Joseph Farley, US

 

 

Free Verse Sequence: Under Blue Mountain   Spring Blossoms   each spring pink blossoms too delicate for old hands summer then autumn the flowers are gone pick up fallen petals and treasure what remains     Spring Stirrings   March gives way to April. Lusty glances from ripe strangers Drive off winter frowns. In between the rains and before the summer heat there is a spate of time when age melts away and we are young again. We try to do all the things we used to do amazed that we still can, until a pulled muscle or bum knee reminds “this is not your time”. That day is gone or going fast, so quick chase after it and make it last.     Horse and Rider   Somewhere in Kentucky there's a woman riding a horse across a green field, the sun and the wind mixing with the pollen stirred by the hooves and the general movement of the world. This woman does not know me and I do not know her, but I see her brown tresses bouncing with the motion of the rider in the saddle. I see her legs tighten against the horse's flanks, her riding boots blending in with the color of the stallion. I see the redness in her cheeks, the ripeness of her body and the pure joy of her smile as horse and rider gallop across that field in the sunshine and the cool wind of a late spring or early summer.     Ukase*   When your lover speaks you must cringe, knowing you must obey every whim, or suffer the consequence of lonely nights tented under peeling paint on the tattered sofa, or nights lonelier still spent in the same bed with Siberian winds blowing toward you from breasts and thighs once warm with desire. *Ukase – n. Russian imperial decree; an edict with force of law.     Tanager   A tanager, female, yellow as a summer rose, brightens the green of the backyard hedge before fluttering off to forest berries and swarms of succulent gnats along the rill bank back beyond the truculent fence.     hogback*   trees rise along the ridge on either side of the dirt road. noises in the underbrush, squeals and shots of guns. it is not your day. your rifle is still loaded and the sun is creeping down like a hunter heading home. hogback* - n. A steep ridge produced by erosion of tilted hills or mountains     Under Blue Mountain   Driving through the tunnel under Blue Mountain the noise of the universe is filtered by tons of stone letting neutrinos get captured in the warm bedding of my brain the radio has turned to static gone is the country western I came in with, replaced by jazz when I emerge into the light of a new moon.     Richard   His father beat him with a buggy whip or a leather belt when the whip wasn't handy in the old German way of spare the rod and spoil the child. If you asked him and he was in the mood he'd show you the scars that were part of his upbringing. He could down beers by the pitcher just like his old man. He'd sit with you at the bar and match you mug by mug than surpass you while you were reeling from the pressure in your brain and bladder. He liked Oktoberfest and would invite friends to the German American Club on Academy Road to join in the festivities which consisted of eating lots of sausages, drinking lot of beer and schnapps, and watching men in lieder hose and buxom women in peasant dresses dance to music from a band consisting of a tuba, a clarinet, a drum set and an accordion. Afterward there would be much vomiting in the parking lot which was brushed off as part of the experience. When sober he would don a blue uniform and a badge. He'd carry a gun and a night stick and break heads whenever the situation called for it. In this way he was like his father, believing in stern discipline to shape a youth and turn him from a wayward path. A good beating, he told me, was better than jail time. Bruises heal. A record stays with you. Times changed and Richard fell out of step. The old way of doing things was no longer permitted. A knock on the noggin was no longer standard operating procedure. Instead there was paper work and hearings and appeals and lawsuits a plenty. Richard saw the world growing lax. He retired rather than bend, moved to the mountains where a man could shoot deer from his bedroom window. And he did. Brought me a freezer chest of venison once. Broiled up nice on the barbecue.     Necrosis*   The city is alive but also dead. It is in a constant process of building and tearing down. Construction workers in white helmets study blueprints amid dust and noise of an empty lot erupting into condos. A pile driver bangs and bangs fucking a steel post into the ground. It shall spread its seed through the dirt until more structures will rise and change the landscape. Before there was a vacant lot there was a row of stores and homes built long before the first world war. Those piles of bricks now gone stood where a fish market had once been. Before the market there were cabins and farms, before that lone hunters and silent woods. Just as when a tree falls in the forest and creates an opening in the canopy allowing seedlings to aspire to great heights, so too the deaths of buildings give architects hope for their visions. What will grow and what will be built depends upon soil and sunlight and climate. The bankers and investors hold the strings. The designer of tall things only draws and dreams. *Necrosis – n. localized death of