Summer Sudden

© 2012 Steve King

All rights reserved

…then evenings

and leisured memories

of each receding day,

bright and perfect,

brilliant mirrors to our sly designs

no matter how we chose to look at them.

Slow slipping to twilight,

faces turned to painted masks,

purple in encroaching shadow,

bared limbs unweathered by the lateness.

We knew it was no longer spring

no matter what the calendar implied.

It seemed the change would never come,

sun would never leave us

to abandon and dark dreams,

whisperings and star-lit conjurings;

our silence at the last

amid the calls of crickets,

and low insect hums,

other shadowed harmonies,

gathered in dark corners

of the shrinking day.

Dense air made wet the tall iced glasses,

leaving dew on ready hands,

teasing ready lips with thoughts of quenching,

quenched lips taunting ready ears,

sighs of easy promise,

leaving for the moment

all prospect of renewal or regret.

All ready.

Rings clicked on the cold glasses,

jeweled facets in rose sunsets

glimmering like lesser stars

as hands moved through shadows

back and forth in fading light;

painted lips curled for the sipping,

tongues for languorous rolling

of all bright sensations;

heat and summer air,

all breath enfolded,

words poised for saying,

if words would even serve a purpose

in the long twilight;

if words would substitute for sensations

waiting close upon the tongue;

if words would better serve the tongue

than soft summer bites,

dark appetites there waiting to devour

the ripening fruit of lingering summer nights.

The scent of perfumed bodies

swift touching,

sudden feeling,

all unspoken accident,

that needn’t be explained,

wouldn’t be undone (how?)

by words or faint regrets

unsuited for belief

or even for remembering,

(how might it be undone?

how could they be undone?).

It was the season made us move,

could not escape the touch,

the scent

the feel;

wondering of one’s own scent

and how to touch

and what to feel

and what to say;

endless twilight fading slow

to ease all pleasure and repose.

Yes, summer indeed.

Just summer.

And the guard was down,

because by then we held nothing

not gladly surrendered.

Summer.

Just summer.

Season of long twilight

and brimming retrospect,

though briefly were the morrows

presaged in each rising moon,

light breaching that horizon,

looming ever larger,

casting our faint shades

through the blaze of magic lanterns.

I wondered of the morrow,

small dreaming of another day,

the long wait for new twilight,

new games to play.

I wondered of tomorrow…

still nothing beckoned from beyond,

save moonlight falling empty;

tired shadows fled across the vacant lawn,

while magic lanterns guttered

one

by

one…

Seeing

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

I thought seeing you was best,

watching as the light would change,

waiting for the night to gather us.

But dreaming holds strange vision too,

that flickers through reluctant shadows,

touching on all wanting spirits there.

Those shadows, spirits, dreams, reveal anew

and serve as well as sense

to picture you.

Today

© Steve King

All rights reserved

Today I will greet sunrise with a glance.

It will have to be enough, just seeing—

Empty of new words for the old things,

I’ve done the best to rid myself of them,

shaking bare the word-bins,

purging old and occult motives

with a stream of gilt verbosity.

Emptied are all ill-stocked compartments,

shuttered now, swept clean

of all compunction and desire,

leaving few the rooms that must be kept

to tend a winter season of the soul.

And I will see

what I will see.

It must be enough today

to ply the uses of proximity,

make of it a ready world,

here, where I may gather and restore.

Further words would only draw my thoughts

back to an unintelligible map

filled with strange detours and false starts,

crossroads where I’d be constrained

to choose approaches to unknown ends,

paths a fickle will might not refuse.

No loss, or not so much…

Words often either aren’t enough,

or ring of hubris.

At their simplest, just cries of the heart, I guess.

Aren’t there enough of those to go around?

And how the heart itself does change…

Who would ever trust those cries for long?

I will see…

When I’m ready, you’ll know.

I’ll pick up the phone,

bring more complication to your afternoon.

You’ll see the number flashing,

perhaps recall my voice

and what it said last time.

You may even smile as you reach,

expecting me to say—

But you would be dismayed, this day:

remembering that I was out of words,

I’d probably hang up before you spoke…

I trust there is some way you’ll be assured—

if I have given up on the old words

it’s only to divine another way.

