Delphinium a gay garden May 2000 (revisited)

Delphinium ~ a gay garden, revisited
May 2000

‘Till the shadows
on his past
In a separate garden.

Except that we were
laughing
they too
were full silhouettes

in bloom

& not to bother

to intrude on mindless
heads thrown back for
That late brunch
sun mocking itself
meanwhile
a frond noir
Tricking the eye into
Thinking that it is

reseeing a day of youth
the shade of shadows
in shadows
we don’t really remember
even 20 years ago before

the last fall
When everyone was
subsumed
vortex
justanothermonster
million-rooted blood hydra
just another monster
to be melted

who were we but
all of us

to be still here

on this day buried
behind black purple
Siberian irises
splashed with cheap mimosas
or aubergine

sweated morning glories
all flora

staying out for a long
nevermore luxuriant

Lurching
fox gloves
slap each

other with tired lilies
forgetting a century
of black Pagliaci tears)

Spilled over lips
With winds swirls
making us blink vs
red or violet afterburns
to champagne
pink fade
blades
running
once,
leaves of grass
swat and sway
all afternoon
Trying to dance against
the lazy chorus of chive hammers
the entrada of
blurviolet organza
brushing by
Spiked feathers
Tripped over bowl of clover
Whispered over
villainous amaryllis

accidental
camaraderie
loitering
With such beautiful intent

Snapdragons in
snarky venereal poses
Under arc of skid row
rails repopulated with lilac clematis
(ear-ringed, dreadlocked)
And Camille

ignores

enough to
Descend.
On neon Medusa

granite dragon
ignored
unbloomed with doubt
certain of the galaxy
chrysanthemum
if it survives
Root map of the ants
cotillion next door to
The red speck-flies
Amok on mauve silk belles
willow

spiraled in
gnarled beauty
because of the early heat
and forget-me-nots
lost on other endless afternoons
the amber showdown
vaporized our outfits
reassemble from last
night
unforced bloomed
in the twilight

of blue roses
we’ve never

knew the worse

The lovers gone
Friends silenced
out of the
heroic sea
of unwanted souls
What we
were once
& need to be again
Will always be

kept like the
Ghosts of the gardens at Versailles.
Those forgotten blooms
still lost in someone else’s time

no we did not
remember promises not to
fall in love
Have sex
Not to cheat on our lovers
Or press leaves between
The pages of the pact that
We are finally
loving witness for each other
that is our sanctified root
the perpetual motion

on this last day

So the light changed
there is laughter
same larkspur
flying out of Troy
To drown out
cry for the next rain
soaring in this
dank metropolis
so supple
so fetid sometimes
she soars
in the field of
Delphinium

So instead do not
turn our back
On the blinded warriors
going back in
to say goodbye
unforeshadowed

Queens of the Garden

(For Jack & those beautiful men gathered

May 2000)

 

 

annual revisit & some replanting to Delphinium, A Gay Garden

fall poetries

Eleanor
from Days of Mercury

A vanishing
While visible
cobalt mist
cascading
Diffusing
lilac & fauna
steel heart
Glove
stiletto
No word
but arias
just out of reach
Quieted over
torn branch
drowned petal
a jaundiced
fog shrouding
flight
of the
grey tail hawk
circling the
estuary
to the vaulted
battlefield
Even
beyond
putrefaction
Of red lesion
over one eye
Banished
on the sunken harbor
silented grief
creeping vision
under the
hull of
voyages
relived
in the
burnt
vanishings
At azimuth
so pagan gods
Save the queen

hooded eyes
ignites
radiant waves
crown kumatage
summons
all of the creatures
to Aquitaine.

