a way to you

I would've sang this song to you 
 for all the seasons we've been thru 
 for every joy and any pain 
 if not to bring you back again 
 as if the shooting stars don't die 
 they only move on other sky 
 but this sad tune rings in my mind 
 and all its words can't help me find 
 a way to you

poems by Michael R. Patton, USA

Michael R. Patton, author
sky rope poetry blog: http://skyrope.blogspot.com
dream steps blog: http://dreamsteps.wordpress.com
myth steps: http://mythsteps.wordpress.com
web site: http://michaelpatton.tripod.com

---

BLESSED DESCENT 9/27/04

My fear was the cause–
the reason for my selection--the reason
I was placed in this basket
and lowered down
into the narrow ravine
to try to find
what can only exist
in such precarious places.

When the overseers scanned our group
they could see I was the one
trying hardest not to be seen.
The one afraid
that the earth beneath his feet
was only cloud.

They realized
I needed this trip
--this ordeal--
more than anyone else.

So I was cranked down,
slowly lowered down--
accepting my fate
because I am only
a stone cutter,
a thresher,
a courier for king and queen,
a fool who follows
the piper--

and I am lowering still,
down farther still,
into the joyful darkness
that welcomes me
despite my fear.




A BETTER SISYPHUS

I present myself as an exhibit
of a necessary human hunger--

necessary

even though this hunger nearly kills us--
kills me. I fight
not to be eaten alive
by my hunger.

Nonetheless,
this goat in me
has goaded me
higher than I ever
could have imagined--

back into--deep into--
those hungry black mountains

to try to satisfy
my hunger--a hunger
for something that
I do not know
and so
try to discover
if it actually
exists.

Blind, I touch and in touching, know--
know every round stone
as part of my foundation--

know every cave I find to be a kiln.

Alone, in my quiet lifting, I come to realize
how every mundane moment surfeits me.

All those tedious steps--
I love them, one by one.

So I'm not disappointed
that I still feel hungry
when I reach the mountain top--

no, I can hardly wait for Morning
when I start back at the bottom--
but the bottom of a higher mountain--
because by keeping to this climb
I feed my driving hunger.

GENTLE ESSENCE

Knowing that the mist

of a gentle spirit

inhabits

that room...

draws me inside.

I know I will not see her.

But if I stand very still,

open my skin,

allow my heart to fill

and my brain to stop

long enough

for my nerve endings

to unclinch

their tiny fists--

I may be able to sense

the faint rhythmic waves

of her breath,

the warm vaporous touch

of a hand in shadow--

an essence collected

then dispersed again

through the darkness

the darkness within

the altar of my chest.

WAR SUN 5/22/06

Often I’m able to ignore

the static tension

tightening my joints

until I lie down

in the dark

then I again feel the heaviness

of the wave

rising in my chest,

again see nervous flashes

of lightening

behind my eyelids--

in this way, I’m reacquainted with my war--

humbled once more

by my losses, by my failure

to exhale the water

that has bled deep

into my lungs.

Yet I continue

to struggle towards surrender--

and once in awhile,

when I give up trying to win,

I win that surrender.

Which has the affect of settling

the toppling wave, settling that wave

into a dense pool

that rests

at my knees,

my knees lowered

to the earth‑‑

a pool that reflects

my torn face,

the rubble of my eyes.

Yet when I place

these empty, hesitant hands

into that still water

I can feel the sun of love

spreading through

my whole world--

despite my fear,

a peace undeniable,

resolute.

OPENING 8/01/07

Their whirring wings

I could barely hear

and so,

could hardly bear

but by listening

I could feel

the winter bees

building back--

that’s how

I made connection

in a broken shelter

that worked like a trap--

that’s how

I found a door,

a loving door--though dark--

past which, I discovered

another door--a massive door--

a door of heavy light--

that I decided not to open

yet--some feasting must wait

while I curl on the floor

against a tree, a tree

of strong soft bark,

strong soft hands--

wait, while I sit near

the dark threshold

and decipher river sounds

echoing from below.

The earth is much too rich

at such times. Yet I’m impatient--

how long must I wait? Impatient,

though I know completion

will be bittersweet:

when I must rise, when I lift--

the way a leaf

seems to float

as it brings in

the breeze--

as I move

to the door

the blank door

the new door

with splinters of light

bursting from its seams.

THE KISSING FISH

The kissing fish

arc out of the lake.

One coming from the north.

One coming from the south.

The two trout

meet in mid-air

and for one still moment

their mouths adhere.