More quickly than I might foretell from this present refuge,

within these moments of…not saying,

it’s certain some new musings will emerge

to win exemption from intemperate vows.

They will populate these shadows,

the silence and the empty space it fills;

will reach beyond old words,

beyond the weight of wearied thoughts

that lead only to this...

It remains to be seen.

I’ll relish what this solitude allows,

but just as gladly draw the curtain

on this closing day.

Old silence will beget a welcoming void,

to echo with new murmurs of its own.

All pious tribulations gone,

grim musings undone;

each ready moment

filled with whole new seasons just begun,

crowding out those tones of twilight,

calling, as a larkbird lauds the sun,

upon a waiting chorus of tomorrows,

new gathered spirits singing then as one.

After

© Steve King
All rights reserved


You rose like a fawn this morning,
wild eyed, yielding.

Perhaps you fear my aftermath:
Am I safe?
Am I content
with mild indecencies?
Had I keen edges
your soft senses
mistook from the first?

What vessel am I in daylight
that cannot hold your evening dreams?

You are kind to linger,
so busy in another room.
But have you morning bitters brewing even now
to curdle this confection?

On the Waters

by Steve King

©  2012 

All rights reserved

The surface had been broken sudden,

ripples shake the sky to muddled gray,

mixing clouds with infinite azure—

clouds that seemed so bright before,

floating high upon a sea of light—

but not now in reflection,

not now, writhing on the fractured sheen;

The sun, bent to funhouse shapes,

a wandering balloon

set loose upon the world,

unencumbered child’s play

making light of all the day.

The certain picture gone,

hostage to the least of winds

that touch and go and leave no trace

or any true pathway.

The face upon the waters

puzzles now a dawning mystery:

eyes flash across each gathered wave,

changing with new currents,

now hiding in roiled shadow,

then glinting in that funhouse glare;

lips, fickling with each rise and fall,

first smile, then frown to bottom out the depths;

no Narcissus charm to beckon

from the spirit floating there,

countenance remote, delicate,

hanging just beyond an easy reach,

trapped within an ever-changing tide.

Watching for a certainty to settle of its own,

to hold a master vision once again,

an image, an idea that might stay,

knowing sure that all things seen

linger on their own thin edge,

ceding fragile form and gravity

to random ripples of unthought design

that shatter calm reflection,

spin still contemplation and regard

out of their sometime world.

These beauties that the image now betrays

are drifting peaceful on the deeper reservoir,

reflecting for an instant only on the broken shoal.

Such shadows may not be embraced,

nor should they even slip to light so much,

for all that gathers on the edge

is scattered as I stoop to see,

ruined on the muddled shore

as I do reach to lay a heavy touch.

From the Balcony

©  Steve King

All rights reserved

i.

Through all seasons,

peering outward from the high window,

he would watch the boats.

On they came

through clinging fog,

curtains of rain,

breaking through the crowning sun,

and out of deepest night,

with horns, lights

and strange dancing nautic grace,

gliding beneath sheltering stars

emerging to his view

as if the stirrings of dream.

Familiar constellations shown upon them all.

Only the moon would change its face,

although he knew it dragged the stubborn tides

in some promise of larger constancy.

Unchanging stars alone made perfect sense.

ii.

The manservant brought wines

appropriate for every season.

They drank to the hours,

and to the stars,

and for fair seas and warming winds

to usher every pilgrim home;

and to the dreams of coming ships,

and to great beauty as it once had been.

iii.

‘She’ll know me, even now,’ he said.

I have the pictures yet.’

‘And you have the letters.’

‘Yes, musn’t forget.’

‘The letters.’

‘You have them safe…’

‘I have them.’

‘Yes, most; but there are still a few…’

iv.

The sea changed every night,

the color and the call,

the mass of harbored boats

strung with lights

that traced a captive swell.

‘Shall I turn on the light?’

‘Easier to look out through the dark. 

I can see the farthest reach that way.

I will know her when she comes…’

He paused to dispel a nearing cloud.

‘…and she will need no beacon.’

v.

And so the many seasons went,

and many servants in their turns,

and endless boats and sheltering stars

reflected in the slipping tides.

