Antoine Dufour – Ashes in the Sea

A straight line has no corners.

Days lead into days
of straight ahead lines,
I am just an ordinary,
old schooled legionary
out of time with his world.
In a century imagined
I’d never see,
scarred from too many battles
with Barbarians.

Our monuments,
they’ve alas crumbled,
given themselves unwillingly
to the sea, not wanting to be
rediscovered, “Carpe Diem”
thrown upon its head;
a plaque under the waves.

I’ve Viewed the statues
of the Gods and Goddesses
from sideline standpoints,
caught fish swimming through
their armless elbows,
necklaces of pearl, azure,
just precious weights
to submerge in transition.

There’s emptiness within
those marble set features,
the missing limbs, chiseled lips,
from subtle to strong Roman noses,
once so carefully formed,
now broken, askew;
as if that’s what they always
were.

On the new shoreline,
you stood beside me, my love,
posed in their place, smiled.
Shook the old world from your hair
like Neptune’s daughters
discarding tridents for a nets,
and it was no use denying,
we soldiers were captured
by a different pace, along a path
which really didn’t matter
how direct it was.

You can’t fight every war,
sometimes you just have to live.

Tales and other furry tales

The dance of tigers seems ill fitted
to this life of camouflage,
who might prowl or might bounce
over cobbled streets.

Under baskets of summer cheer
a mind’s grass can be lengthened,
covering a much wilder nurture.

Pawsteps behind footsteps
to pass at another watering hole,
and feel the reds brimming orange
under chameleon surface skin;
a were-tiger deliberates
on showing off his full palette.

Behind all bookshelves, authors
scented, preyed upon,
spines bright with treetop imagination.
New targets to steadily devour,
yet claws are retractable scratchers
where the unknowing becomes known.

The tigger which is clamoured
to be released, taps a tango
or two with his colourful, swinging tail.
And you thought the tiger
was a real one? Imaginatively it is.

Up and away

A little robin perched
on a brown, tattered hat
watches the blur
of clouds breeze over
the dishevelled,
stitched straws of
yesterday and today.

Hovering on the moments
that migrate back
to early nest instincts,
in readiness for the uplift,
the flit to the off and up.

When this translates
into flight is something
little known to old hands
more adept at pointing crows
in opposite directions.

Anywhere, but on the ground,
please, for a patched-up man
who wishes he were a kite
with the colour of a bird,
and robin red would be nice,
although black as a crow
would suffice, perhaps
just the once or twice.

Sneezed away in time

If secrets die
when memory fades,
when minds do
eventually crumble,
then simple,
household dust
yet still may hold
all the enigmas
of this particle world.

So I urge you,
dust carefully
and acknowledge its value,
before you clean away
the snuff of the once held,
once breathed,
undisclosed dream.

Zen garden

There was nothing
else to personally seek
as bamboo did swim,
and stones became islands
to the eastern wind,

that hadn’t been left
there in blanket moss,
inside gravel water circles,
eons and moments ago.

Exceedingly good

On The Sixth Day,
God created land creatures of every kind.
Man and woman were created last.

On The Seventh Day, he rested.

On The Eighth Day, he whipped up some
cakes which were good, but a little
sweet for such young palates.

Some considered the pastries overcooked
too, lacking that subtle, light touch he’d
leant so creatively to Day One.

On The Ninth Day, God created lightning,
thunder, lashing oily rain and the first
episode of Dr Who. The storyline of which
would only be viewed in a distant future.

There was much dissent.

Some openly voiced that he’d taken
the cake criticism far too much to heart.

On The Tenth Day, God with lips pursed
created Spam, tripe and powdered eggs.

We all decided they were indeed,
exceedingly good.

Wintersong

Recall a song of winter,

see it silent, beneath
these frozen river waters
that no hand can break;
now known untouchable.

Whistle then its
remembered tune

of a winter branching out,
and set it atop the trees
into charcoal smudge silhouettes,
that later the spring buds
will draw out in colour.

And if those blossoms
you know will never come,
melt a song of winter,
and let memory decide
where the flowers are,

where they can rest.

-

For

James C. Hartsell
‘Wintersong’
who died recently.

Piano practice

His gloved fingers
whirl white Mexican waves,
prepare to strike ivories
in practiced choral patterns.

A rubber band s-t-r-e-t-c-h
over that distant, black one;
should be played flat,
but it pulled very sharp!

“No matter dear,
the piano is over-sized.”

She comforts, sings as he plays
to drown those mistakes.

Her unbelievable cats’ notes
swell right from an ample chest;
a deep pair of breaths
can make his eyebrows arch
in bristling tom-cat applause.

Nothing is what it seems

~ under the bed.
which is to say
under the dense mattress,
where carpet border
meets wire frame springs,
and I can breathe
in a space I reach for
subconsciously;
once able to crawl there.

Tonight slides under
the top-most pillow,
the nearest I’ll get
to tunneling my way
into ice-bound Narnia.
Pushing back linen
like plush wardrobe fur coats.
Except no fauns found here
to welcome by lamplight,
in cold comfort
and weathered seasons,
in grown-up dreams.

It snows in the dark
each breath noticeable,
inhale today, exhale
into tomorrow for warmth
to be returned;
the day after the thaw,
chills will not prevail.

In another space,
I edge past a white witch
which bullies me
into not quite believing
in myself, her icicle aim
to leave me in perpetual winter.
Yet a lantern
is pressed between my palms
by a lion, Aslan.

Eyes with glimmer that he needs
to sustain as fireside coals.

Usually he shows up
one page before
his untamed illustration,
paws still wet with artist’s colour,
his paint trail tail shows the route
to pass safely
the forests beyond cares.

And a waking begins,
only is it noticeable
C S Lewis is here too
under the storyline trees
still typing the scene;
he wants me to continue
towards “Once upon this time”,
close the chapter
on winter land emptiness,
and write of a melt to come.

-

I’m not too sure about this poem. It’s based upon
the CS Lewis story “The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe”,
where a witch prevents winter from ending or spring
from beginning (whichever way you wish to look at it)

* The italic phrases aren’t from the book, they’re just my own
turns of phrases that possibly might be found there
(if that makes sense)

Plump out your community chest

I once found a $ billion bond
in a old shoebox,
admittedly the shoebox in question
was in a Monopoly bank vault.

By sheer ill fortune,
I’d rolled on Mayfair, didn’t
like the choice of hotel room,
complained to the concierge, and
quickly played my “Dicey Heist” card.

They’re now questioning
whether a $ billion
bond was ever made or if it
could fit in a shoebox,
who wears those shoes, and if that’s
in the rules. I assure them it is,
I do, and calculate the change
which I’ll take if I have to in properties.

Now they’re saying that card doesn’t
exist either and want to see the clause.

I play my “Swiss Bank Confidentiality” card.

The audacity of some players.

Readers make the best companions

Drifting above the room
to areas rarely seen,
the top ledge of the bookshelf
displays a dusty parade
of propped novels read
and some unread
leaning aslant into tomorrow.

The lampshades from here
are tempting orbs
shining upwards,
directing me
in their searchlight nudges,
with adamant requests
to get out a duster and flick
away highlighted cobwebs.

I desist (knowing what I know)

For there’s that old spider reading
“The Time Traveler’s Wife” again,
and I notice its fine silken thread
traversing one room corner
right to the open book.

If only I made the same efforts
to read as it did. So, I assist
turning the page for it (carefully)
and between us we get to page two.

In genuine thanks
it untangles its trap,
and offers me begrudgingly
another free-fly
so I can become accustomed
to these fragile, moth wings.

Here’s hoping it’s a lengthy book
with a happy ending.