Thursday, August 2, 2012

THE VOICES OF DEAD FRIENDS, DEPARTED LOVERS


THE VOICES OF DEAD FRIENDS, DEPARTED LOVERS

The voices of dead friends, departed lovers
aimlessly feather the night air like the fragrances
of wildflowers and burning guitars thriving in the dark.
I’m out to see the Delta Aquarids down by the river,
leaping like a man with faith in his precarious footing
from skull to skull like a chessboard of oracular rocks
keeping their heads above water like a half-hearted bridge
dog-paddling in its own collapse, trying to cross
the same mindstream they’re in up to their eyes
for a better view of the sky in the clearing on the other side.

Clouds of cometary junkyards in decaying orbits.
Placental remains of unilluminated afterbirths.
I delight in watching how wasted things shine the brightest
on their way down like blossoms of paint
flaking off the windows of heaven like rose petals
revealing these thorns that gore and slash the night
like matadors and meteors with razorblades
hidden under the screening myths of their eyelids.
It’s natural when opposites come together,
enjoining disparate elements into more enduring alloys,
it’s the clarity that seems confusing to the untrained eye
and chaos that foreshadows transmorphic reality.

All my aspirations emanate from the same radiant
like sudden cremations in the upper atmosphere
that disintegrate and flame out upon re-entry
like Icarian candlewax at the black mass
of a waning eclipse factualizing the omens
of its own self-fulfilling prophecies of subliminal descent.
All the matches I strike like fireflies
and phosphorus flower buds against my heart
are put out by the same bloodstream
they once illuminated like wild columbine
and the hydrogen blue of the star clusters
burning like irises along this highly siderealized river.

Meteors. Two an hour. Bayonets of light
making the rounds on the nightwatch.
The tree line blows through the open window
of the wavering lake like an old curtain
about to be shed like the veil of the Queen of Heaven.
Indigo the eyes of Isis. With a white wavelength for a smile.
Here where she gathers up the severed hearts
of the light’s dismemberment like body parts
she heals by leaving the waterlilies on all night in the morgue
and staring so long and immaculately
into the darkness like a lump of coal
for the third eye of a spiritual snowman
washing his hands of himself like a pilgrimage
weeping diamonds all along the way
like the excruciating tears we all shed
in the shrines of the black suns that rise at midnight
like broken mirrors from the graves of dead metaphors.

PATRICK WHITE

SOMEONE'S CUT THE TONGUES OUT OF THE BELLS TONIGHT


SOMEONE’S CUT THE TONGUES OUT OF THE BELLS TONIGHT

Someone’s cut the tongues out of the bells tonight.
Even the silence isn’t singing to itself.
The windows are generously tolerant of intruders
but I’m locked into the splendour of my isolation
empathizing with things I don’t love.
Full moon. Fruit moon. Moon of berries and grain.

I thought I’d be happier at this time in my life,
but I’m threshing a harvest of shadows
for having sowed all my wild oats on the moon.
I’m intrigued by the fragrance of occult raptures on the air.
Dark intensities that can only end in immolation.
Black roses that only bloom in fire. Mystic disobedience
that lifts the flesh and blood taboos off
whatever comes to it naturally
as a late night 24-7 convenience store
or the fire that started in the kitchen of the Chinese restaurant
three doors down from my apartment yesterday.

Late night moods. The mind dogpaddling in its immensities.
Heritage town standing down from its fieldstones.
No drunks on the street, and all those angry voices
I didn’t recognize, gone home to sleep off their disappointment.
I sit like an air traffic comptroller mindwatching
behind these panes of glass as Arcturus goes down
over the tar paper rooftops I poetically associate
with clouds, stars, seagulls and hand-held mirrors of rain
after a thunderstorm has shattered its reflection in them
like a love affair that wasn’t going anywhere.
Doing time on earth, but of little consequence.
The bank across the street makes me feel depreciated.
Ask me this moment what legacy I’ve left
for the half century I’ve laboured creatively here
and I’d probably answer indignantly, a garage sale,
then reassure you by saying, for a good cause,
and mostly mean it, and partially wish I didn’t.

PATRICK WHITE