One More Gift - Mark Pentecost
Suddenly, the strange world is less strange,
quieter, stranger. The wheel is turned,
the finger pricked, the spell will not break.
Shhh. Listen up to what is missing:
The sound of doors locking in the dark
or unlocking. Words placed like long-stemmed
flowers in the barrels of silence.
A mouth. A voice. Beautiful. Bruised.
Friend. I did not know you long or well.
My arc was altered by our meeting.
I forced my feet into these odd shoes
and, limping, dance, clumsy and comfy.
Your cheek kissed by some goddess of storm,
you showed us, brood of anonymous
geniuses, to follow our footsteps.
Above the Ohio far away
sun and cloud are making a movie.
Backs to us, a woman leads a mule
toward the river, in step, through the
hush of mist over the bottomland.
My tongue tries to keep up, slithering,
a blind baby snake with no purchase
on the damp grass they tread so surely,
then stumped by the dross they have sloughed off:
Fabric, leather, a plow, a pump, books
and bandages and empty bottles,
a feedbag, all passing into earth
like a long outbreath of the Buddha.
On the other shore, lights and music.
“Aralee, old friend,” the boatman says,
“The mule rides free. From you a penny.”
Her jagged, full-force laugh. No problem.
From the skinny pockets of her coat
her practiced hands bring forth a lifetime:
A bib. A doll. A slingshot. Apples.
Dog treats. Cigarettes. Keys. A Zippo.
Colored pencils. Makeup. Photographs. . . .
The boatman’s eyes are big as the moon.
The river and the mule pulse gently.
The patient ferry rocks and drowses.
The woman’s laughing and the treasure
from her pockets look to have no end.
He thinks, she can’t go on. She goes on.
Brittle brown letters. A flashdrive fat
as a bullfrog. Laden vines of film
stock. Drawings. Sketches. Glitter. Stardust.
And, covered in script like fingerprints,
paper, papers, folded or in scraps,
an avalanche of words, shy children,
wadded ones unwadding in her hands.
She pauses, mother hawk sizing up
the fitness of a chick. “Not this one.
This one’s for Mark.” Thanks for one more gift,
generous Aralee, this poem,
written in the lightning from your face.
Ralph La Charity - 07.03.13
Aralee
Felt Strange 1943 – 2013
You got to walk this lonesome valley
You got to walk it by Yourself
She
was a Felt, our Felt
“not that they have what we don’t have,
But that we can be close to them and they
will expand into what it is we lack… they fill
a place in us we didn’t even know we didn’t
have…
”
Oh
nobody else can walk it for you
you got to walk it by Yourself
She
was a Felt indeed
“not a Thought, not a person
who touches us via our minds
so much as via our souls even
more than our hearts, Ay…
She was a Felt.”
&
she loved her felt peeps
&
we were All her felt peeps
“Felts have many many lovers,
and Felts are all so frequently
all alone… ”
y’all’re
them & know
y’all’re
them without
a
shadow of a doubt
“she knew how to share –
I suppose it was another
of her teachings, right
up there with
how to mourn… ”
&
us in her wake are
her
Felt-dwellers
Felt-dwellers
all
“not so many Felts around, y’know…
kind of a rare breed, akin to rara avis, eh?”
o my Love
my true Love
I hunger
for Your
that
you are loved despite
this
the Known, shared
“we are attracted to the Felts
in our lives because of certain
talents we do not have… Felts are
squarely in our blind spots, big as life… ”
that
You were Felt & known
we
Felt-dwellers knew You
knew
& Know & felt
Your
very Felt indeed
*
Dancin'
in the Wake
yea,
sun’s
goin’
down, Aralee
let’s
go swimmin’
light
as ash you are
girlfriend,
let’s go
dancin’
in yonder spring
nay,
girl, lemme
dance
your ash in
that
River, you do
know
the One...
bitter
clear River
River
Rive & begone
River
Dove & begot
River
of Many Returns
of
Birmingham
&
Manhattan, too
River o’ Grief & no relief
River o’ Grief & no relief
River
Flow & River Swing
floodtide
weep Rejoice !
floodtide
woe Bedamned !
you
know the One
we’ll
be back in twenty
maybe
half again
we’ll
be back, girlfriend
dancers
swim
the
floodtide vale
Dancers
!
