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Eons ago, we think, came the big bang
Explosions, explosions, and planets began.
Thunder and lightning occurred
And life from the elements stirred.
Mountains and lakes and oceans were born
Volcanoes and earthquakes the norm
Tonight is quiet
Eerily quiet
Déjà vu quiet
Except the tree frogs and crickets still battle for supremacy in nature's symphony
And that night they didn’t
A few hours before I had closed the last door
Secured the last shutter
O Lord, who can forgive us
when, stumbling, we fall,
may we forgive each other
as you forgive us all.
We know that we can never
repay our debt to you;
but there’s an intercessor
who knows the debt is due
friends fall away
some die
some simply
disappear
and you
a little sad
perhaps
a little guilty
keep on
moving
on
When lonesome Pastor Singleton
requested a companion
the Lord said, “Claude,
I have a blessing for you, man,”
and pointed him towards Dionne.
Was many months before
the blessing took him on;
Listening to Cecilia Bartoli
sing Mozart, I remember
Archie recommended her.
An actor to remember, he
was riveting as Derek’s Afa
and many decades later
the perfect radio voice
A Poem from the Archives:
Vol. 15, No. 60, Pages 259–261 (June 1976)
Father I remember your sweat seasoning
the dry earth
fertilising the iron decks
you scraped with devotion
in the dead-
ly sun
From a Family Album—In Memory
My old finger tips scoop out nothing now.
The ivory soap once stirred to a lather
in this wooden bowl melted away long
ago. Smooth, I stroke it with my finger,
I kneel to peep through the lowest jalousie
at where he lies upon the bed, naked leg,
my father’s, under the infrared lamp. I free
my fingernails to peel the paint away, and, beg
that he does not move. I learn the word
At three o’clock in the afternoon
of my childhood, the hot pitch road
burns my feet; the wind kicking up the dust,
the dry season trash in the sugar cane-fields
taking me home to my mother
at her siesta.
"dear appropriated spot"
William Wordsworth
My father whistled his favourite tune,
A bicycle made for two,
There was a breathlessness
at her departure that morning,
a fearfulness at her absence,
magnolias the colour of her linen.
So old, her bones had become
like the handles of her coffin,
her knuckles fixed, clasped,
It’s fitting, like a cold ricochet of grief,
I’m here the day the clocks fall back.
After years of shelter, when I fed you
the empty promises of a quieter world,
holding you steady,
after years of fire and solitude,
I’m here, staggered, as time retreats.
Tonight, a peculiar wind prowls the streets,
restless as my mind, which hungers for sleep,
yet lingers on the jagged edges of fractured dreams.
"Look toward the horizon," you always said,
"even when it trembles like a distant mirage."
(for TB)
America is a pinball machine,
hungry eyes tracking a silver ball.
Red, white, and blue Frankenstein lights
flicker in tunnels.
Electronic, circus-like music
screams hypnotically, urging
higher scores—
As the Amazon burns, my love, my words
choke on the morsels of a world in strife.
The knife, my love, Bolsonaro is burning logs.
Grab your Stop & Shop bags, the price
we pay for a rump of beef, my love, we pay
I’m lost in the world of poetry in search
of Amazonia’s old emerald green heart. Ancient
arteries forming labyrinths of towering canopies,
gone. My eyes shocked by a sea of desolation.
The Amazon, once a concerto of life, now moans
Gaia, how could I mourn something
I never truly knew? My father
told me of his delight after drinking
clear cold water from pristine brooks,
and how mists hid the Afro-like mountains.
I wish I could reverse time,