Eleventh month when the Sun parched the toppled trees
Winds of South rallying on bended knees
Birds and beasts plunge on tarns and soft mountains
Running waters congealing like sedentary fountains...
Only one tree will stand tall
On Christmas Day as dusts and spalls begin to fall
Two days of live still pictures
On painted strokes and prilled erasures
One spark will clear the brume and waves of the unknown...
the hygge!
Like an old cat stretching her limbs in the sunlight
Warmth seeping through knots in her gnarled hands and sShe sits on a paisley chair in front of the East window
welling in her stiff knees
Pressed roses tumble out of scrapbooks and fall around her feet
Those supple feet with the developed arches and pointed toes
Who quiver when Chopin plays on classical radio
Chopin…all those days in the studio with the accompanying pianist playing Chopin
At the barre…on the floor… before the long mirrors that reflected every nuance
She sees herself now in the mind’s Polaroid
The backdrop of a room stuffed with ballet programs, photographs of performances, newspaper reviews, pointe shoes, and Romantic tutus…Memorabilia of another life…lost in the brume of aging…alone…without applause
Sitting by the East window until the sun moves westward
When she struggles to take a bow
And the curtains close against the dark
He puffs in the nightly brume
His noctambulous proclivity
He calls it, a force of habit
Something automatic
Tonight is especially morbid
Atrabilious even
As he hunches gaunt
Over her headstone
That has grown verdant
Of many a night waxed lachrymose
The midnight wind is severe
A morbid creak fills his ears
He calls it his familiar
His body enervated
A chiliad of nights and tears
Have taken their toll
Gaunt from endless prayers
Then an icy apparition so clear
A familiar, sum of his fears,
Appears, standing in the midnight air
An icy depth and an icy glare his familiar
A formication forms in his chest
As usual no words exchanged
The wind blows the mist away
And soft rain begins to fall
And the owl begins to howl
She is gone, she is gone!
Snipe and Curlew are skating on the mist
they sing of the water
that sky-water which sways to their songs.
Flat is this land with no coastal margins,
here I am the peak of a mountain
my coated form
darkly winged with strange desires,
an ardor compelled to rain down
upon these wandering streams,
to babble and pour in the Wash is my pleasure.
Osprey skim between the worlds
as they plow the brume and drizzle.
Silver trout dangle in the air
hooked by the wringing and the wet,
the taloned and the dunking beak.
You gandering Grebs where are you gone?
O yes, you are swimming a soaking river
betwixt the two poles of this sodden world,
you wade and paddle, dip with a breezy ease -
with dauntless sweeps you divide the oceans.
Contest: Trilonette Contest Sponsor: Joseph May 6-21-23
#1
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River of Clouds
Lazy mists dawdle through valleys,
Wending in a river of clouds,
Surfs deep dales on rising tides.
Silver curly-cue veils dally
On twisting rivers like a shroud -
Leaves a pale kiss on riversides.
Mystic Rom roams the pine alleys,
Gypsy brume evergreens beclouds,
Cryptic nomad without a guide.
Flat bottomed shades float like galleys,
Wispy fogs tickle thunderclouds
Stolen cloud ships on a joy ride.
Rising tule croons playful songs -
Alto whispers for a singalong.
Lowing fog horns
shake scales from rooftops.
We see the seawall drowning,
the surging waves rising
unfolding spume and brume
into mountains.
From the pub on the harbor front,
we can hear the buffeted gulls feeding
on the sluice of passing squalls.
"Look out the window" you say
(the window is a hundred pieces
of sky caught in a fish-eye).
"No boats will fish today," I whisper,
but we both know
that there are small boats out there,
they call out like cows, as wind- ghost
lead them through gray havens.
A mottled crab scuppers its sea legs
in fluorescent foam.
Blue pods rattle on green tides.
Bladder wrack, Mermaid’s Hair
washing tangled ankles.
There are voices in my open mouth,
they roll over a briny tongue,
intone words from the breath
of spray and brume.
Where the sky hangs, gull beaks open
to scoop the bones of a shoaling surf.
My heart is booming
in a hollow seashell.
This is the Church of a God
disrobed of human thought.
This is the roofless house
of the sun and moon,
a place consecrated to the storm,
to the depths of darkness;
to the bright blades
of the suns daggering rays.
This night the rough
tussles with the calm
and they dance at the edge
of a clashing chaos.
Mother, father, stranger,
we are all here speaking
through a whirlpool’s gullet,
yet who has gone ahead of us
to express this sea-glow
and hat surfaces at the edge
of our own shores?
When I look at the charred plasma
of a bare knuckled wind
I forget the ardor of yellow.
Then I recall the smeared tones
of skunk cabbage
rising through haze and mizzle,
or how in the Far East
the river at sunset
transforms a blistered heat
into the stippled gold of temple lamps.
After the grey scuttle of urban hours
there’s a yellowed drizzle
of twilight in any city
when a chill brume of evaporation
hangs gleaming and electric.
I see the mottled leaf of autumn
how gold seeps through
its flamboyant carnage.
Far away from the ruby panic
of fledgling mouths
or the crimsoned wounds of orchids,
I seek a tint, a gloaming yellow essence,
a sun-flowering at the of day.