swim
the blooded veil
see
thru every wave
sing
& sear, my love
sing
& seer, o Poet
those
wavelets
o
how they suck & lap
ankle
drag slap & chill
bullfrog
burp
to
beat the band
Benny
the Hat bird-rapt
down
beneath those
weep-dript
boughs
sax
tones bend
&
laughter, too
toothsome
you
skip
to m’lou
toot
sweet, too
o
we’re dancin’
White
Girl
dancin’
down the Flow
**
Sleight
of Disappear
nor
that halved be wholed or that sink up-float no
no
no as margareta Queen of Denial’d always say
that
Aralee was still here her still heart-Felt declared
too
frail to hold dispute with or weep wide-eyed oh!
how
the already gone-on guffaw down raw oysters!
(y’ever
eat raw oysters with Aralee ? we did… we
did)
gal
was a smoker’s all I know don’t y’know’s why
Izzy
went off walking with Linda at Grady’s that day
Ben
stood still in the rain so long down by the riverside
tonight
we danced in the wake an eight hours drive away
a
whole week & one day later slow dancing till admitted :
I
injure easy but recover quick’s how it got put out not
that
that’s a lie but neither was our Dance & you were
taller
& heavier & the Dance ended over easy all alone
***
Your Voice - Pauletta Hansel
for Aralee Strange, 12/5/43- 6/15/13
There are not many who remember now
your voice,
those days, a graveled whisper
dissolving from your breath to air
that would have given us
your words.
Your poems just beginning then
to edge sideways between the cracks
of other voices, their edges hard
and polished bright—
your voice
was the one we turned toward,
hoping to hear.
Your voice,
the one we all remember,
that Alabama rumble of a train,
grew sure and clear,
was forever making room—
A room, a mic (open, always),
the chairs filled up with poets
listening to each other’s voices
growing ever stronger
as you leaned in close,
making sure you heard.
You heard.
The room is dark now;
the mic turned off.
We are listening,
Aralee.
Come close,
a poem, please,
one more from you.
Your voice
in our ears.
(From Nick Barrows)
Like the plane you hear
In bed
In the dark
A rumble that gives to every ear that it touches
That is sound of journey
The sound of venture
Past those windows
In these walls
On this flesh
Extracting life to be for tone and eye
In bed
In the dark
A rumble that gives to every ear that it touches
That is sound of journey
The sound of venture
Past those windows
In these walls
On this flesh
Extracting life to be for tone and eye
Aralee - Andrew Mandelbaum
Aralee
There was smoke hanging in the leaves,
words had burned here and lightning
had marked faces in the flash.
I heard birds mimicking the wonder of it all
in a sweet graveled song
that could only have been you.
Sturmaz - Jay Morris
The night before you died a storm
Raged its grief with rain and funnel
And hail to hail the loss
Of a veritable force of nature
Storm-born siblings made known
Their own protest against the presence of death
The lightning striking his picket line for the union of
soul and body
While thunder clapped his tantrum beat
Death cannot take what is mine
She taught things only a mother could teach
Like how grace is born in the balancing act
Between power and humility
When my time is come
And I am gone
The jellyfish will still be here
Greeting death every day in the deep
With the same salutation
"Not today."
I could never reconcile forces of nature
With the acts of whatever god
Even as thunder and lightning accept
The dance of life and death
Light ripping open the sky in zig-zag
Lines as a parade to celebrate your homecoming
And thunder claps open the gates of that doubtful world
To welcome you to the place where soul meets forever
Thank you Aralee
For being so Strange
When we all felt
A little too normal.
Raged its grief with rain and funnel
And hail to hail the loss
Of a veritable force of nature
Storm-born siblings made known
Their own protest against the presence of death
The lightning striking his picket line for the union of
soul and body
While thunder clapped his tantrum beat
Death cannot take what is mine
She taught things only a mother could teach
Like how grace is born in the balancing act
Between power and humility
When my time is come
And I am gone
The jellyfish will still be here
Greeting death every day in the deep
With the same salutation
"Not today."
I could never reconcile forces of nature
With the acts of whatever god
Even as thunder and lightning accept
The dance of life and death
Light ripping open the sky in zig-zag
Lines as a parade to celebrate your homecoming
And thunder claps open the gates of that doubtful world
To welcome you to the place where soul meets forever
Thank you Aralee
For being so Strange
When we all felt
A little too normal.
