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Lakey Comess



Backdrop dominates silent room,

slab of wood from endangered species,
replica chairs, sparkling tableau, visited
through wide-angle lens coated in petroleum jelly,
transparent, though nothing is as it appears.

Bewildering thermoplastic dream fades in and out,
fragile beyond years, helpless, forlorn, spreads sand on gallery floor,
just where is not immediately clear.

Areas are delineated in miniature ridges, moistened impressionability.
Unusual birds with bright blue feathers fly into excavation.

Diamond merchants huddle in conference away from resolute plotting,
avert eyes from female spectators and exhibition.

Milling about, past recrimination casts a red glow over small dunes.
Your name is a whisper, repeated to no one, least of all, you.

That's the nature of dreams, passing through hour glass at regular intervals,
one hour later this month than last; one hour earlier just past winter.

Take care with your glass-blown smile. It could be misread.




Grass dome. Sundial. Waterway

1
Watch the sea through a cemetery, sandblasted text.

X marks the spot of untimely demise,
transformed to whirlpool, stele, hidden garden.

Carve life through green ice,
spiralling water, biography.

2

History assigns place in concrete,
desert sand, memory, dislocated setting,
olive tree, tower, white wall.

Whereabouts are a matter of pure speculation.
Inscription cannot be restored to former capacity.

Retouched lettering on stone reflects respect,
grave left behind, neither visited, nor tended.




Fern and Ficus

1
                               are both weathering the storm, so glad you asked.
Reports which have no legal value capture attention, none the less,
though they bring suspected dead perpetrator no closer to justice.

Evidence is splashed over the walls of the nation, untested.
Memorial stones are taken away for their own protection.

Somewhere in the hills a cottage is desecrated.
Alleged victims are given a voice, nothing and no one alive to test allegations.

This is most likely to happen during an economic recession. Scary, huh?
The reaction, I mean. Easy to see how crowds can be trained to salute.

2

A brief history of suicide solved no puzzles,
though it ruined a man's life, jousting with windmills,
trying to maintain dignity in silence, esteem for deceased wife.
Nothing in his early life, largely spent out of doors,
could have prepared him for the barrage of hatred.

I'm telling you this to pass time, in front of the window,
counting days to first frozen Galanthus.



The subject is love,

1
                               sullied by cynical intention.
Last phrases before sleep are lost to philosophy.

You've always required an enemy,
target for antagonism, grounds for erratic action.

2
Words maim, cutting or cauterising,
opening old burning wounds for further examination.

Dust off received cabbalistic lore. It may come in handy.

Chrystoberyl reflects light from a plain vellum surface,
strips away remnants, broken-winded.

3
Darkness threatens the last sentence, not yet imagined.
Nothing's that simple in composition.

Mutinous landscape's shadowed by figment.
I am sorry you haven't called.



Lakey Comess, born U S A in 1948, has lived in Israel, South Africa and the Orkney Islands in Scotland and now lives in Glasgow. She has contributed to Versal, Big Bridge, Gulf Stream, Milk, Real Poetik, Hutt, Otoliths, Hamilton Stone Review, Mad Hatters' Review blog, On Barcelona blog and other publications, also as Lakey Teasdale.
 
 
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