When the tears came

Maybe the mountains were simple
When the drawing began
Sunrise set rainbows
Growing shells on lake bottoms
Sometimes grief is like a shell
That opens out and clams shut
Shared then solitude
Massage into healing
Cells to awaken
When they will
Our lives a present
In the horrors of living
Turning to each other
Perhaps that Higher Source
That goes by so many names
Stirring up something as simple
As those mountains within
Not so simple
When the drawing began
Feeling the silence
When the tears came
And the words began to flow
Opening out our within
Growing larger than our known
Into something like
Love.

Denis Streeter  5/31/12

something missing

echoes of nightfall move my speakers
down in the room where the cold rains
and the cellar leaks when the buckets dry
moling distance between empty and cold
just before the sandworm technique
and the offices went out
all party and no paint
nothing to catch and nothing to dry
just cellars of clean teeth
the sense to know better
when the leeks came
and the shadows shook
sure as a cornfield disaster
when the tongues cease
and the corn hopper cant
justice in two bright faces
the refrigerator door hops
and flees into the wings
just as two bones make a fly
and turn to light
let the capricorns decide
and mirror their dismissal
of the ugliness within
and the fairest present
waiting for when
i always knew
the sands of drifting were over
let the reels spin
when it changes who can tell
not me im the middle man
on the cloven road
only space will know
when i will cross the rivers and canyons with you
but that aint happened yet
and the metronomes are crooked
and ive missed a beat.

denis streeter  5/27/12

Blundergone

This piece was inspired by British children's writers William Mayne and Alan Garner...two brilliant writers with an amazing sense of place, dialect, and language.

It war a lar larky whimble
Shrouded ten brick high wandin' sor-west
Table roun' drinkin por soppy
Drop stenched
And da flies dancin' himmel
Nowt ofer
Larfin' tin whistle
Nowt in tin
Bar up da korner
Shadow shack gon
Livered shy roun' blister bent
Up da bedpost an bye
Dreamin'
Bluelarked
Blundergone.

Denis Streeter  5/21/12

The hides

Shoulders unrest the floating tollbooth
Down table clothes of silence
In the golf of the night
That set the scene screaming
Doors open and close
Baskets dreaming
The carpets floating
Uncovered planks showing their sheen
And the planks buckled
Some crazy xylophone
Unearthing subconscious dreams
Floating a tollbooth away
And into the hides the searching begins
Treasure or our worst fear
Are sometimes the same
And beneath the planks
The table cloth of silence
A communion
Should we enter in.

Denis Streeter   5/18/12

The House on the Brink

First published in 1971, "The House on the Brink" by John Gordon is a classic.  I first read it about 25 years ago on one of my book trips to Vancouver, B.C.  My mother read it as well and would often comment on how this odd book haunted her...a terrified lady and a seemingly malevolent log moving up the beach toward her house.   I also felt haunted by this book...and in an odd way makes me feel closer to my mother who died six years ago. This time I picked up the richness of the physical and emotional landscape, electrifying poetic word pictures, along with an equally compelling narrative...buzzing with energizing creativity.   

Let me give you a sense of the writing.  This passage is about a boy daring himself into stealing a rowboat...

   Act now.
   He looked quickly up and down the wharf.  Still
alone.  He went to the edge.  The cruiser had its fenders
out and was held even farther from the wharf by a wide
baulk in the water.  A couple of yards.  But there were
handgrips along the canopy over the cockpit and a
ledge for his feet.  He leaped, reaching for the grips.  His
feet hit the deck.
   A boat is a floating drum.  The thud of his feet
echoed within it, and at that instant he thought of
people on board.  He clung, and fear stripped him as
clean as a skeleton.  It happened once in every real dare.

(page 13, "The House on the Brink")

Read his words aloud.  His writing truly comes alive.  Equally effective creative writing is John Gordon's "The Giant in the Snow" (1969).

Shiftings

bring in the detachments
those suffering litters to come
red with brown beetles
littered by the sun.
bring those who hunger and thirst for righteousness
For His Name Sake
All capitalized like it means something
When it might mean nothing
bring in what you will
the can is waiting for you
It can not hear
It only listens
Some plane overhead
Never you
And that is the same with our holy god
All lower case like it means something
bring in what you will
The meaning
Ever changing, ever the same
The can is always there
In your shiftings
Into each present
And under the shiftings
Something solid
Call it what you will.

Denis Streeter 5/4/12