Wild Poets - Journals

beneath

M.C. Bertram — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:10:00 +0000

frost breathing through rimy sedge

nothing stirs

creeks almost frozen

crackling ice-sheets

smoothly close in small fish

beneath

but dreams in sleep or suffocation stay vivid

Slow Bones

Caribou Slim — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 21:15:00 +0000

An experiment with trombones & clarinets... click into the article to listen...

Troubadors

Peter Le Baige — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 00:25:00 +0000

troubadors

- to John Lennon, Bob Dylan & Leonard Cohen

when John was

shot down

by a fool

in New York

i knew

this world

makes no sense

the pain of love

the pain of pain

in his voice

love won

only a

cold point

through the

back

when the universe

takes Bob back

his voice

from the bottom

of mankind

coming up

through

his voice now

as old as

he strove to

sound young

those words

in that voice

the earth will

for me

but an instant

lean into

shadow.

sweet Leonard,

when your time

has come

the fullness of

a struck bell

i'll take your

voice down from

the upper shelf

like an old

whiskey wrapped

in a dapper

song of yours

and drink it on

till closing

time.

february - april

beijing 2011

Te Werahi Beach and the promised land

Peter Le Baige — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 00:18:00 +0000

Te Werahi Beach & the promised land*

* see commentary further below

from the drenched shadow of the morning cliff

looking west it lay out on the running ocean

Cape Maria van Diemen,

a name scratched down once of a time

by restless europeans on parchment,

a promised land of the dawn

mapped in early gold

sand hills forged as

simple as cloud along

the still pink rim of sky west

or a rock on the inward rush

of a wave the beach wide

hid a city on the other side

of old things,

missing friends, lost stories, altars

laden with fruits and burning meats,

old sailors of the pacific

and further seas in the tavern

dead drunk in their mermaids’ clasp.

streets that drop away like winds

in the folds of a mainsail

a city that cannot last the sun falling

from higher than the tip

of the ridge, a whole city

gone like dew in the curl of the

marram grass whipped back

and forth on the sand

the ocean riding on in

foaming across the hardened

sand, bubbles and sunken

sky in tow.

a promised land of quiet prayers that

turn across the sky a flock of birds

of terns painted like wave tips

a land of plenty, time stopping

when your thought does,

your brush, your pen dipped

in the cupped well of your silence

earned in the dripping together

of hours

a promised land

that is promised only in the little

time before the sun moves

on those sands, those hills,

and the wind overturns

it all in bare unshadowed

light.

gone like a feather

off the back of your hand

remembered.

the door

to the

dead

open in

the day.

northland

beijing february 2011

Commentary:

A poem for me is a collision of coincidences between language and memory, language and feeling. I have noted below some of the associations which this piece has for me that came to light in its writing and afterwards. I would not normally do so for any piece I've written, but for whatever reason, felt prompted to do so in this case.

restless europeans

reference to the following talk between C. Jung and a Hopi indian elder:At the Taos pueblo, Jung spoke for the first time with a non-white, a Hopi elder named Antonio Mirabal (also known as Ochwiay Biano and Mountain Lake), who said that whites were always uneasy and restless: "We do not understand them. We think that they are mad" (Jung, 1973, p. 248). Jung asked him why he thought the whites were mad, and the reply was " 'They say that they think with their heads . . . . We think here,' he said, indicating his heart" (p. 248).

a promised land

I was reminded by the beautiful profile of the sand hills of William Blakes poem 'Jerusalem', a wonderful chariot of English words, sturdy and unbroken after 300 years

early gold

early in the morning, and a memory of gold just valued for its beauty, rather than monetary value

hid a city on the other side

couldn't see the other side of the sand hills, but precisely for this reason I imagined a whole mystical city there, like Blakes 'Jerusalem' - not really existing anywhere

old sailors of the pacific

and further seas

all those sailors whether polynesian, european, asian or whoever else, who made it everywhere over the waters by star and sextant streets that

drop away like windsin the folds of a mainsail

streets of white houses on the cycladic isles, that drop off steeply down hillsides, like wind spilling out of a white mainsail I've always thought

gone like dew in the curl of the

marram grass

all a dream, some obscure reference in my mind to the Japanese story translated by Lafcadio Hearn (early scholar on Japanese culture/literature) about someone dreaming beside an ant nest and becoming a king in his dream, waking and realizing everything in his dream was in fact just a reflection of the ant nest (king, soldiers, castle etc)

the door

to the

dead open in the day.

of course death is open any time for business, but somehow the image of the arch over the entrance to Agamemnon's tomb (referred to as Agamemnon's tomb but apparently an unknown king) that I saw at Mycenae some 30 years ago came to mind after thinking about this poem for a month or so, and also that I was at Te Reinga.

blues fading

M.C. Bertram — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 09:41:00 +0000

red hues turn into shadow

behind crumbling fronts

signs no longer mean what they stand for

windows close

all calls subdued by their echoes

you shut up

last reflections thrown back from your indigo glass eyes shiny surface

cross of wood

M.C. Bertram — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:57:00 +0000

	Karma: 6
dead rosewood cut - into fingers, bled – smoothed, waxed and polished pierced with red-hot needle the end of the shorter arm of the longer stick to pull through threads of silk from disturbed butterflies - spend my fare, got blisters on the way modest gift among all this flitter you smile, the shining string around your neck sinks low where the work done by my hands takes in warmth

Text Worlds

David Wright — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:35:00 +0000

hola todos,

aqui: http://www.yourworldoftext.com/opened

the latest opened grid. stop by and destroy my purpled works...

Love to all, photos and updates to ensue with tech upgrade this summer. I hope all are safe and working...

David Lee

Lost

Wrulf Gunkl-VonGlashaus — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 20:54:00 +0000

It was the glorious terror of an instant when
the sun was lost in the moon - and
the explosion shook the hair out of
the world into the abyss of our joined womb
nourished by the blinding light,

… enraptured and captive, we ran and hid
then dared to play,
first, you were the sun and I was the moon, next
I was the sun, you, the gem
haunting the silken web of night...

… and the explosion still
shakes our abyss
nourished by our enraptured eyes filled
with the terrifying
glory - of a joined moon and sun...

flintstone

M.C. Bertram — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 18:53:00 +0000

things would last

in the stone age

and take their time

caves and cairns

carefully buildt

withstood the years

deeds and words

left impressions

on skin and soul
have this flintstone.....................
all logs now piled
up to the last one

Smogbotten ~ 8

Caribou Slim — Sat, 25 Sep 2010 21:40:00 +0000

Chasing the bumblebee
I found Aphrodite trampled and set her alight
She sent me tumbling through the clouds
Desperation dancing through the fear of years to come
Tangled in a maze of twisted promises
Hearts lost in the swirling storm
Autumn winds whitling brittle love into snowflakes
Singing split infinity