And staring far through forgiving dark

to feel good seas and take fair wind,

he waited on a gentle dream

now grown ever close at hand.

And in the measure of his dream

he held a gaze so patiently,

to linger long on beauty lost,

someday to find his shore again.

Abiding without place or end,

great beauty as it once had been.

Springtime at the Olduvai

© Steve King

All rights reserved

where brown earth

and green bush meet

unrolling to empty azure all around

the cats picnic in moving shade

painting red the sands with random feasts

while

spiraling above

great birds follow where ripe scent blooms

across revealed ages

The brown guide says

‘here is where they saw it first’

the older tourist in fresh khaki nods

(gravely)

‘they were more like monkeys yes

not so much like us’

‘oh not so much like you sir’

‘no, you will have an easy resting place

and a crowd to please you at the last

not a pack set running

at the sight of you

torn

‘or puzzling as your eyes lose their light

wondering how this all had come to pass,

wondering that you must have so displeased

the angry spirits of the grass

‘dying quick

belly pain the last sensation

birds nearer

nearer as you watch

‘no, you will have kind grasses and cool earth

and there will be no mystery of you

and no seeking after

for it will all be known

plain as may be said

between the corners

of your polished stone

‘even now for you

the birds are distant curiosities

just artifacts like all these other things

even now

seeing how it all began

seeing how it goes’

‘no sir not at all like you’

and breaching earth

the ancient rift

a piece of countenance revealed

hollow eyes

broken brow polished

from long confinement

in grinding sand

and heaving gravel bed

come again to sun

outlasting flies

and all the carrion feasts

waiting for the sands again

the shifting grave

without memory or expectation

no mercy dreams

to soften long night

or another day

another season

as much a cousin now

to all rough stones

as to the monkeys

even less to you sir

yet sir

no sir not at all

The Sacred Groves

© by Steve King

All rights reserved

The sacred groves have all been hewn to render fences, dwellings, and their neat décor,

and rafts of other transitory things that will not shimmer nor bend with the air.

Not so much for temples and their ilk; not sanctuaries nor remote retreats

to shelter mendicant reflections, or to echo with those quaint old prayers.

Gone, the children’s hiding place in sheltered fairy-bowers;

gone the shamans and their daylight charms; gone the wise birds and seers.

I’ve read that in old days, those times gone by when gods were still with us,

with powers fit to fill the ready air, their large presence would inhabit the woods;

and for the gift of hospitality they would endow the golden boughs

with full song of spirit to hymn the notes of the enlivened leaves,

bidding winds to sing; granting grace to those who dreamed as kings,

if only over those small shaded realms, if only for a moment.

And now the sacred groves are gone, and gods don’t live by ready air alone.

Vacant are those airs, and stilled the voice that echoed all around;

and scattered on the open ground, the ashes of what once were golden boughs.

Labors of Love

by Steve King

© 2010

All rights reserved

I have been reminded

many and enough ways,

that love alone will ever serve

to rectify our days.

Love is a hardening prison:

we toil in passion’s chains;

and when our term at last is spent

we seek that cell again.

Tangled in these fetters

I struggle not so much;

my torture is to languish here,

glad for my jailer’s touch.

I shall never weary

of love’s most shackling songs,

nor wonder, as you’re singing them,

to whom they next belong.

The Ruins of Troy

by Steve King

© 2010

All rights reserved

What matter'd it now?  She who made the sea move,

made it crawl with their ships; now she might well have been

just a fine polished marble, cold as that stone,

lugged off for booty, and stowed in the hold

of the man's mad desire.

Behind, the smoke rose so high o’er the plain;

and the cries of the dead rose too in the plumes,

and echoed the halls of the indifferent gods,

who heard all the groans as the gods always did:

so sated with god-love and smoke from their altars,

now giddy with griefs, and conjuring scores

to settle anon.

And the smoke and cries rose through the dark-browed clouds

long after the sails had dipped out of sight,

slipped over the edge of the smooth-seeming sea,

away from the cries and away from the smoke,

so heavy with swag, their blood-stained treasure;

and women they took, now sea-staring, weeping,

all huddled astern in the hard rocking ships.

