Poetry ?

Thursday, March 1st, 2018 — -2˚C / +28˚F with light snow falling @8:01 pm in Atlantic Canada —

 

—While rearranging my home office here, I dug through some old files and re-discovered some poetry from a while back —

 

 

1.

one night the sea was solid there was a yellow cloud heaving with the motion of our ship luminous, sick yellow above a mercuric sea – silver metallic, many jagged edges pine tree shaped wedges of water continually slipped- slid in precisely cut grooves so detailed, so clear, so amazing mirror polished silver stones continually slipping into a gelatinous base flat surfaces forever sliding, lubricated as the sun went down (uneasy?) behind that luminous yellow cloud   … much too close to the Bermuda Triangle.

un soir la mere étais solide il y avait un nuage jaune soulevant avec le mouvement de notre bateau malade, jaune lumineux d’une mer de mercure – métallique argenté- beaucoup ont ébréché les cales formées par arbre de pin de bords de l’eau continuellemont glisser- glissées dans les cannelures avec précision coupées le miroir tellement détaillé, ainsi clair, ainsi étonnant a poliles pierres argentées glissant continuellement dans une base gélatineuse sufaces plates toujours glissement, lubrifie durant couché de soleil (incommode?) en derrière ce lumineux jaune nuage   … beaucoup trop près de la triangle des Bermudes.

— Jim Wellington (1970)

 

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From a Wandervogel

 

If I could see you

softly beside me

indifferent to the dust and chaos

open to the breezes which support

our eyes away from the props

of their neo-simian push button

dreams of civilization

I’d find you glowing, tingling

in the cool, living air

and moving Earth and Spring

with a sigh

I would not blink

for fear you’d disappear

 

If I could touch you

trembling, as my way

would be to gently take

your hand and lead you slowly

with great care

toward my world

noting to discard

whatever you believe should be

in someone else’s aura

before you know it’s me I;m changing

to fit your whim

(because I suddenly found

my universe wanting)

I would not breathe

for fear you’d shatter

 

If I could show you

innocent and jeweled fragments

of a hard and decaying planet

as flowers, whose infant curiosity

pushes pavement aside

and children we forgot to teach

about war

put Generals out of my mind

where they can do no harm

I would not point

you already see

 

If I could teach you

something which has no time

while they annihilate our bodies

we could stand here and say

how foolish

to think they could harm us

and spend  fleeting eternities

sending lights

bounding happy and secret

except to our eyes

to play like tiny fishes

dancing in each other’s hair

I would not speak

you already know

 

If I could hold you

as my own

I could watch the sky fall

while men run toward their bitter

and final end

and never move my eyes

away from your smile

 

and I can see

quietly

the fire

that turns the turbines

that move the galaxies

working through you

 

— © Jim Wellington (1971-ish)

 

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