A Wave, In Passing: Three Poems by Burt Rashbaum
The New Hip
We’re drips
we’re drifts of sand
continually reformed
by the wind
we’re blind tho we
can see
but can’t tell
what our ends
will be.
we’re dreaming tho
we’re awake
the destruction is so slow
we don’t know what’s
at stake. And still
music and still art
and love and life.
Which is not to say don’t make beauty don’t make love don’t make art
our values are like consciousness trees that need clean air and water to thrive
We are wisps we are the wings of a hawk floating on thermals our lives are barely one inhale of the earth’s
A distant cicada calls for more
Filling the aural frequency with a signature sound hear this I am here sending sending sending
My still shiny titanium hip is silent invisible sleeping waiting for me to bring it to life
And work with blood and bone to move my sack of flesh in ways planned and improvised.
Will the home office be notified the first time I dance?
Will it be my chance to get half off on the other?
But it’s all about the breath even in movement the wind stirring the aspen awake or that hawk circling ever higher on heated spirals we cannot see
Or engines that hum with power getting atoms so roused they spit out like a hive of angry bees turning the world one way to glow in the planetary dark
Perhaps there is more here than meets the eye
The Scars
We carry the scars of this life on
our skins, in our dreams, our prayers,
our sins.
At some point we no longer hear
the voices of those we love – no
admonitions, pleas, gentle requests,
forceful arguments, long gone
except in memory.
Whatever wisdom we gain we carry
like a heavy load,
unwanted, undeserved,
and in the dying firelight
we’ve faced those demons as
we wreck ourselves with love
desire heartache and backbreak
regret and sweat and yet
and yet
and yet we
want that next breath,
that warm embrace
that next day and the one
after that.
The scars like
roadmaps of time
and story and blood
and pain.
The years like erosion
and echoing wind, drifting sand
tickling a dune.
Someone in the distance
waving, inviting, waiting, calling,
come on, come on.
Somewhere
Somewhere in the
deepest recesses of time:
some unknowable place
where even now and then
confuse each other,
where darkness dances
with light so that day is night
and night is a
flavor on the tongue;
where someone’s son
can be someone’s mother,
and someone old becomes
someone young;
where light is a thing
only known and not seen,
and sound can be
wrapped around
and around itself
so the utterance
of a name
can go on forever
in a blink
never sound the same
flow like a river and
sink like a stone;
in this place
souls dance and collide,
become one and split off
beyond physical dimensions,
in this place
barely a sound, hardly a voice,
echoes inside my head: rejoice.
rejoice in the day, the light, the breath!
dance and spin before the day begins!
make love to the moon,
walk with laughter,
cry in the arms of someone you love,
sing in a chorus
and thank the stars
and thank each other,
and dream the light so bright
it’ll carry us all the way to aquarius,
and dream this,
this moment, this present,
this sound of a singular vow:
a kiss.
dream it all while we’re awake,
take it home tonight,
connect the dots and
make new constellations.
we have two gifts
given at birth
ours to cherish til
we leave this earth:
inhalation and exhalation.
take in the breath
and we stave off death:
a dance, a chance
to bring hope and light and love and
whatever we want into our lives,
the exhale is our opportunity to shed,
clear our head,
cleanse and expel
our private hell;
extinguish the karmic
conflagration:
these are our weapons
of creation
of this life, this life, this fine life,
this wine life, this living breathing thing that surrounds us,
comforts and tears us and clears us and wears us down
and brings us up and leaves us lonely and
takes us into the hearts of strangers and connects us,
and loves us and breathes us, and fills us,
and fills us, and fills us.
Very nice!. I enjoyed listening to them being read by the author. One gets a better perception of what he is trying to convey when one hears it coming directly from his mouth. I liked it!
I loved the interweaving of the universal and the personal journeys .. and the power of the words when recited by this articulate and expressive poet. 👏💥 Thank you 😊 what a treat! 🌎