living tissue     Child's Play   bullets whiz past the hopscotch court. they are not meant for you. if they take you out it is by accident. take no offense. the shooter is a cousin of someone on the street and the victim is cousin to another neighbor so no one will talk to the authorities. cars race by with rolled down windows. the flash of a gun. more bodies fall parents pull their kids indoors but thy won't stay there long, children need to play so out they go riding bikes and skipping rope and finding empty nickel bags and plastic stems from a rose not meant to symbolize love. the boys on the corner are a little older they have graduated to more dangerous games playing lookout transporting or selling. the young men with colors on their heads share a common swagger. they are always searching for new soldiers. there is always a need, so many fall to bullets or police batons. Iraq is far away, Afghanistan even farther, but who has need of foreign wars when you live in a domestic one twenty four seven.     That Sinking Feeling   A river runs under the house. It has always been there, but the builders thought they could make it go away by throwing ash and stone into the water. The neighborhood is sinking. Gradually it will disappear. Hold onto the walls and furniture as you start your journey to the center of the Earth or out to open sea.     Collapse   The debased currency of the collapsing empire of your heart can no longer purchase forgiveness or sympathy. You once proudly marched in your self proclaimed victory parade, now, in default, you must walk alone, without fanfare or admirers. It was destined to occur, spending more than you had, taking more than you gave. We the simple barbarians grew tired of your refinements. Time did the rest.     History   history is a tale told by survivors written on the bones of those who did not. how much is true is never certain, and what is not said is safer left unspoken.     What Was Lost Along The Way   St. Anthony with a search light is looking for your heart. You know you had it once when you were young. You lost it somewhere you are not sure where. By now it is a cold hard thing, a rock fossilized by the road side. It will not be easy to find. There are so many stones that look the same. But who needs a heart anyway? It is easier to turn your head and look away from pain and sorrow and all distasteful. As long as it is not you or yours what does it matter? The search continues. I hope it will succeed, for as successful as you are there is something missing. It may not be as obvious as a missing tooth but even when you smile I can feel its absence.     Babble   Words merge in my mind and mouth. My tongue spits out phrases in English, Italian, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Ukrainian, all languages half-learned and mostly forgotten, now ill-known at best they hang on a skeleton of grammar derived from my mother tongue. When part of my brain asks for “city” neurons fire and send clerks running through the hallways of my mind searching through file cabinets for the desired phonemes, but come back with “mycti.” “from” and “desde” materialize when “cong” is called for. To know one's self is the beginning of understanding, yet this babble in my head is beyond comprehension. I smile and laugh as if walking through a room of strangers, not wishing to offend, and yet there is no one here, just me and my dictionary and writing paper and an irreverent pen as unwilling as my tongue to do my bidding.     The Ideal Word   words are not real conversation is not reality there is no ideal “horse” formed in the ether simply because we whisper its name the only words that matter are often unspoken seen on the eyes or heard the warmth, timber of a voice well known lovers speak in non-words, but children are the most articulate the younger more so, speaking in the natural language of a toddler babbling love.     don’t talk about serious topics   death is a serious thing, probably the only serious thing. that is why it is not polite to talk about it too much. death is too much with us. we do not want to turn our heads and see it. yet it is there, always, in the corner of our eyes, even if we choose not to acknowledge its presence until the moment when it stares coldly into our eyes and says “now.”     chromosphere*   1950s cars with tail fins and lots of chrome, extinct dinosaurs that once ruled this world, motoring from the drive-in diner to the drive-in theater. Gone now is that chrome world with its drivers in leather jackets and poodle skirts teaching the highway to rock n' roll. In an older wiser world we must buy small electric boxes, mobile toasters to get from here to there, ejected like bread into homes with entertainment systems and frozen meals packed tight in the deep freeze. *chromosphere – n. lower part of atmosphere of the sun or similar star     Ostiole*   if camels could move by osmosis you could assume one could pass through a membrane semipermeable such as the eye of a needle. *Ostiole - n. a small opening or pore     Crow Of Night   black crow black sky feather fingers beating dark carrying the seed of the sun in a yellow beak     Let Us Pray: Free Verse: At Every Moment; Christian Koans; Adoration; The Gift Of Prophecy; The Journey; Look Homeward; All The Trappings; In the Hermitage