Dream of a black rabbit (continued)

My dream returned
like a late crescent moon
riding high over placid waters.
A black rabbit hidden by his own shadow:
still, in the grass at the edge of the road.

My ship came home empty,
a cargo of whispers
tossed in the easy wind
without the weight of apples
and iron to hold it's course.

And this summer storm has summoned
rain lilies from under the dessicated oak,
filled the gutters with new bamboo leaves,
washed the windows of the drunkard's cottage
and driven the old cat
from his post on the wall
at the end of the garden,
to the shelter of a window ledge,
where he watches the grey squalls
sweep across the bay.

He is older than I.
He has forgotten his name.
We call him by the sound he makes
when hunger wakes and claws inside.

I have not forgotten what the rabbit told me,
or what I read in "The Book of Dreams and Shadow"
on the dusty shelf of the old botanica.

I still recall the hours full of counting.
the lists of great importance.
Categories and expenses.
The taste of secrets.

How did this become the past?
Why can't I put the sky into all of my poems?
Or tell you what the rabbit hides from?
How have my dreams become,
These scraps of paper in an empty drawer?

(c) William C. Wheeler 2009

Inversions

It came to me then.
I was not alone
Each had things to do.
Hot summer grasses
Weather the faint breeze.

The Dream of a Tall Horse - (running dream)

Across the wide grass running
A thousand meters high
The red cloud at sunset
Burned in back of my mind
Everything halting
Like statues on a train
The mumbling of passengers
Who never said hello.
The place reeks of poetry
And bad investments
Sawdust in the corner
Like robbery
And holding nothing dear
They come rumbling to a stop
Apocalyptic pencil shavings
and crumpled newsprint
The empty seats stare back at you
All those mornings yesterday
Came back in a rush
More horses in the rain
Running from thunder.
Concrete follows
Like a lean dog
In the undergrowth
Grinning with panic
The pain stumbles after
Hobbles the mind
Fetters the blood
A small dream
Of rabbits in the garden
Tattooed cats
And words
that crystallize in the sun.
I’m letting this get away from me
Because you were with me then
And we both had something in our eyes.
It almost gets you going
when you think it cant get worse
then the running happens
everything crashing after
just because the words didn’t fit their meaning.
There’s no need for you in the room tonight
this blue baby
catch your breath.
Leave us alone we bury our own.
Now the rain can come.
I really was crazy.
Everyone said I was.
Now it’s true.
You know whatever happens, they’ll come back to this moment.
I waited all these years, thinking it would be all right.
They are gone.
It never was all right.
Abandoned.
And why should I care.
You never see light like that in the city.
Always staring at the sky -
-till the needle breaks
and splits
like fire in the night.

loose in the depths

Unstrung the knot of my heart,
Loosed the chords that held me,
Let slip the quick fish of memory,
To flash in the green sea depths,
Among uncounted schools:
Alive, nameless, free
In the vast expanse
Of open water

<°)))><

Over the bowsprit, where the ship plows the new waves ,
cascades of white stampedes rear and plunge ahead,
racing across the surface. Blocks of sunlight
angle through the deep, like shifting cathedrals
built on the abyss. I still hear the sirens choir
through the years, the child, enthralled,
leaning too far over the rail...

nautalis shell

I found this shell, a fragment on the sand;
A poets perfect spiral cracked by time,
Crushed by tides, abandoned on the shore.

The gulls were done with what had lived within.
The striped shell and pearl insides, both picked clean.
Snails and crabs had scoured the smallest chambers.

The empty test left me dreaming of whorls;
Imperfect spirals wrapped around my heart.
Each cell extended life another day.

Between the sun and wave I lost my self`.
A great sound echoed in that broken shell:
Cupped against my ear, something lost returned.

All along the beach a great silence fell.
My empty head against a broken shell.

Coffee cup

This perfectly ordinary blue cup,
a simple vessel for coffee or tea,
belonged to my mother for many years
She kept it beside her through out the day,

It joined her when she talked on the phone,
Stayed on the desk when she she wrote.
She would top it off with warm coffee
And hold it close to her heart with both hands
When she sat deep in thought,
Her eyes fixed on some distant interior.

This cup was such a part of her
I cannot see it without seeing her.
She attached to the objects around
So deeply that they seemed human.
Animated by constant use until
They stood on their own.

The great leather bag she lugged about
With all her things: pencils, notebooks,
Bus fare, photographs: all necessities
For day to day encounters in the world.
Sometimes the bag seemed so heavy,
That i wondered how her small frame
Could shoulder so much.

The cup always stayed at home
Seldom washed and put away.
Blue, it waited by the typewriter,
Or on the counter by the stove,
An ounce or two of black sugarless
Liquid, cooling in the bottom,
For her eventual return.

Martyr

In your own day
People listened,
When you stood and spoke,
We offered hearts and minds
Questioned you and your ways,
Yet you always prevailed,
Bearing the spirit of support
A burden that became
A flaming torch
As you crossed the line.

I kneel to pray
I hold you in my thoughts
Image of an artist
With the taste of vision.

You burned more candles
Than the night could bear,
Lifted rags up and filled them
With men and women.
You gave us voice for song
When we could only squeek,
Clap hands and chortle
In our delight.

When you left us, we had
Acres of desolate sand,
Dry trees an wilderness,
Waiting for a spark.

Now rains deluge us
Beyond reason.

We drown in your absence.

Overt Deception

I heard stern resolve in their young voices,
Saw the gentle dignity of their youth
Guide them past the empty shock of their loss
Towards the wakening of a stranger truth.

The world is full of weeping: yet we stand.
I can find no way to make this pain less.
We live and die, like trees eagles and moss.
Past Greed, the only mark we leave is Kindness.