poetries &

From Gyroscopes

 ~Western Italy
The Shroud of Turin
Has been digitally
Enhanced and cleaned
Up from the fire
Repair done by Nuns
In the 13th century.
Of course none of the
Stains have been touched
The Vatican official
Statement is that its
Authenticity should be taken
With a pillar of salt
Correction a grain of salt
In a related story
salt is good
For removing blood stains
And thrown over the shoulder
It can also blind someone who
Might be sneaking up on you
Convening
~ North of Moscow
International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
scientists collided
Isotopes 20,97
Calcium and berkelium
For sub chamber
Supernova
In milliseconds
scrambled more
void time
Than big bang
betting odds
against infinite
But longer in
Dormant time
Fortunately the
Fire sat in what
Looked like
A realm of
Cobalt
onyx dream
But for the moment
It is called
Un0un septium by
International Union of
Pure and Applied Chemistry
Placing it on the periodic
Table as no. 117.
No one could leave the chamber
~  In Southern Africa
The skeletons of humanoids
A couple of million years
Older than Lucy (found
On the West Coast of Africa
And everybody’s grandmother
The mother and teen were
Taller than Lucy and
More evolved physically
Between simian ancestors
And Neanderthals
This opens up new
Evolutionary avenues
kind of blows Noah
Out of the water
But he would want
The text amended
Without pause                   ~Later that night West Village

a Refraction that
told of the
tip of a
Millionth
heaven
quarter
Moon
that
appeared on the
ping of that
frequency
reported
only on early
radio news
there was the
Freedom
Through
Europe
that took
over the rest of
the day
by that night
an
Eacart
Silver
moon
Erased
memory
floated in
and Universal
Studios had sent
over coal clouds
to shadow
in shadow
to shroud
radiance
meanwhile you spin the dances of Isadora
& I drink mercury

Poetries

– Andrea Clearfield’s Salon botanicals – 5.24.2016LJW-

 

From The Music Rooms

prelude in transit

          ~wordless darkness that underlies all verbal truth~Perhaps                                    something only music could suggest|Timebends Arthur Miller 
Steel shadows
dragged out of the room
Sutured behind a wing
vanished into sky
Unwritten, unspoken
mourned to infinity
swallowing illusion, escape
through the hands
retold through time
vanquished eye
Secreted away
witness
swallowed day
absent of reason
of any
Remembering
but that
progression of scarred waltz time
conjured from the pages
Of a burned book
prelude in transit
Riveted to the track
pulverized repeatedly
then entering a new night
When it is played again
for the first time

Poetries

Tchaikovsky morning

fr~ Days of Mercury

Indigo
realm is ours
leading nowhere

the
heroic vanquished

not wandering in a dream
Earth fire water air cobalt maybe warns

before the corps de ballet come in
hands reaching to infinity
dancers flee the promontory
enlightenment

instead split infinitive

it would always be eclipsed

our revisiting
hour remembers

deep fever

dream in dream in dream
Remember vanquished haunted blood
It was the same sweated nights you had before except no replay of the conversation we whispered remembering to forget “I’m a little afraid”
“what should we do?” “Nothing, go back to sleep, until we know what we already know”
all blues cobalts indigos cocooned together, hunted alone
Item (in the wings) Dancing together before every performance
In a couple of weeks it all changed before we knew it- the skipped classes
The last minute calls of performance subs, the pretense at dinners and rehearsals.
“we should tell them,” I said. “they already know,” he said.

I got sick first but we found out later that medically, my guy was in much worse shape and that anything could happen. It was going to be slower with me.
It was the last time we made love
Under all the coats we needed to keep up warm dropping to the floor
then we opened all the windows and heard Serenade Tchaikovsky string, sonorous indigo finale beginning to dream ladies of the ensemble weren’t saying goodbye
So we leapt toward them

Poetries

LWpics)
Chet plays the Mercury L

Before the rain

Tore off baleful hearts

private pictures
Of sordid songs
other rooms
stolen cornet in
A dreamer’s dream
Running nails
In abandon hotels
Staring at broken
Table with sepia note cards
lipsticks
onyx cufflinks
silver cigarettes clips
Dented flasks
discarded tricks
loves under the smoke
Betrayed with cold promises
nightswimming
Echoed whispers
of a coma night.
Up, wet, clothed, out
Driving red ’55 chrome
Alfa with your blonde
Hair and scarf playing wind tide
On my lap
You make me hum ’Where or When’
And kick your shoes out
Of the window to feel
your arch and paint your toes pink.
I piss you off
you can’t chase him down
To the wrong door
To that empty hall
that lullaby
A damned psalm about
a fix melody
You think of playing but
Instead lets the mirror glide open
And all he sees is the black satin
Lapel against the mangled collar
Clinging to his fevered hair.
Then he stays
Away to complete
That unseen picture
Of lacquered eyes
On the wounded brow
Crouched over cobalt mirror notes
Ash and whiskey spilled all over the bed
She saw him cradling his trumpet in the flat
as she turned.

