| A sampling of poems from JUST ONCE |
There
The winter sparrows all at once
are quiet. I heard them and now
I don’t. Something thuds instead in
my head like a disjointed dream—
a queasy realization that whirs and turns
within me like well-oiled hinges.
My head pulses but not it—it!—
huddled there. No, it doesn’t pulse
or thud. I think it’s dead—
dead like a stone is dead. Only it’s
there. There! Snow hisses at
the window and I feel like I’m
going to fall against the wall.
But I can’t. I can’t
cup it even. It’s that big,
that far swollen beyond
my flat pink palm, beyond the
last reaching finger tip. The
winter sparrows are hushed
into a silence deeper than
this unending winter. They have fled
into a sky grayer than their gray
shadows. They have left a hushed
silence in the place they just fled,
there, just beneath my bedroom window
where a pale light falls. It falls
there and makes the gray snow yellow,
where all the twig-like tracks of the birds
are laid out like the words of this poem.
There. Just there.
The winter sparrows all at once
are quiet. I heard them and now
I don’t. Something thuds instead in
my head like a disjointed dream—
a queasy realization that whirs and turns
within me like well-oiled hinges.
My head pulses but not it—it!—
huddled there. No, it doesn’t pulse
or thud. I think it’s dead—
dead like a stone is dead. Only it’s
there. There! Snow hisses at
the window and I feel like I’m
going to fall against the wall.
But I can’t. I can’t
cup it even. It’s that big,
that far swollen beyond
my flat pink palm, beyond the
last reaching finger tip. The
winter sparrows are hushed
into a silence deeper than
this unending winter. They have fled
into a sky grayer than their gray
shadows. They have left a hushed
silence in the place they just fled,
there, just beneath my bedroom window
where a pale light falls. It falls
there and makes the gray snow yellow,
where all the twig-like tracks of the birds
are laid out like the words of this poem.
There. Just there.
Two Poems after Neruda
1. Otro
After wandering around in places
even maps don’t show
I finally came to that terrible place
where no one cared
if I ate fat heads of lettuce
slightly brown on the edges
or that incredible mint,
green as elephant dung.
I said nothing—
and in doing so—
kept my heart
yellow as a summer dawn.
2. I Went
Only trees, a faint dank
smell of thawing earth and, like that,
a cold spring returns.
With it, the usual vague
hope, elusive and just beyond reach.
The sky dominates with a barely
perceived horizon that goes on
forever until it destroys itself. So!
this is how creation cleanses itself—
this is how it makes itself pure!
I walk into the afternoon, into
gray sky and even grayer snow-
covered
earth. But not me—I am not gray.
I am green—like a pine forest
is green. Or my overcoat is
anyway. And with my green self
I carry a headiness that
sways within me like a
fever, while a heaviness clutches at
my aching ankles with
every step I take.
Snow! O snow! Come!
Come to me in this place
of such anguished stillness!
1. Otro
After wandering around in places
even maps don’t show
I finally came to that terrible place
where no one cared
if I ate fat heads of lettuce
slightly brown on the edges
or that incredible mint,
green as elephant dung.
I said nothing—
and in doing so—
kept my heart
yellow as a summer dawn.
2. I Went
Only trees, a faint dank
smell of thawing earth and, like that,
a cold spring returns.
With it, the usual vague
hope, elusive and just beyond reach.
The sky dominates with a barely
perceived horizon that goes on
forever until it destroys itself. So!
this is how creation cleanses itself—
this is how it makes itself pure!
I walk into the afternoon, into
gray sky and even grayer snow-
covered
earth. But not me—I am not gray.
I am green—like a pine forest
is green. Or my overcoat is
anyway. And with my green self
I carry a headiness that
sways within me like a
fever, while a heaviness clutches at
my aching ankles with
every step I take.
Snow! O snow! Come!
Come to me in this place
of such anguished stillness!
This Stigmata
None of them had this stigmata—
not one of those doe-eyed darlings
who cooed their pious love and swayed
into violent ecstasy like beautiful mystical
Camilles.
They were content with their bloody shows—
putting even the slaughterhouse sows
to shame, who went complacently to
their triduums even when their bellies
were sliced open and their watery juices
gushed out.
This stigmata—
restrained and uncertain—
is so much cleaner. The juices
are clear, the heat of passion
quiet and…reserved in a Protestant
sort of way.
And so much closer to those actual pains,
that extreme anxiety that brought on not
the nails and thorns, but sweat—
ugly and like blood, but not blood
or any other sort of gore. It was
instead the passion of stung eyes,
of a face not hidden by a turned-away back,
as Moses strained after, but revealed
in a clear glistening sheen, brighter
than any celestial glow.
This stigmata is not secretive, hidden
behind fingerless gloves or a visored nun’s
veil.
This stigmata is the divine likeness
revealed and glorified—
unashamedly faced and gloried in.
None of them had this stigmata—
not one of those doe-eyed darlings
who cooed their pious love and swayed
into violent ecstasy like beautiful mystical
Camilles.
They were content with their bloody shows—
putting even the slaughterhouse sows
to shame, who went complacently to
their triduums even when their bellies
were sliced open and their watery juices
gushed out.
