29 palms

Time travels in odd adjuncts—

today, say, being the twenty-nineth Palm

Sunday my father would have woken

for, had he simply stayed alive.

Robert Plant sang that count of

palms, in California—as I was on my way

to Central Asia, skiffs upon those still

waters of Psalm twenty-three.

Today, as Plant would say, I’m in

the mood for a melody I’m in the mood for

a melody I’m in the mood; and format

won’t fulfill a carriage of relay.

Joshua washes feet that, as Bono

might agree, have mired through streets of

no name. He does so, naturally, for his

fathers, who relish in reunion.

I’ve poeticized about these petty

things before—how “do what Momma told

me” translates to wisdom and free will,

a blanket “way it oughta stay.”

We may read twenty-nine palms

to note what lines are scarred and tried and

true; I live in dog years, walking circles

twice a day in memory of you.

--DMVL

Full fathom five

The way I wake up

is unusual, so

it has been said;

I stretch to find the

boundaries of the bed,

and, touching them

with curves of each

appendage, I slide

in glacial shyness

toward an unassuming

floor and tumble

in the bubble

wrap of blankets.

What dreams I’ve had

while falling (to sleep

and to this wake)

are touchstones to

a life that must

exist beyond our

give and take;

I meet my father

twice a year—

about the same

amount when he

was here—and

glory in the moment.

My dog wakes more

or less the same;

his boundaries

lack the trouble

of the coming day

(no messages to check

or bills to pay),

yet satisfy a

greater sense of

who he is and why,

regardless of his

father, who may be

me, for all we fathom.

DMVL

"Full Fathom Five" by Jackson Pollock, 1947

 

Madame Sosostris

Another reading of The Waste Land, Lines 43-59

Fame catches a cold.  Fortune clears her throat.
She tells whatever can be told
From stories Waite & Rider wrote.
Wisdom deals the cards.  She plays a wicked game.
The deck is short, the rules are hard,
The names begin to sound the same.

The wheel turns.  The world walks
In circles.  Thank you everyone.
A fisherman up on the docks
Appears with extra gear at dawn.
Lady Belladonna rocks.
The one-eyed merchant carries on
His back a blank, an empty box,
And here, my dear, your card is drawn:

A sailor lost at sea.  She tells me this is me.
Drowned in the place I ought to be
The most alive and free.
Each card she flips for me is contradictory
Or worse: they're random, cryptic and
Impossible to see.

The wheel turns.  The world walks
In circles in a purple dawn.
Lady Belladonna rocks.
Right here, my dear.  Your card is drawn.

Live, she says, in fear that one day you will die
Within the stream that brought you here,
Without the time to wonder why.
Look while you still can at how your eyes will be
Like pearls buried in the sand
At the bottom of the sea.
Learn, she says, from this, and generally beware,
But as far as I can see, there is
No hangman anywhere.
Some things are forbidden.  Some things can’t be found.
The meaning of the cards are hidden,
Left for blank and turned around.

We, having our whole lives to read,
Would ask somebody blind to read us.

The wheel turns.  The world walks

In circles.  Thank you, everyone.

Metamorphoses

A reading of lines 31-42 of The Waste Land

Translation restating from watching to
waiting.  The wind blows fresh for home.

Translation substitution from dessert to
ocean.  The sea is waste and drear.

Translation swapping poison with potion
prince to flower boy to girl.  My Irish
child where tarriest thou?

Translation transition speech to silence
sight to blindness darkness to light.
Io non mori 'e non rimasi vivo.

We translate when we can't identify.
We recompose the script to comprehend.
We read to see ourselves.  We correlate

To see it through, if not to reason why;
To do or die, if not to understand.
We translate when we can't identify

But if we want to live more than to wait
Or when we wait to die but find we can't
We read to see ourselves. We correlate.

We fight against the fight, to make reply
To what we do not know.  We contemplate.
We translate when we can't identify.
We read to see ourselves.  We correlate.

(Frisch weht der Wind der Heimat zu
Oed' und leer das Meer.
Mein Irisch Kind, wo weilest du?
I did not die, and I alive remain-ed not.)

Something Different

Reflections of The Waste Land, lines 19-30

And still those voices are calling from far away...

I have no answer in this place.
I’m in the irony of space
Reinventing Major Tom
Every fifty years or so.
I want to hide from the sun,
Clutch the earth and feel it under me,
The dirt from where I come
To where I go.

I want to run. I want to hide
In the shadows of my mind
Of a morning stretched before me
And an evening closing in.
I can’t understand the voice
Calling me a child of choice,
heir apparent, prince of mortals,
Son of man.

I want to understand
But I don’t know what to say.
The sun has been relentless
Planet Earth is gray
And I haven;t got a clue.
And the garden’s far away.
I don’t know what to say
And I don’t know what to do

Show me
a hard rock world
or a mote in the universe,
a resting place
or a tombstone to tip;
Show me
a shelter from the sun
or a rock to roll away,
well-weathered pavement
or a cornerstone.

I have no answer in this place
I see wasted dessert space,
Emptiness and broken images,
No hint of life, no sound
But the whisper of that voice
Showing me a fearful choice
In the shadows as they shimmer
On the ground.