The Great Blue
An acrostic suite from 2001...
BLUE CAFE
heron meditations
good fellow: strange vision exhilarates the nest.
rarely have i known the direction of your mist. until now.
enviable, is it not, your race
across time to
this moment of
bought from what
legacy of pasts only you can
utter. they come, floating, fishlike -
elegant waste of piney ocean depth
ii.
glass eye, i think from my distance, so like esche-
r’s orb, a world turned in, turned under:
eternal sleep, a pearl in wait. spillway
a mighty punctuation to our dreams:
therein lies the irony of your long comma.
bridewell, hale fellow, get my drift?
lunacy’s sunken treasure
unfurled, the gar that ate
evolution’s finest hour.
iii.
read this palm i lay before you.
eat of it. taste if fate is
altered in the fractions we have left.
taste if time cuts as a rule,
bereft of moorings
line for line
uranographer as mighty walls crumble
epigraphist of the gathering mists.
Labels: bks iyengar, blue cafe, suite
posted by murat11 at 6:52 PM
5 Comments:
Wow, Paschal! There's so much of that I like it'd take a book. I had to look up uranographer and epigraphist to get that last bit but when I did it was just so right! A long view to see the shifting tides of time. You've really captured the Heron's spirit in this. And to think I read it after I responded to your last comment. Wow! Mental focus! Beautiful! What a great way to start my day! Thank you! :)
Peace! & Joy!
I wrote this suite of poems while we were living "in exile" in Jacksonmiss. It was, however, the site of one of my favorite jobs of all time: archivist. The archives building was two blocks from the BLUE CAFE, a wonderful restaurant renovated from an old Krystal's (pronounced Kriss-chulls in Mississip.)
We lived out near the Barnett Reservoir, home to dozens of great blues.
And thanks, too, for your appreciative words, Lee.
I love the shifts in direction here, Paschal. The "legacy of pasts" sweeping forward to create "this moment of mississippi." Then, that crystalized (Krystalized?) moving inward--dense as a "glass eye," "a pearl in wait." Followed by the movement towards--"read this palm i lay before you. eat of it."
Then, opening out and upwards, towards the heavens, as "mighty walls crumble."
Funny how "exile," with its mighty walls of limitations, can be a source of power.
YOWSA!
Thanks for your read, Ms San.
Wee chocolate man to Leviathan Joyce: "Jacksonmiss was my Trieste."
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