Instinct

Detail from Their Eyes Met Across a Crowded Room by Nancy Denommee

 

 

 

 

 

 

When matters of the heart affect mankind
an innate aura is at once engaged
from some internal impulse ill-defined
by scientist, philosopher or sage.
It doesn’t matter what this instinct be,
it’s something that’s enriched by being abstruse;
be thankful that it strikes so naturally
for to invoke it may dilute its use.
How else could one feel startled, awed and stung
on meeting eyes across a crowded space,
a visually transmitted force that stuns
then draws both on in spite of time or place?
How else could poet’s pen detect a vibe
and, bypassing the brain, could yet describe?

Poetic Paradox

 

 

 

If unrequited love became
A love profound and true,
How bitter would one’s life become
How mournful, empty, blue.
Without love unattainable
No piercing pain complete
Would fuel the pen for poetry
And make the words accrete.
For love can be a thorny path
Walked barefoot in the gloom
And when we fall and break our heart
A poem helps heal the wound.

A Paralian Mystery

The portent susurrus
from the windward sea
delivered nostalgic sillage
like death’s breath
to the distant solivagant
unsettling the serenity
in her cloistered littoral haven.
It brought a mnemonic nadir
of aeipathy and pathos
over the threshold of nepenthe
shielding the lacuna in her heart
and she paused…deracinated.
The millstone of eonian onus
now stalled on its pendulum
drawing her eye, mind and step
to the glaucous devouring sea
where Lethean waters led
to benign benthic abeyance.
And no one ever knew why.

Nietzsche’s Dancers

 

 

 

deaf dancers move
to their own beat –
the music unheard by those
with blind cynical eyes
watching dumbly  
in jaundiced judgement

It Takes Two To Tango

ah
you,
flirting
inside my
dreams and
 contemplation;
did I inveigle you
here into my mind?
maybe you’ve arrived
of your sole self-volition?
I don’t want you to be here
in this my lone peaceful place.
I will decide to ignore each your
lilac gaze, redtinge hair, thigh-slit
tanned leg, wisp waist, pliant breast,
your flesh; warm flesh; soft warm flesh.
I will not overlook your disparaging heart,
and grating teeth spitting verbal vilification,
your keen claws, ribald affair, the broken trust;
the tri-polar triangle of him, you and this naïve sap
then the serial raw malevolence of a woman scorned.
But…as you’re here now…may I please have this dance?

Van Gogh & Co.

 

 

 

 

 

The Louvre is over-rated it’s just not my cup of tea
The Pharaoh’s gear is awesome but the rest’s vacuity;
From Mona Lisa’s stamp-size frame to dorks in battle trounced
And weirdly outsized saintly sorts whose names I can’t pronounce
I much prefer the action on the counter-facing quai
Just straight across the Pont Royal to the Musée d’Orsay;
Perhaps it’s that I’m plebeian (sans-grade in Bourgeoisie)
The artists who real truths pursue are those I want to see.
More dirt under their fingernails than all their studio peers
These chaps just took their work outdoors in spite of other’s jeers;
With Nature’s inspiration under Heaven’s candid light
They set new standards, studies, styles, all unsurpassed delights.
I hail Van Gogh, Monet, Cézanne and all their splendid oeuvre
Who live across the river from the pompous, lofty Louvre.

Jazzman

 

 

 

 

 

In a Downtown East Side cellar
Ceiling lowered by candle glow
All sit silent save the Jazzman
Ritzy waistcoat, sharp chapeau
Breathing brass into the bar-room
Surfing soundwaves to and fro
That cool dude is in his own world
Improvising like a pro
Riffing tremolo up spine-bones
Palpitating hearts aglow
Altered scales defying back-beat
Bluesy half-tones threatening flow
As the Jazzman vamps a coda
Treble shrill or alto low
In that Downtown East Side cellar
Ceiling lowered by candle glow
You’ll still find my friend the Jazzman
Same glint waistcoat, same chapeau
He’ll be blowing ‘til the Muses
Tell their brother come on home.

Frangipani

 

 

 

 

 

Evening on the bluestone quay
in Frangipanied harbour air
where palm trees bend to sip the sea
askew with dubious gravity.
A cooling layer of gentle breeze
consumes the day’s dull torrid heat
and coconuts freed randomly
beat earth’s arrhythmic pulse.
Leashed along the timeworn cleats
fast thoroughbreds of classic sail
mahogany and brass and braid
all burnished bow to stern;
laughs and shrieks ambiguous
clinked crystal rings and guitar strings
accompany glad ambience
along the wave-lapped wall.
And me contented just to breathe
the balm of Frangipani

The View From My Age

The view from my age expands with every year
Though the horizon pretends no variation now;
The years disclose paler patchwork fields
Yet prudent stalks wield rich and finer yields;
The slender trees though frangible and spindly
Weigh less fruit but of rare and savored fare;
Rocks once rough eroded now and smoothed
Regale with narrative their storied strata bared;
The undulating contours and aquiline relief
Wear wrinkles sculpting countenance of character.
I’m more drawn to the towering back-lit peaks
Than to the gloomy gorges dipped in shade.

Codicil

 

 

 

 

Please dress me in my three-piece midnight black
To suit me for this funereal occasion;
Donate my chequered ones to those who lack
The pattern of my life’s bright inclinations.
Then knot a fine bow tie to flaunt my tastes
The yellow one adorned with red carnations
But do not cross my arms or fingers lace,
I’ll not go in a stance of supplication.
On coffin’s silk please place near my right hand
All memories of my childhood and my children
And at my left the greatest dreams I planned
Achieved or not, they formed my apperception.
The volume of love’s pain and grief won’t fit;
Good riddance then, I’m finally free of it.