August 27, 2008
Wednesday Poem
///
Dear Pelican
Kathleen Miller
..............................
Stepping across and into the creek, dear pelican, you find the strangest ways
we turn over on our sides and let the windows breathe a little
sitting in the middle of a driveway looking up at the stars
and kicking at small particles with our feet,
we can hear the cars go by on the freeway and imagine them as water moving
Dear pelican, unconcerned with forward movement unconcerned with the cars
sounding like water and the swing abandoned due to the season of all things
beginning again, we move as the light moves, chasing it across the sawdust
near the creek and plotting ourselves in the middle
taking care is pelicans is water moving and we are unconcerned
with the forward falling of cars and swings and light and pelicans
We just chase the light chase the creek chase the particles in the driveway
moving not backwards moving not like water unconcerned, move like pelicans
plotting and taking care, move like the abandoning of swings due to season
due to all things beginning again like pelicans
* * * * * * *
In anticipation of sudden shifts in weather, we pelicans sit up on the roof top
with the chimneys and the solar panels, borrowing each other’s sweaters
and ignoring the allergies due to the changing of the seasons
beneath the solar panels and next to the chimneys, we pelicans climb up
between the stacks, searching for unimportant documents
concerning books, concerning transportation and we pelicans
The days are filled with pinecones and chimneys and seasonal allergies
The days are filled with solar panels and unimportant documents and pelicans
In the workplace, we tape pictures of lake systems to our hard drives pretending
to river raft while we boot up in the morning
we hang on our cubicle walls pictures of zebras and a garage sale poster of James Dean
we pelicans walk around the block on our lunch break and kick at the leaves so,
wishing them still bright and hanging, thinking intently about the changing
of the seasons and the allergies, thinking about the chimneys and the solar panels
and the endless search for unimportant documents
Wishing the pinecones and lake systems and hard drives
wishing them still bright and hanging
wishing them bright and still hanging
wishing for pelicans and solar panels unchanged by the changing
of the seasons, bright and hanging
* * * * * * *
we of the alarm clock
we of the breakfast cereals
we the cassette tape
we the automatic juicer
we of the frenzied morning
we of the sack lunch
we of the pelicans
We brush our hair over our eyes and peer beneath feeling frustrated and unsure,
we brush our hair like pelicans like preening, walking a little to the left but
looking to the right and walking to the right while looking a little to the left
We are wavering in our decided paths, we of the marching forward
we are wavering in the way we place one foot in front of the other,
in our preferred modes of travel, pelicans
Our wavering is lackluster
is running with our shoelaces laced together
is pelicans preening
* * * * * * *
Oh we pelicans and our frenzied movements
Oh the trees dripping with blossoms like bowls
We pelicans tear ourselves away from the accident, point our eyes straight at the sky
and yawn, pelicans do not speak but push the hair away from the forehead,
pull the hair back and towards the sky
This is communicating
As in communication, we pelicans eat apples picked from backyards next to the freeway with
the grass and the smog and the urban apples blackened from the fumes of the cars and the
air, picking books from our shelves like apples, communicating like pelicans
gathering books and preening, tearing ourselves away from accidents and yawning at
the urban apples and the freeway and the sky
jamming pelican fists deep into our pockets, we communicate by pursing our lips
into tight pelican frowns
We pelicans are trying to find happiness in unmade beds and spilling trash cans
we pelicans are trying to find happiness in the urban apples and the view from freeways
we pelicans are trying to find happiness in books picked from shelves and in pushing
the hair away from the forehead and in communication and in the sky
* * * * * * *
We pelicans are driving several hours to say goodbye to loved ones
we are driving several hours to help pelicans say goodbye to loved ones
We pelicans are walking away from pictures in albums and postcards and warm beds
pelicans are diving and we are diving like pelicans deeply into nighttime,
saying goodbye to pictures of animals and safety and to loved ones
We pelicans are losing loved ones and helping pelicans drive several hours
to say goodbye, we are like pelicans, walking towards a dark hill in nighttime
and carrying with us small loaves of bread
We pelicans are holding hands, pelican-like, and losing loved ones
we bury our heads in each other’s soft necks, and like pelicans softly say goodbye
It is time for saying goodbye to loved ones and to warm beds and to safety
It is time for saying goodbye to pelicans and to pelicans losing loved ones
It is time for driving several hours in the dark thinking about pelicans and dark hills
and loved ones, it is the time for leaving picture albums and for goodbyes to loved ones
and for diving deeply into the unseen like pelicans making postcards and polaroids
of sand and dark hills and nighttime
Posted by Jim Culleny at 08:19 AM | Permalink
Comments
In the end it sounds just like this...
THE BELLS
by Edgar Allan Poe
1849
I
Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
II
Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And an in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!
III
Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now–now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!
IV
Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people–ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All Alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.
Thanks Jim
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | Aug 27, 2008 8:26:30 PM
Post a comment