Long Upland Poems
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This time of the year again
She has gone shopping for gifts to give the young
she would not take me along, knows I would be grumpy
and sarcastic and impatient.
I sat on the plaza with a glass of Chianti, not because I like this wine but because it is the only Italian name I could think of,
A mist of people around me, a crescendo of voices
talking about about a topic they agreed upon, Noel
I unfold the paper “Stalemate in Gaza.”
It does not ring a bell for the consumers, in the thrall of the glittering street decoration, fake snow, and humbug
We have been invited to a restaurant so grand waiters
dress like diplomats, call out your name when entering
Our esteemed Senor Hansen from Sweden at table number 12. What! I am not Swedish but never mind
I will get revenge when asking for Alentejo Red Wine
When we come back to the Algarve, it can be cold
in January, a man will come from the upland with a truck
of firewood, ready cut and dry.
The only sound we will hear during the festivities are
are the bleating of the lamb
My Love, how she laughs!
And brims with delight
As she breezes along
The sun in her lap –
A glittering pose
Becomes her, just so
In her whimsical hues
And idling flows
And when she sighs
And shifts on the sand
Aglow in the night
The moon in her eyes –
‘Tis all I can stand
Myself, but a man
Drenched with a thirst
Alone – and upland
And when she cries
And weeps in the rain
Oh, that I!
Could take her away
To fields where we lay
And lessen her pain –
And when she roars!
And leaps – mighty leaps!
Her passions – asleep
Awake from the deep
To settle the score
That all lovers keep
Of madness and lore
Of legends and more
That leap – as she leaps
And roar – as she roars!
From a wheatfield's tapestry
I embrace again my childlike wanderings...
a time I deeply remember
when I played without restraint...
our murmurs still squeaking with every
rhythm of past rougish pleasures:
Swooping into a time tunnel
and chasing late summer leaves;
I am still in awe of duskfall's wild hunts...
those bouncy trails of recklessness
mirroring my youth's enthusiasm.
How we fought gothic pirates untold
across a tousled upland,
then down again through muddy creeks
and grass alike, slingshots whacking
the likes of Captain Hook;
As four gang mates of the Lost Boys roar
'The Pan is with us', and Tiger Lily too;
embarking yet on another episode
till my pals and I invade a shipwreck trap.
~
It is late September again...I reminisce
about this raucous ritual of wild carousals
where I would throw fear to the winds,
where my soul dares the invincible...
my imaginary friends and I walking on air,
designing unbridled fancy against real time:
My dream-like squad is somehow gone
lost in the slings of innocence...
that age of pubescence can be cruel, rude
that treacherous moment when
our wheatfield grows old with me...
Now I gently sob and smile...and yet,
that tableu of shimmering gaiety
still enriches my inner child--
with untamed, Pan- like curiosity.
The Cost Of Defeat 2
(The Complex; from the lost war.)
From upland slopes to running streams,
A shared tongue flows through ancient dreams.
In Oyigbo, Etche, Omuma’s land,
And Ikwerre’s soil, the roots expand.
The names they speak, the songs they share,
The deep-set customs woven there,
All trace a thread of blood and heart
To the Igbo plains from which they start.
Yet history turned a heavy page,
When wartime came with fire and rage.
The year of sixty-seven drew
New borders where the rivers blew,
And politics, with subtle art,
Began to tear the names apart.
For safety in a wounded state,
And survival in a changing fate,
Some chose a distinct path to tread,
Reclaiming paths where waters led.
Now modern days bring dual sight,
Beneath the soft Deltaic light.
While some embrace the lineage grand
That ties them to the heartland’s sand,
Still others claim a separate name,
A different dawn, a different flame,
A fluid, Elemchi doctored complex history.
The greed that make you betray and deny your history
Shaped by the creek liquid, and mangrove tree,
When you betray your own, for gains, you are free
This, a typical but hidden consequences to the loser
All are vanquished, none indeed a victor but loser(s
A balkanized nation is no environment for peace
Such Elemchi complex has a record in history keys
I watch fascinated
at its teetering stance,
bobbing up and down,
picking at small insects
that infest the lonely loch,
that it chooses instead of
upland streams or creeks
or fast-flowing rivers,
or in some lonely lake.
Today I sit on a small chair,
behind some bushes on the shore
of a lonely loch, away from it all.
Ah sandpiper, are you emulating me?
Are you in search of lonely spots too,
far from the worrisome cities of the world?
Let's leave behind us wars and strife,
enjoy a bit of peace. Let us be true to love.
A breeze strikes, up and up you fly,
with stiff bowed brown wings
and your characteristic cry,
swee-wee-wee, swee-wee-wee.
Where will you go for shelter?