When the ripples unfold, a story untold; far, far away.
In the brume of the cold, my humble abode: far, far away.
From a birds-eye view, I watch as they mooch,
Pirates they loot off my roots.
From the tip of the nuke to the low-lying truce,
Compacted the power abused.
I cry I cry, far away I cry
They flow with life but take no form.
Sugar honey coconut from a birds-eye view
My tears straighten from the bending of the storm.
At last I feel, the burns and the lies
Far, far away, through the eyes of my demise.
Mama I’m home.
Bawling fog horns
shake scales from tiled rooftops.
Spume and brume
spray momentary mountains
over submerging sea walls
From the pub on the harbor front,
we hear the buffeted gulls cry
as they fly
on the sluice of passing squalls.
"Look out the window," you say
(the window is a hundred pieces
of sky caught in a fish-eye).
I shout into her whisper:
‘No boats will fish today,’
but we both know
that there are small boats out there;
they call out like stray cows,
kelpie leading them through gray teeth.
There are wild horses in the heather;
their neighing follows the wake
of hewing wind-wraiths.
The ponies are hardy and stout, they go
in and out of the clouds, slip through
swale and dingle.
The moors are high. You don't feel the altitude
only the depth of the land. When the sky turns sullen
it tilts to smother the earth.
If the scything winds falter, the shallow sod
bogs into sumps and divots
Where trees cannot be, clouds spread
a muffling mizzle over gorse and grass,
a grazing tide carries a spume of chills.
The hills here are thigh deep, rills of dark water
loiter and seep.
The small ponies shake their matted manes,
mist-sprays pool in muddy hoofprints,
the warm brume of their snorts
leads you onward on a lonesome track
for they alone know the steps taken
to cross over each dim acres edge.
Travel with them to a gritstone ledge,
where the heath plunges dale deep,
there above the tall treetops
a bright sky will rise up to meet you.
Ascension
Sous une brume matinale
je vagabonde les rivages
des souvenirs
à la recherche du passé
dans les lits de rivières desséchées
vestiges de jours écoulés.
La vie nous dirige
vers plusieurs sentiers périlleux
les idées enflammées de souffrance
en attente d’une deuxième renaissance.
Affranchi des chaines
en chair et esprit
convoitant la proximité
de l’être cher qui habite
le palais au-delà des cieux.
Hissé envers la luminosité
ultraviolette libéré de soi.
-traduction
* * *
Original poem written by Essama Chiba:
Lifted Up
In the morning mist
I stroll on shorelines
Of memories
Searching for the past
In dry river beds
Of yesterdays.
Life takes us down
Many paths near the edge
Mind afire in burning pain
Waiting for a second birth.
Emancipated from both
Flesh and spirit
Longing for closeness
Of a devotee that resides
In the mansion of the sky.
Lifted up in the luminosity
Of violet light freed from self.
-Essama Chiba
AP: 2nd place 2021 (for my translation)
Mint leaf season vortex gilds sylvan glaze
vivid hue a scented purple ground mist
citrus brume float locus in dewdrop phase
cherry orchard fruit shoots hearthrob wish list
Gold grosbeak pecking ryegrass fare at dawn
scarlet tanager an oak tree crown rite
wet mallard feet drag bird seed round my lawn
flush choral plume behind the hedgerow sprite
Triumphant March of mother earth womb pearls
airy infant whines elate our senses
green sea tides that flurry sunlit moss curls
hub of nodding reeds a ripe consensus
Zeal infuses luscious pastures growing
spring fount heralds jubilance a-glowing
Sponsor : Constance La France
This poem is a sonnet.
The earth is sleeping under the blanket of fog,
daylight gently awakens her from her stupor,
misty mountains melt in the magical morning,
as each step surprises us to what lays ahead,
The clouds float by, spreading their chillness in the air,
wispy breeze blows past sprinkling wintry cheer around,
atmospheric brume brushes away all boredom,
hovering haze heightens our heady adventure,
The climb uphill is as fuzzy as it can be,
vapours blur our vision and view of the valley,
beauty of the place is hid behind cloud curtains
with the biting weather assaulting our senses,
Walking through the clouds in an ethereal feel,
the presence of God is tangible than ever,
words cannot describe the artistry of that place,
some things must be experienced to be fathomed.
12.29.2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtpsb68ggac&t=30s
There is a place where fairies live behind a curtain of dreams
a wild forest full of green trees, fresh water, running streams
little rabbits scurry by hiding in the hollow logs
and as the morning sun rises up it lifts the fog
while the stars tuck themselves back in, making room for dawn
There is magic in the air inside this fairytale paradise of bloom
mint leaves, asparagus, avocados, even a praying mantis room
with wings aglow the fairies know
the places where we go
and following you they dust a trail towards the clearing brume
Crystal mythical fairies with amber and saffron robes draw near
dancing in the thicket with birds and owls and svelte little deer
your feet levitate and rise
before your eyes a big surprise
the morning contains all the magic your heart can hold my dear
There is a place in the forest where fairies live behind a curtain dreams,
everything is beautiful there, and nothing is ever as real as it seems...
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