For Aralee - Jim Palmarini
Bolt of lighting
string of pearls
swatch of black
you your hands
all awash and affront
of the noble word
what did you expect
going at it like that
would get you anywhere and
now you’ve gone and taken
leave with your voice
trailing off and rising up
like it always did
and now you goddam never will
stop getting into my head no
not likely not now not
evermore June twilights
will have no peaches
no reading no you. Just a
too bright and sunny melancholy and
I’m not having that shit. So go on
and get your wise ass up on the stage
seer madonna piper songstress
woman for the ages I
have a poem to pick
with you wanna
make something beautiful
dear friend
JP 6/15/13
what we'll be do ... Song for Aralee - Ralph La Charity
the whole of crossing over's
the whole of what we do here
stutter-trills & hop-slides fare thee well
the echo's cadence till namore remains the same
the whole of what we do here won't be done again
makes you wonder why we remember what we do
staying put's not what we'll be do
nay, tis not what we'll achieve
I walked off with things in hand I couldn't drop
I knew I'd bring it back but maybe not
the urge to stop still waits upon the rise
crossings bear namore the tilting shade
these shadows stride askance & dip askew
reverberate head bones these tones we do
each line of every song escapes in vain
all rhythms host all breath & hearts the same
the whole of what we're doing's all
the whole of crossing over
tis the patch of light briefly where we stood
tis the is of this that winks away
from Sermons and Lectures by Matt Hart
"I believe in desperate
acts, the kind that make me look"
Both ways when crossing my
fingers behind my back in the street
where the traffic's terrific,
and I'm making a promise
that I know I won't keep to
talk with you soon about
Kant's metaphysics One reason after another in a multitude
of classic styles and miasmic
colors Stop and go emergencies
for any occasion and every
budget Vroom vroom vroom
See ya later, alligator All I want's to write more poems
to be a good husband and a
father and a teacher This lecture
brought to you by anxiety
over an interview Heading home
from my current
position/employ I think about the
people warm
and sleepy in their
houses The icicles dragging all our
gutters
to the meadows Snow or linoleum Is anybody happy Is anybody
torn in the talons of an
eagle, a red-tailed hawk through the eyes
of a storm And if anybody is, then can anybody fix it
Is anybody willing The situation's lonely and I'm already forty
Weirdly, the whole world's
right here with me Right here
beside me, but nobody's
home I walk to the store for a twelve
pack
of something, or light bulbs
or toilet paper, coffee for the morning
Orange marmalade, English
muffins Tonight we'll think
our faces off, and then I'll
do some sleeping Longer than I can
remember I've wanted to
amount to more than me, significantly
and anxiously, and not to be
a negative and not to wear a mask
This message directly to you
is a plea to hear back YOUR message--
any message you want To hear you in my headdress To see you
on my doorstep 3127 Manning Avenue, Cincinnati OH 45211
And when I pull your strings,
you can set me on fire
And when the Jawbreaker's
finished, you can
put on my shirt We'll blow each other's covers
then we'll walk the red
carpet into the rapture
we will dance on the
escarpment our arrival
a surge of inter-mangled
re-connection
Poem by Ben Gulyas
what is left
is cast upon the last star--
in long walking wishes,
legs of running water
they are dreams, really
shifting from face to face,
a commotion of voices...
oil lamps of flickering eyes
set to near boiling
far and away...
a strange old dream,
a bridge of birds...
the farthest storks
with translucent wings...lifting...
between mesmerizing moon
and mesmerizing earth...
a hint of crossroads...
a hint of boxwire...
the intransient dust of the mouth
slowly lifting
above those trans-Mongolian bones...
with horses standing on the grass
waiting so far away...
you can barely
sleep...
Directions / Seaborn Jones
on a man's face.
A woman brings rain
in wooden bottles.
He gives her a fist
full of flowers.
She eats them
one by one
then exhales petals
that take the shape
of a child.
The child sits
on the man's knees
while the man
tells a story
that he cannot remember.
He is drunk on rain.
The woman
sings a song
that she has never heard.
She is drugged by flowers.
The child wants to know
which way
the world is.
The man points
in one direction;
the woman, another.
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