysteries,
     journeys completed before the storm;

because my hand is on fire
while my eyes fill with syllables
and other illusions of languages,
here is what i have to say:

don’t chase images
of too many shadows,
don’t weave wonders
of days not to return,
don’t leave paths
unless you know your feet well,
don’t push over mirrors
until you’re ready for
              the consequences.

outside mothers in chorus
proclaim the end
of another afternoon,
children trudge homeward
for escape in meals and television
glues together by parental reprimand.

i feel a cool breeze
joined by the need
to close a few windows

and wait for the cat.

ii) Angela

. . . water boils on the stove,
interrupts this discourse
and forces me to add some tea
to the pot; i have said much
but very little, shavings
of ice laid to dry
in the sun.

ny vision knows many tunnels
on this dim early morning,
a storm
outside forces the candle
from my hand,
we are now voices
who speak to the darkness.

i feel us beg with our eyes,
behind masks we disguise
our feelings to talk in codes
of many kind (what do you mean
by placing your face to the window?

i watch you turn toward
a passing car which cradles a couple
with their teenage daughter of
the backseat – their faces seem
stuffed with clay while the daughter stares
back from the windows, perhaps into
her future
             (angela, your breathing can be
             felt across the room. do
             you think ‘why does he always
             talk in these crazed rhymes?’
             or ‘when will the sun rise?’
             or thoughts no one has created
             words for – perhaps the clues to
             your questions are on these
             pages inside my eyelids)
                                                 the
car turns the corner and moves away
from the streetlight and your thoughts
until revived by these lines) before
one of us breaks the silence
by opening the door for the cat.

words float as symbols, dissected
feelings about chaos; whether
the sky rains has little to do
with ideas such as tea to be a passover
into states of different mind. words
produced as sounds slide forth
from your lips; you speak in silences
more than whispers. the dawn birds
start to call through a cold
that requires more than a sweater.

it is now too dark
to see your lips.

the cat wants out again.