ALONE (SCHOOLTOWN, DOWNTOWN)
Lying in bed with the sound of rain on a tin rooftop,
space heater churning blue flame and little heat,
the sour smell of night sweats on a paisley bathrobe,
Chopin nocturnes escorting Night into her bedchamber.
Dawn sleepily moves across the landscape, and with this
the day breaks upon the city, day breaks upon the already
melting snows. Blue sky and cardinals, green pines shrugging
the cracked ice off, and bend, bend, bend, creaking,
seems it’s me not the trees creaking, leaning towards
the kitchen and all the ways of waking that are waiting there.
Funny, the way the voice shakes in a hushed stage whisper
as it moves in pitch towards the bellow and shout,
towards the un-muffled, the hallelujah yeah that says
this is the moment: a place I’d like to stay.
Step outside on the warped pine front porch, well, well,
the eyes start to focus through espresso steam
and Camel smoke,
and it seems out here all the roads connect
on a downtown trek that’s ever and always leading somewhere,
and I look and look and look at the streak of wires
suspended and swaying beneath the weight of winter winds,
they too are going and they’re not coming here…
And for this minute the dawn tastes good, it tastes like life.
Yellow sun rests on the wet roofs and lawns, gleaming, awake.
A car door slams, a car shifts gears and slides to a stop,
a car rushes round the curve and hill, sounds a whole lot
like late for work and I’m glad I’m not, then a truck rumbles,
a train howls and grinds, screams through birdsong
and soft morning thought, and reawakens the knowing
that commerce has no home or heart, it just roars,
tears down wall and reconstructs, full throttle, full throated.
These are the sounds when the city wakes up, with sounds
like this, with iron gates crashing. Sleeping,
the beast is beautiful with it’s neon crown,
it’s candent towers, fuzzy halo and steady hum. And then,
the city wakes up with all the subtlety,
vulgarity and calm of Moloch rising after the feast.
Content And Context Breaks Apart, Comes Together
CONTENT AND CONTEXT BREAKS APART, COMES TOGETHER
1 (the journey)
A better song, a deeper majesty, something about a place,
the temperature, a thing unrelinquished…
the open hand waving by the side of the road
where the line between corn and simplicity is really,
really thin, but you take the gesture as it is,
as it is, you wave back and drive on, on road, on stereo,
on still toward the place that’s humming in your throat,
somewhere here to the side of the hill…
somewhere here where it all comes together….
2 (the metaphor)
Falcon struggles and falls into the water, fins splash,
seconds later the water breaks, tiny waves,
the scream, a bit of justice. Watch, wait and cast,
thrashing, coax a rainbow in on a weakened tapered line
with a tied stone fly. Storm comes in off the flats
of Charleston Harbor, boat runs out of gas,
drop a favorite fly rod into the water. Let it go.
Ozone cracks across the bow, phosphorous glows on your
fingertips, gets a little choppy, get a little scared,
pause long enough to smell the mud on the water,
fermented, primordial, the earth blows across the water,
and when you pause long enough…
the breath of God moves across the face of the waters.
3 (storms rise, the past lets go)
Back home, Son House flails away on a National Steel Guitar
about a death letter come this morning to the door.
Do the same: Keep checking, keep checking the road,
do a little mock cross, Hey thanks, mailbox snaps shut,
no magazine, no visitors knock, no telephone ring.
Day dreaming, gazing out the bedroom window:
Cool breezes warm and the leaves turn over,
startled thrashers rise to the sudden thunder,
they know the look of a coming rain storm; and me,
contemplating blue curtains and wilted flowers,
I see the sense of being, but just can’t feel it.
There’s no need to name, the words are all used up,
prose locked in reflections, in the currents of my past,
still trying to break away, and then…yellow sky to green,
and then the world drops away, tornado hits the marshes,
the weather brings me home, and I know right now
that some things must change, yeah,
and there it is, a death letter standing at the door.
And this time around I refuse to answer.
4 (baptism)
She saw constellations. The sky was good.
Pink hearts…Hello moon, and the stars would swirl.
Sheet lightning in the East, bright, bright flash,
then the winds: Gale winds storming over rounded hills
pulling a hot shroud over hunt poised Orion,
and the clouds rolled over on their dark, full sides,
and the rains did fall; and she kneels by the river,
skips a piece of slate across the rippling Oconee…
Alone, she watches and feels, feels the stones flight,
feels the river and the rain, and says good bye,
good bye to all the loss in a night that found itself.
Uuummm May, volatile, seductive, all sparkle and kiss.
Wisteria heavy air clinging to her damp hair,
she shakes it back and sings shower songs, stops,
sings Ave Verum Corpus and knows that tonight
she felt the soul as though all things were beginning.
5 (encounter and awakening)
Wind slows down and an immaculate moment
now romances…everything. Hey, it’s the first of May,
wash my face in dew, here’s the cat-like light begging
to be scratched, and here I am with sunset eyes,
she and I in a mass of shadows just falling away.
Through a Baudelarian gothic hour into this night
I cross the hearts knife and open to this I, this she.
She blows kisses to the past and then to me.
River road stands warm, water gurgles “Summertime.”
And I forget the flatted third, chromatic slide chords,
I forget what it was that drug me down before.
OK, so I obsess on the past…Let it go. She is here.
Her midnight hair glows. I let go the broken loves. Try.
Now….it’s not just this, wish it was, wish it wasn’t…
Now…she glows…wish it wasn’t so Romantic….so more than her…
so hard to go on, but I do: Easy. Yeah? It’s not.
Silence and the blues are smooth, so is she, and we touch…Now.
H Lamar Thomas' Blog 