It was all too quiet after the war years,

the blood men a-pace on the confining decks. 

They were near out of heroes, near out of their time,

out of sight of the smoke, out of sight of the land

and the army of graves laying siege to charred walls.

Away from the dark-browed clouds did they sail,

clouds carrying smoke and the cries of the dead;

beetles leaving the plague, scuttling back to their earth,

back to where it  began:  the azure-lapped land,

a twitch in the loin of the rugged spear-man.

Done

by Steve King

© 2012 

All rights reserved

I am done and gladly rise,

rub these letters from my eyes,

quell the music that abides

to stir old silence and surmise.

Finished as a guy may be,

abandoning this alchemy

of casting spells that soon reply

and howl their strange cacophony.

Noonday shadows rising high,

numbing rhythms twisting by;

idle dreams and compromise:

far past time to let it lie.

Though I’m done and gladly rise,

the dancing letters yet reprise;

the music stays, to no surprise,

to fill new silence, new surmise.

Folding close old revery

it sings occasioned certainies,

drawing forth the ancient ties

to meld with new epiphanies…

No matter that I gladly rise,

the music stays, the silence flies.

Before the Lotos Dream

by Steve King

All rights reserved

I thought that I would never be with you.

For you had always been a part of clamor—

joining tumult with a most profound

sense of peace; and you there at the center,

fending supplications with your ease,

adroit, alight, abominable tease.

I had never voice, nor had a choice,

except to watch it all, your pale hand leading

other souls in charmed communion,

one, then another, each in sacred turn,

up to a point of astonished silence,

their lips tasting the lotos of your wrist.

I wonder how it was our gazes met.

You always seemed to cast your eyes above

my station.  Where were you seeing then?

It was a darkened age, no gilding light

to mark the forming puzzle of my page.

I would not play the fool, nor strut the sage.

I worried that my presence had no gauge.

But you were well adept at listening.

Still, the furor rose around your aura:

you among what then were merely others.

Other than you and I.

I saw you step quickly out of their circle

and then were gone;  but you had shown them well.

They would embrace the spirit of your perfume,

the palpable mirage you trailed behind,

and love your idea as soon.

And then you stood

within the shadow that surrounded me.

Unbidden, you had come the unlikeliest way,

you unknown and I as yet unknowing.

Who knew why, or wanted then the question?

Now near my heart there was a sounding board,

your breast a solemn tabor for my cries:

my words now songs that will or will not soar,

but won't die borning, the old silent way.

I must hold quickly:  Somewhere in dying light,

amid the clamor that enchains them still,

I watch your clan of once-deserving souls

that sings no other dream, nor ever will.

Winter Stars

by Steve King

©  2012  All rights reserved

The sky is low with winter clouds.

I cannot see the stars;

my upturned face

at least may touch the winter sky.

I was told each star

is an unclaimed wish:

the heavens’ brilliance

a mosaic pavement

marking paths for derelict desire.

Such promises mean little.

Wishes are more free than stars—

there are longings to outweigh

a universe of light.

I have always held a star apart.

Should I see another one tonight

I know where I would ground its waiting wish.

Soon the earth will shift its heavy airs,

just the way your guarded eyes do change

to capture the next mood.

Then will the winter sky alight…

And then might old desires at last intrude.

Then shall wishes rain from winter stars.

Self Portraiture

by Steve King

© 2005

All rights reserved

I would need a volume to remind myself:

I have loosed all, despite the best intent,

except some given sense of this moment.

Life is too long for the span and spur

of quaint ideals and self-defining force,

faint memories of bold designs

that onetime served to fashion out a course.

I would need an echo to assist recall

even of my solemn

and least random of words:

so long speaking with myself,

I puzzle what it is

that all those others might have heard…

I would plumb the lyric in each dark nuance

and hear old promises remade.

Minor harmonics, left long unsung,

might singly play their parts, now undismayed.

I would need the dreaming of a thousand nights,

winding close upon the ancient core.

There are secret provinces

carved in the heart’s domain,

and passageways to well-forgotten realms

where longings war with unrequited claims;

where best and worst may languish intertwined;

where every stillborn orison,

forever is enjoined.

