j u i l e t t 1 4

Inspired and derived from Elysskama’s Poem of Remembering

I pinned an old papyrus
to the bottom of a desk,
so that when I laid on the floor
I could read the symbols
looking up. 

While the wind gusted through
windows and the evening’s
light stirred the silent figures
like vibrations from a violin’s core -
a language I used to speak,

But I have forgotten, because I have
not believed lately in anything at all.
A steady deterioration into goblins,
mischief – and crooked doors
not meant to be opened at all.

I have seen that this forgetting is corrosive -
Without home, I deteriorate from inside;
and believe the only way to save myself
is to remember my home, her arches and tomes;
drifting  silently amid a sea of old wounds. 

A swan upon a salten sea -
hieroglyphs that trace the scars
that have long since been buried in me;
yet never cured at the root.
 It’s time I’ve read them looking up. 

-Santiago

The roses on the rubber-wood table,
the yellow stars exploding
by the golden glass bowl with the rings
like a tree’s, and the ceramic petal bowl
with all the fallen wings

So many soft, fetal hearts
like folded confetti, half-gay, but with color fading,
yet still shouting their tender notes
and imbued with secret words left unseen

if they could be known

each a memory of yellow things
a summer scarf, a dried maple wound,
a praying mantis, a few hopes;
breakfast porch with geraniums
and folded palms
and the way you smiled together
two hands slipped together
naked in the world 
two vines wrapping together 
in a concrete world, crying

can’t you remember?

The wild and rapturous? and the quiet grotto
where you spoke words lightly
and they counted most
and someone could feel how you lived
in all those ancient and precious tangles.

She stuffs petals into the folded up frayed hem
of her dress, like so many hearts that had been
stuffed into odd spaces and hidden,

oh, that you could see how delightful
they are! (you are, I am). 

-Santiago

Sun hidden by smoke
of timber sky; I busy myself
with a summer task:
observing, pruning, tending,
two rose bushes,
yellow-orange blossoms,
suns in bloom.

I clip three flowers:
one ample for the greeting table, 
and two fallen ones also -
one for a ceramic tray
scattered like colored wings.
I look at these before grabbing keys
or the opening of automated post,
reminders to tread softly.
 

And the other, the final one -
I lay its petals silently 
around my wife’s floating hair,
unfurled on the cornflower sheets
during a long summer’s nap;

to surprise her,
for her to wake in 
their soft unspoken splendor 
in their fragrance before cares,
before the rush of worries or to-dos
a radiant map of curled silk
leaves - petals of simple gesture
ample gifts of love in the world,
the veiled suns that go ‘round. 

-Santiago

Have you been wrapped in the arms of your lover
and suddenly stopped wanting everything
but this? Has the light cascaded upon the two
of you spun together? And have you felt
that God must have put you there?
That as your skins melted together
your heart could burst?
That children should walk on flower petals
in full bloom laid out by elders?
Not as nylon ballerinas and toy soldiers.
That war and care,and loss, aren´t avoided
by smoothing each other´s heels
walking on one another;
but better met and circumvented
in the enveloping wings of your lover?
How you would set wings on the world
if we could only grasp the light of meaning,
as we do each other
in love.

-Santiago

to Dayra, after viewing her photograph,nugget of truth.

A few trees solemnly gather amidst a deep grey
failing sky
as if painted there
my bones creak in the cold,
and God laughing, laid the horizon
into a cuadro, reminds me how
blood freezes in every living thing.
These are the times we reach
into the palms of hands
their soft flesh and blue veins
and the life we all weather

hoping we can still plant flowers in the spring
and feel the rumor of rivers in our hands.

-Santiago

On this side of the door she sits all feathers and veins
with her legs bent and tight to her chest
trying hard to bring her breath back to light
and how words are given to knives. (and why?)

On the other side of the door the pigeons flutter in the plaza,
small wild flowers breathe in the crevices of picture gardens
and the rain that pitched shadows left barren the nest
while words try to throw themselves to the sky.

-Santiago

 Audio (Reading by Joyce)

I think there are not
enough visible wings to go around.
that I love your hair - the way it carries sun.
the way your soul is threaded between neon and night -
Aurora Borealis - an illumination between
things that have been torn and that which glistens in us.
we search for ways to bring transparency and rest
to moments that have collapsed and dreams,
broken. through breath we grapple with the fallen things;
so many threads to tie.

In healing what has been ruptured,
we create our peculiar luminescence. these lights
reach our eyes and glimmer our hopes from the depths
of our aches, our joys, our losses.
these lights are built upon the wild suns of a child’s dreams,
our lovers’ caresses, and the flowers that keep
reminding us to seek tirelessly the sky.
you are beautiful, blue and sparkling like the sea.
i wish there were enough wings to go around
for all of you who keep finding ways to fly.

-Santiago

I see you with wings
nude, on the outskirts of my soul:

I feel mornings should be spent
braiding flowers in your hair;

I imagine that you are often flying,
making the world pregnant with dreams;

And swimming on the surface of blue hopes,
among the lost, whom have themselves wept

an ocean of desires that have spun out of reach.
I keep dreaming you’re my angel

the salt on your belly reflects light
in the arches of your silver scales inlay wild ciphers

your hair is crystalline and pearl of words
forget-me-not

I’ll thread your dreams ‘till light.

-Santiago

The rain is restless this night
telling me
the apples will rot in unkempt orchards

summer is to be savored
friends are more than weekend blooms

and to hold her hand is
a chord, a crystal…flight.

-Santiago

You hand me the sunrise in a cup,

and remind me of a secret -  not so much

a secret, rather a memory that gave me 

much joy, but it would mean almost nothing to you.

We are made of these, but I’m not sure that you’d

understand, though we all plant them for later times

and dark; sometimes heedlessly.

Here are a few of mine; see if you can

make heads or tails of them: radiator,

the lines of tree limbs buried in porous snow,

blush, white paper for drawing, winter, light

blue gown, snow piling by window, fern.

Lace, palms on oval road, mangrove, white sand

sticking to your sea skin, and laughter, lots of,

in our eyes, these stories, yarns for lacing

colored air, souls, friendships

and endless, auburn words -even

an angel’s zeal under a revolving fan.

Together a tangle of feathers, seeds

cached as beaded dreams for winter,

old warmths, to remember. I know

you have them too.  This is what

I try to see when I look at you.

-Santiago

time withers flesh, bone,

but galaxies bloom within

lived and open hearts

-Santiago

cracks run deep, and in

the well of our hopes, night is

as are waves, swelling

-Santiago