Do you prefer the secluded estuaries
or the protected inland lakes?
I see you return, too good a place to miss.
But look, you've found a mate.
Heaven provides, love conquers all.
I think I'll turn in, my wife awaits.
How to break an addiction. Decide to live.
What can I learn from my pain. Danger.
And friends are merely friendly, live on independent
of your injury. You will not be missed in church on Sunday.
Grass. Weed, broccoli, burrito, stink, pot, skunk.
I'm talking blue grama, upland bent, smooth brome,
riverside panic, wild rye, fowl meadow, spike muhly,
sweet vernal, salt marsh, bristly foxtail, little bluestem.
Reefer is unhealthy, opens lesions in the brain,
wormholes into hell, yet should be legal. I'll vote that way.
It may ease the pathos into non-existence
well as meditation, bird watching, last will and testament.
Each joint hurts, rib joints, spine joints, skull plate joints.
The head and hip and heart will hurt, all three.
Insomniac I like the way bones crack and clack like
wooden wind chimes, an untuned piano, a tree rack of wornout shoes.
Never forget, the mind is the body paying attention
to what it's doing. Without that connection, each finger bent
or toe smashed is just added to the collection
of anonymous body parts of holocaust victims
in their mass graves. Better when every life saved
or lost is a front page story, an illusion of shared
sacrifice or joy, but that expresses only the surface
of our emotions. I'm mostly relieved to have survived.
Old man looking back in time
He remembers it well when the Mediterranean was
rich grassland had many lakes and the people
living there never starved.
A mountain ridge between Spain and Africa kept
the Atlantic Ocean away, but a seer had been on top
of the ridge and seen the mighty ocean, and felt the strain
of the mountain and took to warning people to move
upland; only a few listened and moved to Cadiz.
Earthquake, big fissure in the mountain keeping the ocean
at bay; it took forty days and forty nights, only a few people
with their chattel escaped.
The new ocean was now called: “Between Land Sea.” and people took up sailing,
trading and warring, later tourists came who
had no interest in the passing of time, and that is ok, I understand
that most goats ended up in Spain and the donkeys in Tripoli.
The hills are running with deer
and there are sunlit roads in the sky.
Fresh and wide-eyed is the wind,
it swirls like a dervish dancer.
Its good that I have this ghost-dog
to lick my hand. I send her away
to hunt the grass-haunting rabbits.
In the end, the old girl had few teeth
and bad breath,
but now she pants and smiles
with glittering stars in her sweet pink mouth.
As for me I am alive! I am a footprint
so light upon this green earth
that my very presence enlivens the turf,
and rocks.
Old ghost-dog is young again, she barks
at the swift flying birds but only I
see or hear her.
This upland trail
might wander away into history soon,
fade away
like a long forgotten Cherokee path,
even tomorrow
it might not still be here, or even I
not be seen - anywhere.
Dry river mystery
The river in the domestic landscape was not as big
as it used to be, for years, the rain upland fell sparsely
when the hot summer came, the river dried up.
The river bed was eerily white with a massive overhang
spikey plants as a scar of lumpy skin after heart surgery.
Of the farmer’s four children, three liked to play
in this mysterious scenery of skull-like rocks, when lifted
had pockets of water like there was a hidden stream
under the bed, the fourth child had an instinctive fear
of the dry river’s strangeness and kept away.
When the summer was over, rain of epic proportion
came to the mountain where the river’s nascent began.
Suddenly a wall of water ran faster than a train
drowning all in its rouse to meet the sea.
The farmer whose wife had died when giving birth
to the fourth child was devasted, those will lose
tongues blamed him for being thoughtless.
Of the surviving child, nothing is known, fading away
as never born.
Across the limpid and serene river, the oasis of the Wild West pioneers,
there are ivory and charcoal peaks waiting for mountaineers
to discover as they rest under the long-leafed pines that sway;
on this side, the saw-tooth oaks and the daisy bushes are lovely greeters.
Not long ago, this abandoned upland was the home of gold-diggers,
sarcasm and violence went hand in hand...even eagles could have lost their feathers,
and those cluttered wooden shacks weren't not built for comfort,
but with limited space, they could hardly stretch out their legs and sleep like bears.
Travelers are very fascinated by the peace and scenery, not seen from their urban lair;
come to enjoy a short period of tranquility and breathe in the crisp air:
some write, some paint...others dream away to visualize that great era!
Look past that river, willow oaks and maples can soothe the travels of a trudging bear.
Find your spot, whenever you choose and be vowed by an imagination so rare;
take off your fedora hat and go beyond those mountains brightened by the sun's glare,
let a mockingbird or shrike delight your senses with their beautiful song...
with a fervid wish, let them take you where they have watched the new moon's mare.