There would be new wonderings

amid the monuments

of long-forgiven loves

now lingering in their twilight of regret.

I would gild anew the shape

of that less reflective age,

and dredge beneath old shadows

for talismans to strew upon

this now impatient page.

How will I learn to see anew

and intimate of every thing,

of half forgot imaginings

that call in wild archaic tongues?

Or murmur in respecting tones

to render true the softening song

that unsought sudden sadness brings?

I might wake to those dreamings evermore,

and never apprehend a passion

that compelled before.

It is a distant odyssey

to circumambulate one’s past,

and tend to sundry leavings

that were never meant to last.

Still, one treads a landscape

that may never be renounced.

It is a scene alit by vagrant fires,

where brilliance and full darkness do conspire.

And so, the eye does quickly tire…

So… I will need your vision to abet.

Now you must be my ready surrogate

to render out the meanings I invent,

to ratify this sum of vague intent.

I shall speak at large to your desire,

and levy all my thoughts as you require.

The Rushes

by Steve King

© 2012

All rights reserved

Your body bends upon young grass,

a lightness in your limbs.

How may I keep from promising?

You search for heavens

in unfolding clouds.

Portents.

A sign.

The rushes sigh in the least breeze,

and speak all things to you.

You, the silent one who waits,

while I sigh with the rushes;

while I am left to gather my desire

in its own words.

As the young grass

drinks the sun,

so you absorb my promises

‘til I am emptied.

Now flown are all the words,

no portents,

no sign to show a way,

and dumb the rushes when I pause to hear.

Song of the Sea

by Steve King

© 2012

All rights reserved

calling,

crowning breakers crawl

gathering their weight of starlight,

each unfurling wake

unfolding

far

across

the

sound,

again                       

again                       

again            

come from nothing I may see,

pushing inward

from the black thin edge

where sea does rise, sky does fall—

where long night has gathered all,

starlight and sea,

meeting far from laboring landbound eyes

that are tied to other heavy horizons.

From far, the flaring breakers now,

to end here at my feet;

wakes spent upon sudden shallows,

stumbling to their finish,

broken on the waiting shore,

splayed upon ancient sands,

empty now of stars,

draining back upon the black.

Live things,

the breakers stalk each jetty,

fill the empty coves,

make smooth ancient ground,

and bright the muddled world:

sand, seaweed, fossils, shells,

papers, cigarettes, drained bottles,

now strange in starlight,

attendant relics to the water’s touch.

I wait on the waters,

knowing every measure of this beach,

knowing where the tides will ease,

lingering just out of reach,

watching each clinging wave recede.

Yet for all the things I know,

the calls remain as new,

each one a different note

another (again)

and another (again)

                  and always (again)

singing the old song to me, this sea,

true airs the winds will pass along,

but lyric for no idle voice.

The tide slides beneath empty boats.

Music rises, slips

in an unwritten rhythm,

stout ropes stretching to a groan,

old hulls grinding on rusted piers.

Sleek gulls rustle on shiny rocks.

A string of sagging summer banners

yields to risen winds,

ripples as they pass,

wind given voice

by everything it touches,

breathes a name, complete,

upon all things that lay beneath.

Singing Thalatta,

mistress to great wanderers

who rode the undulating surge

for love or plunder or oblivion,

death, joy, or…some things else:

something gathered upward in the gales,

or reckoned for them from below…

I’m thinking there are no adventures left,

no unknown passages,

no seas empty of keel or sail,

no pristine surge unchecked.

Not a current’s worth of mystery these long days,

and such a small horizon left to breach.

…thinking there are no adventures left…

But the song,

and the dark mother strains

that I may hear—

my small adventures are not for her,

nor the selfish prayers of such a one.

And she sings…

“This tide does welcome all the world,

your highest things will be made low;

your leavings shall be gathered here,

from earth or air or fire claimed.

Monuments that, immortal, stand,

and miracles wrought by your hands,

will some day yield to my caress

and become one with all things else

that I reclaim from distant shores.

Your glories and your scattered shames

will merge with those of ages past;

your brightest song and blackest curse

will harmonize my choruses.

