Dances of Apocalypse 2
Hornpipe
one more morning
is all I need
to fill my sails
to sooth my lost feelings
with Neptune sensations
ripped from the quaking mound
of the Virgin’s first child
Hornpipe because this is a short piece with sea references & Biblical allusions. Jesus filled the sail of the fishermen’s boat when needed to sooth their fears. Was I wondering what would rip me feeling from me? Melodrama mistaken for depth:-)
Cakewalk
Japanese pagoda
growing in Rome
or was it Venice?
all jade fragile
amid marble columns
awaked by murky waters
steaming morning haze
when we roll off our pallets,
to silky cool
onto the the polished mosaic floor;
looking to the chiming clock,
listening to the pigeons fly.
open for daylight
onto freshly fallen snow
mingling white with the Pines,
or were they Spruce?
high in Smokey Ridge
deep in Twin Rock Valley
Cakewalk – not sure why this one ended up with this title. A piece about displacements, paradoxical dreamlike images that travel from Japan to Rome & end up in Twin Rock Valley – which is in Cape Breton. I had friends, draft-dodgers, who had bought a farm in the hippy get-back-to-the-land phase. The waking up to fresh snow is a real moment Maybe the title refers to the fact that back-to-the-land was no Cakewalk for them.
Minuet
fame and fortune are not goals
merely drugs to opiate the system
to deaden the feelings of futility
of creating in the face of destruction
<>
let the pygmies of Paris eat me alive;
make them scourge the meat off my bones;
let the sniper with his random pulse
find me accidentally in his sights;
put the final, fleeting, flash blow
into someone else’s hands,
take the responsibility from me,
I handle these things so badly,
even when I remember what to do.
<>
the moment of truth (never now)
comes slow, to disturb the calm
to strengthen the desperate feeling
that destruction charges with energy.
Minuet – polite little dance – much like the dance of expectations, no wait, expectations are rarely polite. I grew up in the shadow of nuclear destruction, war in Vietnam, war protests & racial strife in the USA. Kennedy shot by a sniper. The randomness of violence was pretty far removed from me in Cape Breton but it was felt. Why create when we can annihilate the world in a moment?
Quadrille
impatience is the problem;
the waiting should be over
yet it persists in hiding,
making me lust in secret wanting;
words merely fall,
not for insight
but only to pass the time
before the curtain finally goes up.
Quadrille – this word makes me think of cotillions for some reason. The piece, as I see it now, is wanting to be an adult, ‘lust in secret’ is the itch to be out & making conversation to hide that fact. Like waiting for the plane to land – you want the flight to over.
The Last Waltz
bed-ridden, guilty-disappearer
alludes carpets backwards
into ember sparkling through cozy air,
crackling crystal cut perspectives
reflections held too closely eye-ward
making a pyramid of ink blotches
stretch out
turn in
till there is no border to be fought
only a multiplicity of images to sort.
<>
Nov. ‘73
The Last Waltz – the final piece in this sequence is both an invitation to look back before you go on then a warning that there’ll be even denser imagery to deal with in what follows. In looking at these I see a foreshadowing of of images to come with references to Africa, Japan, Egypt, Canadiana, water, music. When I first wrote these I was not conscious of these patterns. I also see various influences of pop lyrics, as opposed to ‘serious’ literary ones.
I do have a limited number of the original Distant Music chapbook for sale for $25.00 each (includes surface mail postage). Send via the paypal above along with where to send it.