And all the people who’ve gathered

round the bank

to witness

the twilight summer ceremony

see something that looks like magic

and may very well

be perfect--

because in that brief interval

a dream hope

becomes a union made real.

But once complete

the rainbow must fade--

the lovers break

with a collective sigh

from the crowd

as the empty bodies

flutter helplessly down...

and when they smack

flat on the water

in double ring of spray,

those vessels fracture

into a mass

of orange autumn leaves

rolling with the waves.

But like all that falls

the leaves decay, become

a scattering of feathery seeds...

and as the small fish

dimple the surface

to feed on the new remains,

again we recognize

Perfection.

UNLIDNESS 4/18/06

What if you had

another head

inside your head--

a better head

but hidden.

A head that would call

to you, though hard to hear

with your big head talking

all the time, unaware

of that muted voice

trying to get you

to listen.

Unless--as can sometimes happen--

one day you tilt, tumble, hang upside

down

then the lid on your big head

flops open

and what comes out

in that shocking moment

is an opera

sung by ravens and lions.

But

by startled reflex,

you shove that lid back down

with a firm hand--

ravens and lions are scary, but

even scarier when

they sing

Opera.

Thereafter,

you’ll keep the lid securely in place...

unless...

as can sometimes happen--

one day, while I’m distracted

by the mountain clouds,

waiting for the sun to touch

the highest peak--

that lid on my big head

--quietly, secretly--

floats up

floats away.

And this time

as the ravens and lions

raise their choir,

I accept the music

because the singing feels

just like something

that’s supposed to happen

whenever I witness abundance.

During such moments

of unlidness

I feel as if

I am beginning to be

the way I was always

meant to be.

Some poems by Jaan Malin

Jaan Malin is an Estonian surrealist poet (born in 1960). He graduated the faculty of Estonian Philology in the Tartu University. And published poetry, plays and a sound poetry CD. He is a member of the Society of Estonian Students, Society of Estonian Authors, Estonian Society of Literature, Union of Estonian Writers and Assembly of Young Authors in Tartu. His work is translated in English, Dutch, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Russian, Finnish, Swedish, Romanian. For more information about Jaan, click here.




I HAVE LIVED

Oh, toilsome luck that for long time
has greater been than all my human might.
That wondrous moment not wanted by the kind
who aim at quiet path and peace of soul

– I fear You so, oh life of strain
(whilst desiring You sincerely)
that I can feel Your budding beauty
to smother all my ecstasy of toil.

x x x

Reaching towards you and calling you my love.
How could I be without you?
Perhaps, just because it never was for real,
it was you stood so lively in my thoughts –
No moment can be more alive.
Yes, never did I leave you for a moment
although we never were as one.

x x x

I rest my eyes on sunburnt skin,
the wondrous down of leg.
The neck, so proud and upright
tossing hair all wet from swimming,
light blonde, bleached by sun
and falling on your back
when as if dancing you walk on sand
whilst knowing that my eyes are watching you.


THE AURA
I washed your frozen feet
hearing the soft crooning of your toes,
the sound that evenly spread over both my rooms.
I bent above the basin while
You talked about the weeping willows by the river,

so fresh and supple and so innocent –
like Yourself, I thought
and felt at once embarrassed:
onne must not think that way of You.
I rose and went.
A slight sheet of ice on autumn pools.


NEIGHBOUR WOMAN

This song is of you for you are fleeing
hearing strange rustling sounds
above you head – a crane so slowly stepping,
never treading on a bug orhalf-ripe berry.
The crane will spread its wings above you
at the very moment you give birth.


COURAGE

Courage to question nothing.
Courage to know nothing.
Courage to have faith in yourself.
Courage to differ.

Courage to think about livelihood.
Courage to speak your mind.
Courage to glorify Sunday.
Courage to irritate.

Courage to be intolerant.
Courage to tolerate.
Courage to be tender and fond.
Courage to show it.

Courage to think thoughts not mine.
Courage to make career.
Courage to seem quite stupid.
Courage only to seem.


LOYAL AND CONISTENT
You never contradict yourself
for you have always believed
in some straightforward sanctity.
Within everlasting life.
Never will be lost the time
that was trying to deny existence.
Perhaps they’ll recede somewhat in force.
Now you are panting half-suffocated,
suffocating in nearly clean
heartbreaking space.
You dread shadows and seek some essence
its memory calling to loyalty
and consistence
In this delicate
brittle world.
You stay near nocturnal stuffiness
like a castle of hope
in the cool hall of this castle
a defiant cry is heard.
You snatch the tambourine of remembrance
and the shadows become governed
by secretly born
everswelling
desire for
freedom.