This stigmata—
restrained and uncertain—
is so much cleaner. The juices
are clear, the heat of passion
quiet and…reserved in a Protestant
sort of way.
And so much closer to those actual pains,
that extreme anxiety that brought on not
the nails and thorns, but sweat—
ugly and like blood, but not blood
or any other sort of gore. It was
instead the passion of stung eyes,
of a face not hidden by a turned-away back,
as Moses strained after, but revealed
in a clear glistening sheen, brighter
than any celestial glow.
This stigmata is not secretive, hidden
behind fingerless gloves or a visored nun’s
veil.
This stigmata is the divine likeness
revealed and glorified—
unashamedly faced and gloried in.
St David’s Day:
8:45 PM
At the party, one of them—so young
its hurts my face—uncorks
his fizzing coldness and pours
a smoky shot into a glass. Another—
even younger, even more gentle
in her movements—sidles in
beside him, her long white legs
speckled with blue veins. Someone
behind them shouts. Another laughs.
A crackle of applause goes on
like fire in this room.
A beat
then a liquor smell fills the air.
Let’s sit back
all the way! We’ve thrown
the sticks! The fortune’s read!
Someone here is so sick—
so close to something you—
in this heady innocence
which fogs your eyes like lust—
can only just barely make out
over this music and the steady thump
of your lives. It creaks
in his body. It sounds—
doesn’t it?—
like sobbing.
8:45 PM
At the party, one of them—so young
its hurts my face—uncorks
his fizzing coldness and pours
a smoky shot into a glass. Another—
even younger, even more gentle
in her movements—sidles in
beside him, her long white legs
speckled with blue veins. Someone
behind them shouts. Another laughs.
A crackle of applause goes on
like fire in this room.
A beat
then a liquor smell fills the air.
Let’s sit back
all the way! We’ve thrown
the sticks! The fortune’s read!
Someone here is so sick—
so close to something you—
in this heady innocence
which fogs your eyes like lust—
can only just barely make out
over this music and the steady thump
of your lives. It creaks
in his body. It sounds—
doesn’t it?—
like sobbing.
After a poem by Marina Tsvetaeva
Grant her health,
and to her quiet bedside
send the Angel
which flew so silently from me.
Keep her as she is—
shunning too much talk,
and let her not fall,
like me, in love a little with death.
Grant her health,
and to her quiet bedside
send the Angel
which flew so silently from me.
Keep her as she is—
shunning too much talk,
and let her not fall,
like me, in love a little with death.
All poems Copyright (c) 2006 by Jamie Parsley
| November Moon by Geri Burkhart Weiner from the cover of Just Once |
| Just Once is available at Loonfeather Press www.loonfeatherpress.com |
Thursday in the Fourth Week of Lent
With the hormone balance of a
pregnant woman comes
the nausea, the metallic tastes
haunting the mouth, the repulsion
to food, to lingering scents.
For years I sympathized with the
pregnant. I sorrowed for their pale
faces, their squeezed expressions. The
body changed. It grew, forming
something hard and rotund, then failed.
It was left exhausted and elastic. Then
it begin again with a vigor I could not
at the time comprehend. Now more
than empathy. A shared experience—
like stigmata, only bloodless
and with nothing to
culminate into except a
perpetually uncertain recovery.
With the hormone balance of a
pregnant woman comes
the nausea, the metallic tastes
haunting the mouth, the repulsion
to food, to lingering scents.
For years I sympathized with the
pregnant. I sorrowed for their pale
faces, their squeezed expressions. The
body changed. It grew, forming
something hard and rotund, then failed.
It was left exhausted and elastic. Then
it begin again with a vigor I could not
at the time comprehend. Now more
than empathy. A shared experience—
like stigmata, only bloodless
and with nothing to
culminate into except a
perpetually uncertain recovery.
Tattoos
Not henna but India ink
dots and a needle, like
the tattoos we gave each other
at fourteen. Only no flaming
dragons, no flamboyant hearts
with arrows piercing
them. Only a freckle of blue
here and here and here, like
runway lights to guide the
red pentagram of lasers.
None on the biceps or
the shoulder but on the tender
soft sides where the cold hand
that holds the needle creates
a ripple effect of delight, followed
by a concentrated jab, a piercing
so quick and easy I don’t know
how to respond. When it’s
done, I wait a moment before
I look. Is it ink? Is it blood?
Or is it water, clear
as a Celtic holy well’s,
trickling onto
the white sheet beneath me?
Not henna but India ink
dots and a needle, like
the tattoos we gave each other
at fourteen. Only no flaming
dragons, no flamboyant hearts
with arrows piercing
them. Only a freckle of blue
here and here and here, like
runway lights to guide the
red pentagram of lasers.
None on the biceps or
the shoulder but on the tender
soft sides where the cold hand
that holds the needle creates
a ripple effect of delight, followed
by a concentrated jab, a piercing
so quick and easy I don’t know
how to respond. When it’s
done, I wait a moment before
I look. Is it ink? Is it blood?
Or is it water, clear
as a Celtic holy well’s,
trickling onto
the white sheet beneath me?