Blue light dipping in foot rhythms;
ice melting in cocktails
turned slippery in condensation
and summer’s oil-like, lithesome limbs.
Open this throat like a yawning tunnel
and slug the sound of saxophone
flooding light
that gaping darkness
in the fire of jazz and whiskey
where releasing the weight of aching minds
in inky heads with ears sloshing full,
we curve exposed and arching
to collapse the demure decorum of posture and silence.
How else could we know this poetry on the ceiling,
mark the faces emotive on heavily swishing heads
bobbing and swaying like boats
on an atmospheric sea
that spans the coasts of seat and stage,
where stolen winds of conversation swept us to shore together
on an island of familiar sands and rhythmic tides;
a common ground below swooping seagull glares,
who circle back to cast their echoed caws of offence.
But loftily trapped above the warmth of feet in sand
how could they know that all this music is not for silent listening?
It is proximity.
To hear the grit of sand between your grinding teeth
or to part expression’s maw
and suffocate silence with drunken grains of warmth,
compacting and settled in every unknown space – which is closer?
It’s the water carrying the boats
and in the wind it’s fire on a darkened cold
it limbers and pumps each human inch to action;
it touches everything.
It is flood,
irresistible synchronicity of movement:
life and time are coiled here
to spring into a common pace with strangers and their leap is like
a breath lost at the lurch of sensory plunge:
spots of colour over vision locking eyes with the sun,
ribs throbbing in the slow after sprinting to catch up,
breaking the surface of the deep,
that gasp for air,
here now our footfalls dip
as one blue rhythm,
joint with breath in-taken.
In unison,
shouting out,
unending melody,
identity:
the riff just keeps on going.
We move in step.
Tag: free verse
Layers
A window clutching lines of rain
the bramble of dew glistened thorns
waves of yellow topped stalks
the farmhouse looking sturdy
with sloping roof and distant white walls
a wisp of mist like prelude to Halloween
the mountains cold morning blue,
all folded one after the other
like stacks of clean laundry
straightened by some maternal hand
and behind them all,
the sky.
Conversation with a stranger
The meeting of our eyes was the weight of letters packaged and tied
flat in my palm, as I received them,
and every greeting was untying the strings that bound them.
You laughed and it was the sound of my finger hooked under the envelope’s mouth
and tearing—the smooth slip of opening—
and unfolding.
I agreed with the dreams you couldn’t keep off your tongue
and steadily we smoothed out
the pages of our separate hearts
and read them.
Citrus fingers
Citrus fingers and sticky lips,
Smiles flashing with words I missed
That wet-hair night, slick pavement light,
The hours led to where I’d never been;
Right down the centre of the street,
Right up the rafters, echoing stairs–
You remind me of someone I’ve always known.
Did we slurp popsicles in backyard summer?
Were we running in grass-stained torn-jeans sock-feet?
Did I dream the ocean was a running faucet,
And we were just putting on the kettle?
I agree with the colour of your eyes,
They send me jam jars full of springtime:
New green and the smell of morning rain;
This is hardly a memory,
But one day, maybe, it will be.
Sunday, May 17th
Conversation washes over the room.
Windows of grey sky, rainy morning eyes,
Sweet bottom dregs: a mug of tea,
Wool socks over tucked-in-toes,
Stories stacked in crooked piles.
Cold water washes over the stones.
Shrouded in grey sky, rainy morning peaks,
Sweet ripples spread: a swelling lake,
Wet docks under barefoot steps;
Trees stretch up in crooked spires.
The First Days of summer
A largeness fills us in the first days of summer:
Hearts expand like helium balloons,
Swelling to carry the giddy adjustment
Of hours added on to days,
Of stamped-gravel-texture on bare knees and shins,
Fingers first coloured in the pastel prints of creation
When all the ground beneath your feet
Becomes a rippling canvas.
Sweat beads form tide pools in the crevices of your skin,
Like there is an ocean inside of you,
Crashing up and spilling over the backs of you legs
And the jagged crest of shoreline that is your collar bone
To cool and salt the sand that burns golden all over you;
To leave adventures swimming
Like so many little fish–
Colourful and iridescent in the rocks–
Carried on the wave of the first days of summer.
Afternoon Library
Sunlight dishes out its rays in perfectly even portions:
Squares that melt into thick-grained-wood;
The bookshelves in the stacks
Inhale the dust-mote fragrance of shine.
Shelves with curving vertebras,
Heavy with bindings of breathing stories
Held not like a burden,
Not a burden but a poem:
Weight like words at the threshold of speech
Where faded colours of ancient books
Are the endless tongues and lips and teeth.
Innumerable organs, each shelf like lungs,
Are shaping the vowels of Peace,
Tasting the solid consonants of Knowledge,
The pursed kiss of Purpose,
Sighing out the sounds of Hush
And Whisper.
Given breath in pages and ink,
I can hear their voices
Saying thank you to the sunlight
In the solitude and silence
Of the afternoon library.
Soft Beginning
Yellow leaves in November breezes,
Twirling along the first snowfall of winter:
If only for an evening, if only for an hour
You’ll walk alongside the visible tread of time.
There is a beginning glimmering
In the end of fertile seasons;
There is a softness spreading
In veins of ice, like open palms
Covering familiar ponds:
Their ripples stilled at slightest touch.
Swirled at the bottom, in the dregs of the year,
Landed lightly on frozen earth
Despite the V of fleeing birds:
A soft beginning.
And it reaches you in humble ways,
Like tentative wind through tiny holes in knit sweaters
Like the faintest memory of childhood houses:
You’ll see the lights all over again
Hung in half forgotten windows
Framing the refrain
Of your mother’s favourite Christmas song
And the simple words you used to write:
In windows and fog of your innocent breath,
Disappearing when daylight came again.
In all that’s past
And all that’s ended
A soft beginning, mingling.
Mackenzie Lee 