Normal gesture

All the light in the world contained
One dot and one line
Neither of them mixed with each other
Just ran side by side
Opening ocean two shades at a time
Carrying bellows to the moon just as shafters arrived
Raising rafters black as midnight
Twice as grasshopper
Wrong as comforting silence
Rapt for revival, affairs of the heart fluster
Undercover in the corner
Petty coasters to the right, teacups to the left
Coffee dribbles down the side
Oranges perfunctory enough to ask why
Sequestered baby rafters
Twice as long with the petticoats and casters
Toadstools arriving baffled
Winging on fire while dicing the rafters
Into cubes of coasters as burglars will tell
But not too much
As a toucan can smell apples from poodles
Exchanging molesters for molecules
Short shafted as wires might cry
Knowing how snow feels
Rafters nod and talk of diamonds
Covered with oars to blight
Resisting each snore each sneeze
Each heart beat on wire
All rise as pickle in plum
Safe as nets and twice as blind
Blooms of lions eat with the eaches
Down by the roadside, washing the pariahs
Cumbered in waste as made no sense
But garbage for more
Table talks and linen wipes
And alleys for walks
Onions potato in soup of wine
Washing wipes for welcome arrivals
Wringing the downs
For the pleasure of all
Soup for kitchen
Proof of kissin'
But not enough for one
Too much

Denis Streeter     9/14/14

Bleaker

Written after reading Kevin Brooks' bleak but brilliant 2014 Carnegie Winner "The Bunker  Diary".  For those wondering after reading this piece, I'm doing fine on my meds.


More than my mirror
My bunker my life
My steel wall
Everything bolted down
Tables, beds, toilets
Everything the same
My subvergence
I wander my streets
Merging for me
Who I am
Poet breathes a large net
Dancer a different
Viewing my world
Complex
Real
More than I know more than I do
I am me and subject to change or
Stay the same
I am my own contradiction

The streets look back and nod
Until their no makes me dizzy
The streets say that's not enough
You're evading the question
Who
Are
You???
I am my fear
The unexplored skin peeled back
To my beating heart
I am molested
And I molest myself
The unexplained that half truth
Where emotion lies
I work to breathe but
Have no physical ailment
I am empathy and anger
That taut emotional string
I was well taut
Until I learned to cry
The cry of the untaut
Unwinding dad's DNA
That molestivous feel
Weaving rewoven
Becoming my own
Reach in pull out my heart
Fight the lie that it's not really there
Whining and twining
Who I am
More than my thought empathy connection
Depth flow undercurrent real
Drowning fear my bunker
Journal endless hopeless
Exploring bleak depth
Flat ugly fucked

The streets look back and nod where they lie
Nod
Lie
Disappear
Unweaving
Leaving...


Me



Denis Streeter   9/9/14

Gloam answer

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Fruit bats in wing shadows
Performing acrobatic nines and fives
Languid fields yawned and groaned
Giving scores of one point o
Like some short stream, mud puddle, and pond
Bats turn to swallow for eaves
Evening amber gold honey
Chasing moonlight in firefly shadows
Groaning for hot zones unknown
Shores shoveled shells to sand
Marking way for washing ships and drying towels
Gifts made wise in old age
But not more attractive when wandering blind
Where typhoons startled and foamed

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Typhoons tickled tempests
Washing clean in soda springs
Doors dressing house sweeping floors
Sleeping ceilings cough and shake
Dreams splinter rafters some watery wake
Lips move to fake grace
Blind as oceans deep in sand
Shells open understand then shell beneath
Those coloring dreams some dark rainbow
Shells sand their birth
Faster than magnetic north breathes
To find direction

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Sky skin and sand
Sin some alternate conclusion
Solar take fire
Startling end to alpha omega
Man some sticky conclusion
False between the legs when honey ran wild
Sand into birth, join into pain
Laughing those tears to cough and shake
Wandering this and that direction
Wondering which is true north
Following that compass

It was a time before peaches


Denis Streeter 8/8/14

Shadow flight

Before the junk field reunion
The man brought his scrap metal to the liquor store
Where rye is a trade
The fields mourning for a walk in a flask of mist
Forgetting light in the rainbow
Grabbing wet colors stored in flask
Wafted on
Noon
Draping wings
Catching shadows to pocket
Walk on
Burning hot
Parchment
Pulling shades from pocket
Wren parched song
No words
Soundless urge
Crying for the new
Light and shadow
Cleansing pain
Sharpened angles
Geometric metal wings
Flaps of mind
Smithing possibilities
Moving junk
Mined flux over time
Sleeping then awake
Wren song
Shadowshine
Waiting for pathways home
Scraps for dreams
Shaded light
Slight flight

Denis Streeter 8/2/14

Three movies

I highly recommend The Iceberg (2005), Rumba (2008), and The Fairy (2011). I discovered The Fairy at the library and quickly became hooked, having to see the other two movies. I was not disappointed. These are nearly silent slapstick French-Belgian dramas that have a unique artistic perspective. All three films have the same three actors/writers/directors (Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel, and Bruno Romy) and it works as if the three have one unique voice. Think Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, but these three have a direction and humor that is uniquely their own. In The Iceberg a woman accidentally locks herself in the walk-in freezer...to later discover she likes the cold! Rumba has a dance couple and a suicidal character who lands the couple in the hospital, but somehow their love of the rumba fuels this oddly delightful drama. The Fairy is about a depressed hotel clerk who meets a woman who declares she is a fairy and grants him three wishes. Two of them seem to work, but then she disappears, and he falls in love with her. The plots don't do these films justice. The sight gags, physicality of the actors, and odd poetic charm are the chief pleasures. It's not for everyone, but check these out from the library. These movies were a very welcome surprise.

'Mr Left Boot'

Another William Mayne quote, with the quirky English sense of humour.

'There's a lot put in our way,' said Katherine. 'Among
them is your feet. How you fill the house, you gurt thing.'
'Then I'm bound to move my feet,' said Profound. 'I get
them trodden on plenty, oh, Lord. Come up, you boots, out
of the lady's way. There they are, putting out their tongues
at you, lady. You ain't polite boots, you two, especially you,
Mr Left Boot. You got a saucy look.'
'Stop your nonsense,' said Katherine, and tapped him on
the head with a spoon, as if he were a hard boiled egg. 'You find
water tomorrow, and don't laze about under my feet all day
through like an old dog. You and father be space-eaters,
there en't never no room about you.'

page 124, The Rolling Season, William Mayne, Oxford Press, 1960.

Ignores know

Shrinking by moon afternoon
Dawn slips its shoulders
Dusting its wings
Slipping to jungle
Shipwrecked in shine
Over lemonade blossoms
In blinds of change
Testing the bottoms
Lights out
Floors perfume
Cedars wander
Weeds wine
Shingles shatter
Wide bottom loads
Sugar daddy
Logs of lung
Shaking sideways
Wrongside up
Tipside down
Tapping oceans
Ship shallow
Drawers center
Subterfuge
Penning the stage
Fusing the curtain
Tunes that groan
Shows shack time
Pines that grind
Picks that pine
Oceans swallow
Beady back
Pins that prime
Ribs that clip
Star crossed shadows
Tars explore
Shipping ways
Shipwrecked in shine
Lemonade blossoms
Ignores know

Denis Streeter 7/17/14