Leslie Philibert - 3
Italy: Three Short PoemsCapri
roofless cubes, spidery with wire cakes of azure and enzian; above at the Villa San Michele Rilke smiles down at the broken beaches, at coves of defiant waves, compacted sea Pompeii a chessboard of honest stones open to a sky of hushed shouts; we huddle in a boned frame of another life, a stopped day Napoli warm and secret, olive-eyed, an infinite beauty makes a new face as the gaze ape-like from our bus; an act of moment Winter Onionsmy little round sleepers with
lots of coats on, mud huggers with a tribal bottom perfectly lined up at the bus stop of spring, soft under the cold loam, a miracle despite the banality of hidden numbers; time to drink tea as I wait in a cooling garden The North Capea wind of old nails
broken stones the sky a guilt of rain all these stunted trees grasp over wet moss seagulls are unborn children that cry over the tundra this is the end of a measured world this is the e nd ofa mea sured wor ld Film SchoolSuddenly, lights from a car outside.
Ghosts on a wooden floor, created by a window and snow. This is the way you leave the world. Black DogA black dog has
chewed the string of my heels, followed my eyes, heavy with dark corners, pushed me over the fence, down the path, broken with stones, cruel with gravel and follwed me into the shallows where I hit the tide with the flat of my hand. DonegalA line of stones;
the threat of so much space, a fallen horizon. Salt grass coarse with rain, nights heavy with tides and the battered steel of the sea, the broken gong of the moon, strange friends. Then, I know not what to call the rough curves of peat, slight of the sea, a bodhran wind over the rocks. When I am no more let me melt in the rain of this cold coast, its own name shaped, the seagull`s call. PaperboyThe cold changes
the weight of my steps. Each door opens with glass. Dogs bark in circles. Milkfloats whine in electric. My parka tired with old dirt. The early moon carelessly ignored. My hands are dark with print. Nearly in another life I discover the inner life of gates and how to dance around plants and bikes and how to grow into a morning. Going to Church on New Year's DaySlight as birds
Not in flight But well placed, Between hill and Village; snow as it is: Balanced, neutral. Greyheads, silver-eyed Drowning in tweed. Beyond manshape They ballet over ice, Horse-footed, Terse with God; Wordless, Sort of half alive, Drawn against the white. Table Dancesoftporn saxophone;
botox for the soul, strained faces only held together by skin, gluteal muscles for nylonhearts and sweaty collars, porcine, popeyed each mouth fallen open like a gallow`s trapdoor the delight at a big dame battleship, built in stereo that makes aftershave boil under matching ties; littlemen reduced to red. The North is WinterThe North is Winter.
Ringing cold. Nameless stars. A coastal trawler With a ballast of dead souls. Shaken into the waves. The night tugs at my sleeve As a child would so. Nameless cold. Ringing stars. AutumnAutumn is a frozen church
We wait at heavy doors That smell of rust Not a Moon cold enough To be called heartless Or breathclouds of old steam More an estuary of Dumped mist, afraid to ice, The taste of wax on your lips, The frame of hair round a Hatted face, our steps as slow As if we tread water You are ice and rain and The first crystals and even More than this, beside me. WidowerKnowing there are
many words for night; night watch, nightshade, nightfall but none for the space of a halved bed, an envelope stretched, flat with white; unslept in, and hands devoid of a trace of perfune or rest warmth, a slight breath, a gentle curve. Let him cherish the lost presence of a drowned moon of darkness long of standing time. After You LeftAfter you left, I fell asleep
Lost in a web on warm cotton and Sudden space, stretching in your bed. Your dream catcher turns in the light, A trace of Eau-de-Cologne hangs in the air. I find a poem by Rilke on your pillow, An open book, almost lost by reading; Ich finde Dich in allen diesen Dingen. But then I lose myself again, outside The traffic has stolen you like a thief. |
Fear of Trainsautumn rain is akin to black tea,
the burnt yellow of old growth watered, a train shakes the fields, like an old carpet snapping, birds shoot holes in the turbulent sky; the world is split like an apple, your head inside a bell, when it is over it is not over; the air hums with steel, too many eyes are in the undergrowth, evening's calm as brittle as toffee, shocked from coal and smoke, a heartbreath along rails. Oldold is the smell of lavender,
washed faces, the dust brown of waxed furniture, bouquets of veined hands that hide pearls in indian boxes, alongside cameras that fled across years, heavy-eyed then there is you, the way you change, you are half of these years, not just the ebb, but a wave never slight Grey in One LineLooking over the pale fields
and old woods, I recognise this can not be the consequence of birth, more a late push under winter mud, as if I am as thin as cardboard, one of no depth, desolate as sleet. GoodbyeAlone in a crowded room
she whispers through her sharp cat`s teeth Count the rest of your life in days you do the same. Imagine a space in the air where I will never be. Dark Churchangular,
behind black, a suggestion of brick; the spire moon shadows the roots under stars, slight warmth of sandstone and ticking birds, small movements between gravestones and curled brass ; a dark box of stone waiting for the edge of light. Kafka Turned AroundDead as a fallen log
but turned into a human. A gutbag of small pumps, red rivers and spilled salt. Drains, curves and arches as in a Roman town. Forced back into life, stranger than an insect. Less noble. Lock the door. Day SleeperLost out of the picture,
fallen out of life, cut-eyed shut down from all the cars and trains and all this carrying and breaking and lines of words without spaces. You breathe softly, regular, as if in a deep wood, as paced as a slow piston in exile to yourself, a half life turned inside as if the strings that could lift you hang loose in the sunlight. Snow TrainAs the snow is
tidal in the trees, consider the tracks and the dark tons asthmatic with steam, cold as the moon`s slight, black as the stars are hidden, perfect as a pulse of wheel; dead crate of steel that rests and waits then moves by magic quiet through the night Garden ShipThe winter is enamel;
buckets of cold, sodden pots of forgotten growth. Snow ship. Trees taut with tackle of frost. Earth hard as the white sea, adrift and lost between seasons made of ice and sorts of rain,not going, not sailing. Dull and still as December. The Moor GirlFeral as leather
Sculptured as a scarab Curved as a burnt twig. Asleep beyond the punishment, Each tress solid with peat; Flaxen as old corn. Perhaps you softly breathe water Under the door of the moon Still as the night is rain. ParadiseLet me be an old man in Anatolia
Resting on a white plastic chair, Saintly in a starched white shirt Drinking tea from a glass that has Curves like a woman,watching Children and traffic, nodding at Shadows, a friend of dust and thin Cats, weightless like a moth on Running water, silent with the Grace of ages, half asleep and wise. A Murdered Girl Sleeps Next to the MotorwayEyes shadowed from stars
The not-quite silence rests On your bleached cheek; Trees adorn your faint skin. The sun does what a sun does And melts water on your face A passing fox kisses your hand; The moon lights or not; All this as the busy race by Under orphaned bridges, tearless, You are lost for all the wrong reasons But safe under loam Sleeping in the ground like a blues. The Soulshe looked puzled
and laid her book between the tea cups and asked me if the soul was a woman and I said it is now. Still Lifedark fruit
hard and autumnal beyond grey be empty to perfection devoted to silence in all things at home |