Friday 13 March 2015

Today. David Chirot (USA)/Cheryl Penn (South Africa)

Today
14th August
where the wind called
I went
corner-corridor (long)-
whisper
following
data to Ether - 
binding books with Japanese paper
saw Tokyo in the letter box.
Smock frocks
To-Do-Lists not done
pots smell of oranges
palm shadows on the blinds
life
a b-#-major.

add-on
43 minutes 12 seconds -
how was your day?
Trigger the alarm -

Good shot small boy!

Today
14th September 2014

Today I reached again
in dream
the Wall
above the barbed wire
the parapets focused their steady round:
machine gun toting soldiers,
their eyes on  one as bright as  searchlights 
in darkness a chilly wind blew

damp death in a shadowed fog
the passers by all stared at one
impassive search lights
the eyes of trench coated men
and women
from darkness to blinding light
and back again
a blinding carousel  one rode,
lighting a cupped cigarette
an ironic recognition
and resistance to megaphone voices

Today I saw you again,
down by the junkyard wall
your thick bodied back
half turned from me
the long trench coat dirty and unbuttoned
with a paranoids nod and covert glance
you snuck looks at me
as you  hunched
by the Wall 

Writing in the diamond blue eye cutting light
your hands hung over
and cold
scrawling a notebook poem
with a blunt construction site pencil
with each syllable
you slighted turned
and from the Wall
broadcast telepathic visual sounds

I in my turn inscribed
each thick penciled letter
standing atop a favorite area of the building wreck
the movements of writing
slowly
with frozen fingers
began to sing to me the bleakness of your winter spaces
in a vertigo you finally looked directly at me
with a "shock of recognition"
we each went our
separate
   opposite
ways along the Wall


Today that same dreamed today
I went to hear your singing
and land-speed record guitar
your oceanic bellowing's your anguished screams

today I pushed aside thick curtains
eluded gigantic drinking body guards
the barefoot drummer first noticed me
whispering
asked if
if I cd give your hunched back
beer drinking face again turned from me

Today Bob
I  said Bob telepathically
he turned and  rose to meet me
his eyes strangely small  in  big homely face
coming out of the depths to greet me
he telepathed--you---you're  here again
yes
today I said softly 

Today you wrote a poem
slouching by the Wall
you seemed to be asking  me today in the dream down  by the collapsing Wall
to copy with frozen fingers each harshly lyric letter
Today I said
I've come  to keep my word
Today to give the words back to you
Today he said
what fun we had
Today writing a poem
even written  illegible to myself
Today my fingers shook
and your steady
street loving hands
Kept them safe for me
Today he says softly
Today we met 

Today again I am back at the Wall
a German voice harshly gunning warning words
Today I said Today have no fear of me
Today i have  come to write down a poem
Take your day's meditations,
set them down
I'm leaving Today
I cannot leave with out giving you your poem
Today he stared at me--what poem? 

Today fear rage 
and an odd  laughter
came to me--Today, Today--
There I said, there's your poem
Laughter with me today 

Yes he laughed today
I  could have  shot you
And that be another poem

6thSeptember
Today

metamoments persuaded
to bind themselves
into the pages of a book
No Herculean effort
just a willing will.
and the sun shines still
so why not?

Today
16th September
Today broke in such a way
I thought  it  evening first
An inner shock to have missed
the bank
errands letters friends work the phone

Gradually in reverse the time reset itself
Stars in heavens one navigates by
consolidated in cloud obscured sun
7AM!----not PM!-- 

Air in room cold, quiet, as leftover lamb
Gnawing on the bones of awakening
Odd found totemic objects emerge slowly
Adjusting fading dyslexic eyesight
New choreographies appear
The singing of things
Begins
broken scattershot drumming
Among the gathering muscles, nerves & bones 

Bending slowly to papers on the floor
assorted found images,
shadows,
HUNGER's opening pages
walk vividly through the door
the advertisements for shrouds
Hanging in the near empty room
The rocking chair, pencil stub
Luxury of blank paper pages 

How many rooms come back
From books letters & life
Move gently, bones!
Thrill softly, nerves!
Make room, memories' roads
For journey of Today

Today 6th September
and
the snow turned grey
the blocks rose and fell to reveal
The Rim.
Our defenses are adapting, evolving
they’re coming through the breech.
We are no longer viable.
one more chance
or
the programme is dead
the mental wall is authorised
they're prepared to fund you
for one minute
if you surrender. 

is it over?
open the silver box with
the We don’t Need Them’s

work at the station site
the good news -
we can reach
the top of the wall 
where lost letters live. 