AN ADDRESS I

Here is the land of your life.
Here you know where you stand.
Here nobody can be without Faith.

Here your word is sacred.
Here you can aim straight at your point.
Here you grasp how black isn’t black.

Here you fight your sorrow and spleen.
Here you never conform.
Here Faith judges your deeds.


BRIGHTENING
You stood on the opposite bank.
Still and anxious, empty air.
Your lips – cracked by spring-kisses –
moved like speakingly
but I didn’t hear anything.

Pontoon-bridge was opened,
sleepy chipped beam of light.
Cold and deep water stayed between us
and I wondered why wasn’t it painful
to be. Be.

You stood on the other side of water.
My soul streamed and didn’t feel any obstruction.



ROUTINE

The sleety street is peeping at itself
through frozen breath.
It gathers strength to go.
In greyish- and pink-and-black-striped town
all shapes of fur-coats trudge uphill
who up to now have traded flowers.
Before the mushrooms come
a heap of plastic bags and off-flavoured honey will be sold
and birds in spring won’t ask senseless things
and never listen to the naughty talk of boys come visiting.
The snow mashed by the stepping feet hides
knuckly ice.
Even the bosses keep complaining of the lack of surprises.
Love is permanent pain and vain.
Nobody’s face bears the blossoms of May.


UNDERLIFE

They came like on our own invitation.
Is there misunderstanding’s innocence in their look?
So it seems.
Man is able to bear a lot
of pain. So there was grudge enough
(very concealed) but few shouters.
Once everyone loses his patience
and flames begin to dance
satanic rhythms of swing.
Thus wakes our duty to past and coming times: ees:
to stand one’s ground just here
and now –
REMEMBERING.
Nobody must ask the duty’s origin.
Because it just is inside, or never gets there.


ON THE VICTOR’S SIDE
You were in the centre of Alexanderplatz
and above the Reichstag soared a crevice.
Life, scrambled many years, now being left alone
behind its back all flags were burned.

You felt the limits of your reason
and found nothing to replace it.
But faith was there, if only in a year.
And the past was covered with a film of ice.

You standing there, the war was over.
But really how? Mind was still astir.
When cruel and sexless silence fell
you sensed that pain is Power

that laughs you into oblivion
precisely here, on this greyish square
and now, when emptiness has wrought your soul.
I wonder if you will ever find yourself.


TO MY FATHER
The spring sings anyway.
Birds still arrive as always.
And flowers bloom.
Behind the clouds like here.
Or even more.
Sometime you speaks of it
when slanting rays of sun
fall on the seashore where we walk.
Glide softly over intersecting mirrors.
With brightly shining eyes we talk
about the clarity and purity of glass
about the stolid warmth of wood.

And suddenly you want to see the pond.
And honeycomb near it,
and bees.
You still recall the stuffy wall in summer
in town, on cobble street so hot in sun
or sandy path through poplars to where we sit in sun.
We walk forever.
Even in the kindergarten dreams and the paper of the loved one.
We still walk. And you keep talking.
Perhaps of how you always wanted to have a longer neck.
Or of the unaccountable attraction between you and jews. Or of the brown buds of the ferns.
Or of your childhood.
You used to blend you talk with works of yours just under hand.
Sometimes I felt I boubted this connection.
But now I understand that work was in Your nature.
Perhaps destuctively.

Maybe sometime
we even will not walk on seashore,
but on this street with happiness in air
where you in childhood took a record slide.
We are together anyway
and feel about the same.

Poem by Nicoleta Onofrei

When I told Peter and Paul that I can’t breathe, they told me to wait.
When i showed them that i can’t speak, they told me to wait.
When I couldn’t see nor show, they told me to wait.
When I began waiting, meekly, in my place, they got scared.
Some people, like Peter and Paul, are afraid. When their fear passes. Along comes my fear. A long fear. Like a cockroach. Plus an ear wig. Plus a darkness. Plus an abyss in a street. Plus... equals a fear. Like theirs, somehow. Somehow different.
Peter and Paul ask me, now that their fear has passed, whether i could breathe. Whether. I could speak.
Whether i could see and show.
Now I am afraid.
Peter and paul ask me: what are you afraid of?
We have to be sure. We have to wait.
When. There is nothing to be afraid of. When. A drop is just a drop, a rain on a window, on a bed table. When. A clock is just a device that shows you the hour and gives signals for you to wake up. When these happen, someone laughs.
When these happen, someone can’t breathe, see, speak. Just hear the laughter. Unable to move.

Short story by Radu Vartolomei

                                                 A young little butterfly's story

Young little butterfly was beautiful.

