Poems by Mark Price home | art gallery | essays on art | biography & exhibitions | talk to me
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Gentle Urgings of a Vaporous Dream 1 You know that dream 2 Listen 3 The Arising of the Setting 4 One night 5 A Friendly Death 6 Young girl Other Collections: Secret Name & Transformations |
You Know That Dream You know that dream, I was talking with a woman ‘Oh yes, I’ve had that dream so often it’s become an old friend,’ she said A room dim lit with flowered walls and she wearing only a thin shirt verdant field, except one man who naked, carried he could have been her father or her uncle, Or he looked somewhat like me, she said end back to top Listen Words whispered but once, long ago heard from far away, the trees bending to listen shimmered and shaken by the encircling wind, a single leaf on updraft whirled and found clever chaos in the form of a man, self deceived, who busied himself out of the way, by night he climbed a tall tree and sat upon the moon, to rule a continent below. The land and the glimmering sea, rolling swell, then hollow the weight of the water rising, then breaking, crushing the rocks gathered at lands edge, rolled and tumbled about by words whispered on the howling wind. Far and wide he saw it all encompassed by the limits of vision only. Morning light begins the play, now sits Bartleby the Scribner scribing naught, he dreams of girls under his desk as he eats plum pudding out of a jar drooling upon the pristine page, soon he will faint dead away saying, “I’ll work no more, beyond is fraught with conjecture, what is known is the passage not what’s been passed, all the scribing was scribed long ago.” Across measured spaces ancient travelers marked time out along the way, not by the stars but by words whispered at the first dawn and carried on the wind, even down to our own time. The Arising of the Setting Sun The oblique rays of the sun, morning rise or evening set, still twilight is a moment balanced between light and dark. Becoming is movement towards one or the other. A scale’s balance descends or rises as determined by weight that sinks or counter balanced rises setting in motion the spinning gears, wheels and pulleys, ticking time as determined by the arising of the setting sun. The morning buzz was all around excited people milling about gathering swirls and eddies of talkers talking flowing into a great hall where high upon a scaffold the ax murderer Raskolikov waits to be judged. ‘What is to be done with this wayward youth who took life with an ax, so cheap. Justice demands hanging but such a bright youth, virtuous and sincere, gone terribly wrong though some say society is to the blame, his crime by grinding poverty compelled. He did a woman in, she was a creep, she won’t be missed it’s a shame about the other though who got in his way.’ Three high judges sat; Philosophy, Science and Religion, over bearing and aloof their judgment shrewd to them the crowd deferred. The evidence was presented Raskolikov knelt quietly by and made no defense. The first to speak was a mad philosopher, who wore a great walrus mustache and a superman suit red cape and all, his eyes, able to stare with mad intent two ways at once. Hunched over a book he furiously chewed words and spat them back out again. “I judge you small, thou art a worm, get off your knees, we rise above morality to do great things, why qualms now? It’s will and power to make a man free a new man to break the shackles of history. Really, your crime was too small we’ve God to overcome” Raskolikov answered simply, “you didn’t hear the women scream or see their blood that washed nothing clean, it’s dangerous philosophy to make light of tragedy.” Next spoke the man of science, a thin man with an incisive beak and an atom splitting mind. Calm rational eyes through a magnifying glass looked at all the world, he wondered that it was so small. “Existence is only what is perceived, is really isn’t and this is never that. This criminal before us look what he did with an ax, what will others do with guns and bombs, missiles and war. Violent types will do what they will do. we must put him away, all of them, to a barbed wire camp as big as a nation, we will bond them and bind them link by link, catalog and control.” “My category is not my nature, you know me not at all,” Raskolikov answered. The priest in his grand robes and funny big hat had gone to sleep, a little drool came from between his fat lips as he was nudged awake; “This world is but a vale of tears, a passing fancy of no consequence, but to come to heaven you must brave it out as best you can. There is forgiveness for you, even such as you, just touch my robe’s hem and kiss my ring, the flesh is week, desire strong, it ends in a fiery pit, never ending despair, howling night and sinking fear. Heaven is far and the way bared by sin, no one gets in except through grace so sign up here and I’ll be ‘Your Grace.’” Then with bowed head under his breath he said, “excommunicate them all, I’ll have my sleep.” Raskolikov stared strait ahead, “I don’t ask forgiveness or heaven undeserved, mercy I decline, I’d have those women alive again or it’s my death I prefer, my heart has gone black and cold, I fear it died with them, whose lives I took” The verdict was guilty and the sentence read: “Exile to cold Siberia, let alienation be your plight.” Honest Sonia, the harlot who walked the same sad streets Raskolikov walked had become his friend, with clear blue eyes and softly spoken words, she drew his tears from the warm depths of his cold heart: “Your alone my friend your crime has set you apart, by what is true my life will redeem you, your exile I will share.” Then turning and addressing no one she said “There was a time and a time to come, when philosopher, theologian and scientist are one and the same one, who speak the truth from a heart brimful sorrow and joy, over flowing love; ‘The world is hell but heaven too neither to be conquered nor eschewed, in your mind and in your heart consider the One that is true.’” One Night One night, I woke, to a voice that called my name, I started awake, to see no one there but a presence I feared kept sleep away until an odd restless dream sealed my eyes. Over a wide bridge crossed a thousand or more an endless human stream, the tramp of many feet as one in slow measured cadence, enshrouded sightless eyes the walking dead looking on. Morning light dawned and I, went about my business but listless till night came and I dreamt again. I was alone on that bridge, then hearing the terrible tramp of many feet, I was swept along, tossing the restless night in soaked sheets until I screamed awake. For many nights successive the walking dead crossed that bridge, the terror of those nights bedraggled my days. Until a night I dreamt unlike before out of the crowd a wispy woman approached, frail and half starved holding her dead child, close, looking to me with hopeless unseeing eyes, she said, ‘My child is ill can you help my child? please sir, can you help?’ ‘These are not the dead but the living, walking asleep’ was my awaking thought. My day took me downtown, shop windows drawn blank and bared, aligning the gritty streets, that the homeless scavenge and cops beat, a young whore lifts her skirt and cries, ‘for cheap,’ a man was strangled in stinking sheets, and scruffy children, running down the bloody streets knives drawn, everyone turns indifferently away. So I went up town where the avenues are broad, lined by well ordered homes and gardens with pleasant parks nearby, kept clean for young pretty moms ever watching their brood at play and the trusted priest also watches scheming how to steal one away. It is never known what lurks around corners unseen but vibrant women are snatched by the murderous air. I went to the hospice nearby where death is kept between clean sheets, a used up body wastes away brightly looking east, hope in the dawning day. In fearful awe I ponder what we do asleep. I will cross that bridge myself, going up against the downward human flow to cry, ‘Awake Awake, Alarm Alarm Awake.’ A Friendly Death The clock towered high goes around and around, running out for each of us in time, to the rhythm of ebb and flow. Alone I walk the singing streets beneath shining stars, along the melodious sea wave after wave break, pounding, the measured beat of my heart kept time in my lilting steps, moving me along, until I came to a place and stopped dead. It was there I saw feared Death smile at the weird waves breaking, rolling up to where he sat on a bench with room for two. Resisting an odd urge to wave I stood by aloof, awed by spectral fears, dreading his gaze but curiously calm too. His assured calm was infectious, like the laugh of a young girl and the moon's glint in his humorous eyes quelled my fears. “Good evening sir?” I sputtered out, my breath held, my heart stopped, “If you have come for me, your early I think, though there's no telling when.” He gave me a pleasant smile, “No, I come only when called, it's just a lovely night for watching the moon wax or wane.” Incredulous, I challenged, “You don't come until called?” I wondered that I was so free with venerable Death. “No! Never, not even once have I come early or late,” He said, pleased I had asked, “Sit here my friend, let me explain.” I took my seat but for sometime we sat silent as old friends often do, sit content not speaking, listening, until “everything measured in time passes in time, everything collected dissolves, what is erected falls, 'when' is determined by the thing's nature and the forces that move it, not by my whim or decree, I am as bound by time as you,” Death said. “What becomes of me finally, when I come to you?” I asked, unsure of the ground shifting under my feet as the sea and sky slipped away leaving nothing, no up no down, no sound heard or anything to see, no words or thoughts reflected but a single blue spark remains, to ignite the void asunder, light expands becomes many colored and I see and I hear, I have a voice that dies echoless in the enclosing dark pressing down sinking me in the dank earth. I lay silent, breathless until a stirring wind caresses, warm breath fills me. A presence I sense close by in the dark as dim light glows tracing the contours of distant hills that roll into valleys, the undulating land stretching out to embrace the sea and the sun arising on two friends seated on a bench watching, “a prayer and a presence felt, like a poem with no words Young Girl A girl walked in from a summers day wearing almost nothing, too young, despite the bold sway of large breasts over narrow hips and legs as thin as whips. A strange mixed age to be between watchtowers flashing overhead, crowned in balding sheen, she is to bring them down slowly flowing into the ground. Her friend is nearby wearing a shirt that flows unsure of her contours, shying away from a stranger's look her smile curious but her head shook as she looked up walking by, her young legs boldly bare remind an old man that soon he'll die, sitting there musing, taking stock drinking coffee around the clock. He remembers another's soft sway breathed by the wind of his own distant summers day, the glide of her limbs and soft tresses, touching her face and lifting her dress and them both gliding and smiling on a fair wind through sunny air, far and away they drifted, a whiling the time in love's embrace avoiding the unavoidable race. They ate roasted red peppers stretched out on a bed of coals the wind blew to fan silent embers burning their bodies naked and flashing they clutch and claw madly laughing Golden glades whisper through morning soft rain swells, laughing silently he will let it out alone, after soothing she laughs, eyes blinking cold steel ceasing fear from the dust unremembered risking chastisement for the Sun's debacle as he rested on his way, along his course turning aside at the last moment, suspended he slogs through, ankle deep in mud slowly sinking not sensing that he will not burrow or take to losing well amongst the water's boiling up sap rising, haunted by a girl walking in from a summers day wearing almost nothing, alone with his thoughts he will pray to arise as vapor and flow skyward leaving a seed to grow. All Poems are copyrighted by Mark Price Comments, praise, criticism or threats click here |
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