making the page

making the page

still from Cocteau’s ‘Testament of Orpheus’, the third movie of his Orphee trilogy

i tend to
write
mornings now
must be a
move up
from younger
days when only
night suited the
secret passing of
words to paper
a mother’s gift on
a seventeenth birthday
a blue typewriter
Consul brand ‘the
‘blue consul’ a
painter friend
called it
the how to type
manual i worked
my afternoon
way through
over weekends
evenings when
everyone else had
turned off whatever
was on or were
nodding before
the embers

bringing the nocturne

bringing the nocturne

One of the only 2 known photos of Frédéric Chopin

on these days
of deep rain
i wish for
nothing else
that Chopin
should push
open the door
flick water off
his sleeves
dab his
handkerchief
reflectively
round the face
reminded every
second it looks
of a loss
a stirring
a land harpooned
by its neighbours
loss
the owl
that lorded it over
him on forest branch

remembering Don Juan

remembering Don Juan*                                                           

Photo by courtesy of foxdreams.com, personal web site of the Trahan family of Albuquerque

each   on a  corner   of silence
in the train
heart   like a face   f a l l I n g
amidst  dark hair
i   ride   the    p a l e    sl e ep
oblivious the wall  of     feature
the city  stands me  to
until dream    the violent bird
unsnares itself
takes   me   awing                see
a verandah,    the  slow bake of
shade   going down on    white plastered
walls,  a    d e s e r t   burned   o u t
into   lo o s ened   thorn,
mountains   carved   from the emptied