TODAY
This caught my eye,
words ether tumbling
O
So inexactly
a residual anxious fear:
"Thus I worry suddenly I have losttrack with how to write responses,to stay within the field and rhythms of our work to gether".
I said
- no - screamed words
to the wind
we can force the breech to stabilize
and change its structure
Newton hear me out
for a second
we can win
Coz everyone is different from the next
this was harvested
they’re close but not the same
damaged words
but alive
we can tap in. 

I could tell  
exactly how
to take a neural surge
your data on my desk
fortune favors the brave dude
(that’s you)
and we are
the golden ones
(tarnished).
gypsy danger
with a double core
new fluid synapses
with a red bowtie.


The violins are fine tuned, no  party frocks in sight.
Are you ok?
I’m not supposed to say anything
but some one broke into the library.
Mingle please
when all  humans are extinct
start up a conversation
you own all your remaining
minutes
May I take a few
seconds?


How might I own remaining minutes
a few seconds only would I keep
the rest to "read" your eyes
listen to you sing
mingle with you
in castles made of sand
curling toes together
laughing at illegible marks
made by shifting tides

dissolving into a painting shared


push the small button
it’s the passage to
air castles
and leaking paintings
its unlocked
BUT
the phone rang
he didn’t know the number
so he left it
knowing there was  
no off -switch.
The car in the driveway was late
very late
in fact the day had passed
the sun had set
and still
the view withered.
she went for a walk
the road had turned winter
the shutters were coming down
and the steps between had broken.

Today
the wind blew so hard
we could topple
over the cliff and drown
in the sea of nations
trying to catch a fragment
a single thought
  a grain of sand
a desert storm.

tiny trees I’m trying to grow
caught in their
first gale
cats scatter
leaves fly so high
circles of their own making.

I’m sorry I should have warned you
you were tapping
two fears
the helplessness
the hardest part - the silence
in your heart,

when was the last time you saw it?
double up two signatures
on their way
the breech is opening
again.
Evacuate.


Today
20th October

okay?
I said to the airline guy
I’m done here, right?
with a key stroke
I can unleash an army
of falling numbers
tumbling through space
its 9.30 you told me
I would get my brain back
at 10.
Any anomalies
Crying fits?
come on!


Sit down Plato
your emotions are vital
we must be certain
that you remain you
the insert will always
contain your human wires
a security profile
in protection
a chemist in common
they did not know each other
but now 
restricted irrational academics
can detonate a stop
from outside

there’s a rider out there -
a huge stable of mules
exposure of leverage
find them - they degrade quickly
these beasts
in the wars we fight.

Today
6th November 2014.

An accident?
the city has gone crazy
along with the people who
helped
rumblings
lights in the ceiling
everything under wraps
locked up
keep your eyes open
the plot is strange.
give me a second
there will be more like me
you know that?
I will take my chances
but apprehension
eating at the heart of the city
sleeps within
the heart of the lawless.

Anything else?
You will try eat?
We wonder - who will defend the boy
biting his nails with anxiety
before the fire
unlit
in windows that remain in shadows. 

Today
15th February 2015

EMERGE
emerge
o
ones who speak
sing
from out the stones' touch

scattered one
shifting ones
the secret
that stars  & stones share--

calling out
crying out

for one's touch--
to
caress
loneliness

--they emerge--
and find
 one who
finds also back

an uncanny recognition
a rubBEing

1 comment:

  1. Tomorrow is never another yesterday. Wonderful poem, I love it. Well done!

    ReplyDelete