The 4th of August 2015

Several poems from the past four weeks:

I.  Door-self

Splintered wood cracks
through layers of paint.
Years of glass ooze
thick at the bottom of the frame.

A torn portal with nowhere to stand
leans against a wall with a knobby hand.

History and facts
are collected by a memory faint.
Fear is the only thing left to lose,
and door-self holds every atom of blame.

II. Fog

Floating down the hillside from the blue to the green,
my thoughts rise to meet her, though my body is trapped.
The gray mist falls kissing everything in between;
I feel jealous of the  grass and leaves, my soul's apt

to remember how earth felt, beneath my two feet.
I wriggle my toes and close my eyes to sense her.
She's a fleeting friend, dissolute, and not discreet.
She'll kiss your cheek, but don't entreat her to endure.

I open my eyes, and she's gone the view is changed.
I settle my eyes on my inured, white present.
Between these hopeless walls, I'm beside myself--estranged.
I search my sheets to see if I am relevant.

The fog comes and goes as it pleases her each day.
I won't bind my soul to ephemeral love, I say.

III.  Narcissus

The snow laden ground is like a blank canvas--white,
but you are the trumpet of Spring breaking the earth.
I'm congealed as the snow, but by your bloom am bright.
My narcissus; hope re-incarnate; child of mirth...

Yet, you are old, your bulbs know each passing season.
In your garden bed, I laid my heart; I was home.
Call me close to hear your laughter, to feel the sun.
You don't utter a word, not even sweet shalom.

I ingest your silent bulbs beneath the ground,
and they become me, but much less discomforting.
For the homeless, silence is where she'll be found
with a cold, still, pale heart not-not, not-beat-ing.

Organic matter surrounds her body, now cold,
what love was there transcends death, for you to behold.

IV. Fruit Tree Memory

I shake away a memory like fruit from a tree,
whose sweetness bursts in my mouth, pure perfection
I turn green, empty-full; full-empty, I vomit agitation
of the brain, which makes my heart jump to my throat
and fall, nervous-sick, I rock me like a boat.

Then I'm still, but the world spins dizzily.
I lift my fingers in front of my eyes.
I'm too numb to cry, wearily
I want what I cannot have, until sunrise.
There goes another piece of me, will it float?
Or sink? I observe the density like it was a message in a bottle I wrote.

V. Diminishing

I listen to and talk to your silence almost laconically,
it's relative to the way I drink your words to surfeit,
let them fill me until they flood from my eyes in salty drops.
This is not the death of me, just the end of living, love stops.
Intrepid, I forfeit.
Surrender my soul, because only a necrophiliac would desire
who I've become--a passion pariah, at one
with all and none,
I'm an empty nothing.
With a soul.
that seeped through.
my skin.
 

The 1st of July 2014

You can't steal the rain from the sky,
But you can feel the drops on your skin.
You can thirst, but you can't drink them in...

A desert flower knows but desertion,
and preserves her blossom without asking why.
You can't steal the rain from the sky.

Picture by Valerie Dowdy @ www.valeriedowdy.com

The 9th of December 2013

Un Verso, Dios mío,

¿Qué me rinde llorar,
si no lloras?
¿Qué me rinde hablar...

si me respondes, con tu silencio eterno?Ah, que sí, tu silencio es eterno.
Te suplicio dejar de hacerme sufrir, mi Señor.

Con solo escuchar un suspiro tuyo,
Me quita el dolor
Que llevo tan dentro de mi ser.
Ábreme con la luz de tus ojos,
Por las ventanas de mi cuerpo, mi hogar pasajero
Al cielo,
Y dame miser....
                       Misericordia

Me trago la sangre--el vino de oración--

En búsqueda de ti, Amo, amo la canción negra del ruiseñor,
mi Señor, sí Señor,
Cántame, desde donde estás, desde tan lejos,
Para escucharte la voz.
Ella me acariciará la piel, como el viento que la lleva
Con el polen, hacia mí, y cuándo respiro se convertirá en la miel divina.

Dulce noche, triste noche, luna de miel, que jamás se alcanzará.

 

art by: Valerie Dowdy, available for sale at www.valeriedowdy.com

The 11th of August 2013

Now, more than ever, I am certain of the importance of silence in the understanding of mortality.  Not during the thrushes of emotional chemicals from the amygdale in the brain to the body's flight or fight, nor during the passion that binds two souls in an ancient, instinctual effort to create life, are we reminded of the fragility of human clay.  But, only in the moments of our solitude do the shadows of our existence creep behind our glassy eyes, and like mirrors we reflect inward to sense our imminent end.  When our love is gone and we search our empty homes and beds, when the day's work is over and all that's left is what fills our heads; how like a tiny, blue robin's egg we feel!  We  are perched in a nest, afraid to emerge and afraid to fall. 

The older I get the more I realize there's no amount of church, of food, of paper in the world to make me happy.  So rather than invest in an expensive anything, I'd rather seek to surround myself with a work that is satisfying and people who care about me as much as I care about them.  Rather than listen to a priest guessing at the content of my character or the context of my need, I want to dedicate myself to finding more solitude for rifling the atoms of my spirit so that I can fill them with electrons of love.  I want everyone I touch to know that I love them by how my actions make them feel, rather than words, broken in capability and bound by the limits of language.  

The 7th of May 2013

My Mountains in May

You are enchanting.
You are rolling, green laughter,
caressed by a cloudy cobalt evening.
I listen for the wind, during the rain, and after.
For you, I am thankful each day.

Day 155
8x10 oils on canvas
Art by: Valerie Dowdy
@ www.valeriedowdy.com

The 6th of May 2013

Photosynthesis

My mind follows the sun
from my small place, when day's begun.
Before the light, a prayer's said
to be grateful for what I'm fed.
The work grows, but my mind follows
the sun from East to West.  The wind billows
my loose garments.  My face-
to-the-sky, my heart-race,
runs and toes-spread-in-the-ground;
I take root,what home is found!

Day 216
8x10 oils
art by: Valerie Dowdy
@ www.valeriedowdy.com

The 1st of May 2013

He's Sleeping in the Other Room

The sun, tide, wind, water,
Constantly rise and fall,
Be at rest,
now and,
always.

Day 318
Oil on Canvas
Art by Valerie Dowdy
@ www.valeriedowdy.com