Poetries

the clouds come in 2.28.2013

Au revoir, les homme

Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Song to a Siren by Tim Buckley

Are you livid
Are you quiet
Are you drown in my dream
Over Damascus
Over Jerusalem
Over Atlantis
Quiet enough
To get by
Without me
Have you got a
Shield for me,
a lyre
For me
An all gods
Dead or alive
godless prayer
That keeps us safe
Leads me inside
Your Amsterdam
Where we
Drink grappa
Stumble into Paris
liberate me over
The fields of the dead
Are you with me
Are you with me
This time as you were before
In Cologne
Where we didn’t leave that
bombed villa for two weeks
Before we were both starving
In the woods
Are we quiet enough
Running along this river
Not to see anyone else
I know you don’t want
To hear me
Because you think you can
Save us another way
But you did come to me in a dream
to tell me not to
Listen to you
That I would have to know
whenever we are going to
Be able to leave
On the night boat to Capri
Or vanish here.

poetries

from Days of Mercury

Crystal Triangulates of cobalt lasers splice The room Past forest Torsos Interiors Careening mosaic Onto the arterial specter Of a blond bird Blowing out smoke Dancing to techno Wagnerian sonicale His locks Moving around a surge of melted Figures who formulate Out of a whirling void Eyes to tell Feel them more than I feel you Sneers squirrels away Commenting I thought With track of Blue smoke trailing Out of his nose Lines of sulfur At mach speed Punched through imploding sounds capes He looked at Me As if he knew My deceit My corruption My reckoning of loss The burned dreams We used to have a sexual history But couldn’t place it in Time Wanting me To take another He made me think all The time You punch Through a club Neon quasar The hands rewound Out of the room So I gazed a Soul out of you and I caught this tightness in His glare that Made me lurch Toward you Pin his glistening Shoulders against The arch And map out The silhouette of your body in real time.

Poetries

13 in Blue

fly asleep
fools, dreamers & lovers
on these nights in the city
tender promontory
protect this journey
’till the invisible return
diamond eye
iron frequencies
glitter tongue
violet touch
rain perfuma
geodomic fini
aloft over the carnage
in the flowers assigned to Mercury
of the souls drinking the wine of the lost temples
severed from any replica of earth transmitting
the cobalt codes of new worlds not a word to
sing in forgotten whispers

Elegy

Usually write an essay for Dec 1, World AIDS Day, but this year a remembrance
Chamber dance
(item- fr 1988. Two ballet dancers jumped from their midtown apartment…in an apparent… at press time, their names have not…)
The cobalt realm
vanquished                                              dying in a dream
Earth fire water air        indigo               before the corps de ballet
With their hands reaching to infinity
The dancers of the promontory past Balanchine
The ladies of enlightenment                          blue

A split infinitive of           aloneness because it would           always be revisited

remembered, dreamed
It was the same fever only two nights  before except

With a replay of the conversation

“I’m a little afraid, not all but”   “yes, what should we do?”

“Nothing, go back to sleep Hold me

don’t see anybody until we know what we already know”
So that was our life.                                    Cold, together, hunted.
In a couple of weeks it

all changed before we knew it-

the skipped classes
last minute calls of performance subs

the pretend dinners and rehearsals.
“we should tell them” I said.   “nothing, they already know” he said.

I got the sickest first but we found out later

that medically he was in much worse shape

that anything could happen.

It was going to be slower with me.

It was the last time we made love

then we opened all the windows

heard Serenade

Tchaikovsky morning finally
The Ladies of the ensemble
weren’t saying goodbye.