And ages hence will come a day

when all that’s locked in my dark hold

shall find a life in some new surge

and travel on to its new shore.

And may it be that someone waits

to watch each wake as she unfolds,

and see the stars lit in her tow

as all these things do gather o’er:

Another world, one new and bright,

then to await the tides once more.”

Her swells are pooling at my feet

while I am lost in listening.

My spirit shrinks from the touch:

Is she reaping?

Or bestowing back?

Maybe both it is.

From the town, a clock tower tolls,

music, too, upon the night.

It counts a moment,

then the echo dies

and time is lost again forever,

save for my dark measure

again

again

again…

I am no ageless watcher,

fit to gauge strange times

or balance karmic ebbs and flows.

I know only this water—now,

hear that water song;

and as its chorus flows to me,

I watch her shining imprint

spread upon the shore;

but only for the moment.

She slips back upon the edge,

starlight waiting where she gathers there;

and all the dark murmurs meld their refrains,

so she may sometime sing to me again.

Wanderer

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

At once aware.

Wakening in dawnless wood.

Last flicker of a sinking moon.

Oh, he would have the sun,

but he would have his dreaming too.

Slow to move;

his unknown beckoned

through the in-between:

first touch of new light

settling like mist,

lent form, hung fragile,

clung to all still things,

enfolded slow each birthing hue,

threw fleeing scenes upon the air

framed in the very least of shadows,

forged in them the shapes of the old things,

desires worn nigh transparent

with his labored overuse,

shapes that must elude hard day,

stubborn reflections building a dark tide —

destinies too easily foregone,

the weight of ancient condemnations,

ties that bound him to old sins,

fires that branded once eager souls,

loves, unmeasured and unmet,

present now vaguely in regret;

all the old stories

too often told to be completely true,

yet true enough to give life to his dreams.

So sleep at last withdrew,

flew, to lie among more docile shades.

Silence gathered to him,

left a moment’s grace,

then cracked into the prelude of a voice,

summoning piece by piece

all that would stir,

all that awaited and might await,

aware or unaware,

seen or felt or conjured,

held or held apart,

all the one instant.

All one in dawning wood.

Birds rustled amid arid leaves;

stoic rocks gave voice to the waters,

winds rose to bend each pliant bough

across its neighbor;

rough music, tuneless and anarchic,

eternal measures out of time,

unsensed harmony

hymning of old hardships

and a coming bitter season.

“—If there were only stillness,

here would be a ready home…”

He might close his eyes,

imagine other worlds…

Or he might sing anew

the story of his age,

bend old themes

to fit the strange new times…

Or he might just move on

and let old spirits guide.

He might surrender,

again and again

to the pull of that stubborn tide…

But…

the clouds would show his way,

winds call his tune,

though none to echo a hero’s name.

Had he incense or belief

he would stoke a coal,

appease a ready god.

For all he knew an empire waited

beyond the edges of his ruined map,

a place beyond the gravity

of storied griefs,

imagined victories,

and dreamy memory silhouettes;

a place where land and sea and sky and he

would join in perfect peace,

and render true all sacrifice.

But, alas, no gods:

there would be no blessing for his ease.

He might summon only fate,

and that, his own.

Already in the waiting hour

has he set his chart,

away, perhaps, from old spirits

and anchoring memories.

Perhaps away.

Abandoned in his step were the ruins,

forgotten, as he strode, all victory songs.

Already to his path

the twists and turns

that plagued his ancient line.

Already the wanderer

--his banner an old shadow

that ever stretched before--

set out upon the odyssey;

already, the old sojourner,

adrift again upon his stony shore.

Word

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

Words might come, sudden,

like summer lightning,

night already settled

too quiet for your ease.

Or find you as you wonder

at some new-found mood

intruding hard

in that instant

before sense takes its chance

to parse new questions

of trial and distinction,

aversion or desire.

Sudden, to outrace

the throes of their inception

and the occult context

of well-hidden thoughts.

Come sudden emergent

from a trove of dark perplexity

otherwise unknown:

a shadow flashed before you,

holding captive all your seeing;

tracing out the arc

of a dark epic gathered at large,

you a small part,

you, minor in the telling,

mute, awkward,

waiting in the crowded wings.

The word,

unfamiliar,

unwarranted,

unwilled;

soon to straddle

some tamer level of convention;

still middling strange,

even as it’s newness fades.

Word;

you take large happiness

when it satisfies

to tell of your small things;

grateful when you think you might control it;

believing you might use a word

to shield you from your terrors.

Imagining a difference

between words and summer lightning.

Speaking in Ninths

by Steve King           

© 2011

All rights reserved

Voices never did quite mesh.

Whether one uplifted,

one drew the other down

toward an awkward median—

how is one to say?

Close.

A ritual chant perhaps,

some might have taken for a song.

Or just two lines

of strange accompaniment,

converging accidentals,

without that binding melody.

The strains remain at hand,

resonant within a realm

where echoes are relentless

and background chords

still drift beneath old moods.

Strains,

pianissimo,

in dark solo refrain…

Not disharmony, no:

Both moon and sun

might share a changing sky.

One must surely slip.

At the Movies

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

It seems so like a movie:

each scene passing,

one frame to the next,

with no decent pause,

no time for second shots;

no rehearsal scheduled

for swell special effects.

So like a movie,

right up to the end;

the end of each daily take, of course.

Who knows what length the finished version plays?

(I would cut that final credit roll,

                        and film sequels endlessly)

If only we were scripters

with a swank L.A. address,

sifting through distractions,

fleshing it all out

to some more leisured pace,

forging many endings

to suit us as the evening moods might strike.

Or one of those directors,

to gesture grandly from afar;

pondering, just so, upon each panoply,

summoning the great fates into play;

deciding, judging, wrinkling the brow,

‘Is it good enough?’

‘Where has my light gone?’

‘Is it lunch time yet?’

Or perhaps the makeup guy,

refashioning each flaw,

covering the ancient ugliness

with a new gloss of mud,

just enough to last

the next sweaty charade.

Or how about a cameraman

with a ready ‘on’ and ‘off’?

Some shadows aren’t deep enough,

to give a place to hide;

ubiquitous grey space

yields too much up to hard daylight.

Surely there are moments

to be lived off the record;

surely some regrets would fade

if only no one knew…

Far better yet to work the re-write shop,

where old mistakes and second-bests

would make for honest work;

where blind alleys and dead ends

might become useful paths again;

where finally, with amended lines,

I once again could stand my mark, and—

“Lights!  Camera!  Quiet, please!

It’s time for my soliloquy!”

This Page

by Steve King

© 2011

All rights reserved

i.

The blank page,

an unblinking annoyance

that will not turn away.

I cannot see beyond it,

though its glare does skewer me.

I inspect it, careful, and at length;

all its imperfection,

specks and whorls,

perhaps some remnants

of reprocessed rag,

or atomized remains

of old cardboard

and sixpack wraps.

That part there perhaps,

spun up from a soup

of crass handbills,

unanswered letters,

desperate replies,

holiday scribblings

and tart ‘good-byes,’

all well-seasoned with a spray

of bright confetti gaud.

A busy page, though blank.

Its breadth supports a second life

for all these transient things;

makes immortal life’s discards,

though not a strophe of mine.

Mottled and well used,

corners bent, creased and worn,

hammered near to death

by idle drumming fingers,

it’s figure is the very shade

of an exhausted muse.

ii.

It will outstay distraction,

this place where worlds do manifest

and legacies transport;

where far-seeing souls,

gone from time and place,

long the source of your close reveries,

strive for their communion;

as if they might impart some certain grace;

as if you might accept it

for your version of a sacrament.

Through darkening afternoon it stays,

a-dance before the eye,

upholding all the shapes

imagination might require;

a cloud, alit to render

hard won heavenly intent,

there to yield new spirits

in trade for your old dreams

and all the weary summonings.

All the old secrets,

all already known;

ancient stories leavened with new breath;

imagery ageless

as the breaching sun

or descending night

or red moon parting bitter seas

or narrow eyes upon new-risen heights,

opening to peer through an advancing mist…

iii.

No, nothing of this page is new,

save, at last, that part suddenly you.