She just turned sixteen and her inhumanly light skin was glowing underneath the flowery sheets.  So pretty she was that the whole room complete with flaky walls and all just seamed to embrace her like a small universe.

The small room was just a temporary setup, no later then today she was to move to an apartment in the Latin Quarter were she would live the bohemian life. Her boyfriend, the one with olive skin, was sealing the deal on the new flat and that's why he needed her passport.

Not long ago, on a magrebian heat, she left for France to work as a waitress in a small café just beside the Eiffel Tower. That's what the well tanned man from the recruitment agency told her just before he left in his brand new BMW.

Young little butterfly was smart.

In her small industrial town, she was top of the class in the best high school there was. After the summer  was over she was ready to move to a much smaller Paris were she was going  to study in a prestigious academy to witch, her iron working father and electrician mother, could not support her.

Young little butterfly was in-loved.

Her amber-eyed lover took good care of her. He caressed her like only a man knows how to caress.

Some times, so much love just made her soared and unable to work for a time. When that happened, he would tenderly tuck her to bed, kiss her and promise that he will never do that again but that she must be a bit more obedient next time.

            She would often make love to him and his skin, of an ever-changing color, would wear the taste of other women. His manly hands made her flesh tremble and some times it felt like tens of mouths would bite her breast in a single night.

Some of the other men caressed her. They would say that she is begging for their tenderness and that's why sometimes they are a bit rough whit her.

Gentlemen would always express their gratitude by leaving small colored notes on the side of the bed and her jealous lover would pick them up and throw them away in his pocket.

Young little butterfly was happy. She was watching large, skin colored, snowflakes falling on that frozen courtyard in Paris, which only had one small miracle to hide.

Right about now some lover's hand is running down her youthful waist.

Little butterfly is being caressed.  

YOU

How many colours
To blend in your smile
How many eyes
For a glimpse of your style

How many words
For your questioning why
And how many wings
Gonna reach you that high...

So many questions
Are driving me blue
Yet only one answer -
One word, only: YOU!


Copyright ©2009 Gabriel Ghimpu

Another Night

It's late in the evening
It's late in our souls
Beware of the darkness
Beware of its spells

It's winter the season
Outside as inside
Come, give me a reason
To cry by your side

Come, fill me with sorrow
For yesterday dreams
For no more tomorrow
As winter night seems

Come, pour all your darkness
In my bitterness glass
Let's toast for its likeness
And let it all pass.


Copyright ©2009 Gabriel Ghimpu

Short story by Radu Vartolomei

Redemption

Rare were those nights when he could feel life draining away in his veins and he had to face it. This was just one of those nights.

Maybe he had just too much coffee and what he felt in the back of the neck was his pulsating heart, drown in bitter liquid. Yes. He was probably imagining it. Just a trick of his sleep starved mind.

He knew it was late. He could feel that from his wife’s deep sleep and from the heartbeats of their unborn child. They were so pretty sleeping just over there, beside him.

They had a ruff week, he knew that, on Monday they were immigrants , on Tuesday their child was already a passport bearing citizen of that kingdom on the edge of the world and by Friday they were all back in the comfortable unhappiness that the East End so generously provided.

So contempt they were, pour little souls, rapt around in there blanket, finely woven out of fear of change, protecting them from the storm raging inside him.

“Are you dreaming?” he asked himself in the rarefied light.

No he wasn't. His dreams were all in English or in that other language that his mind was speaking some times and he could not understand.

Come to think about it, he didn't dream since he came back to Romania.

Liar! He was dreaming every day, walking down the street, when he was seeing people that couldn't be there, or when he was seeing the main boulevard in the East End turn in a fjord and the municipal police station guarding it transforming in to a castle. Yes. He was dreaming every day but didn't want to admit it to himself.

His bed did not serve his purpose no more so he slowly got up, being careful not to let his wife feel their bed turning into just her bed. He could have had a smoke, cigarettes were still cheap or he could have had another cup of java, coffee was always biter, but he chose instead to get quietly dressed and slowly walk out the door in a way in which he could not feel his apartment turn into someone else's home.

“There's no need to hurry now!” he told himself. “You can take it easy. The hard part is over. You’re staying!”

The ex-immigrant turned on his mp3 player; he still had the music downloaded in the days when he could see from his other apartment's window the edge of the world.

Outside it was poring, he shouldn't be sad. The song's lyrics were in English, his steps were still Romanian to the core and the numbness he felt was just fatigue setting in.

“Did you fell asleep?”

No, he wasn't sleeping. If he were, he would have dreamt of being an angel, a cherub to be precise. A cherub dressed in two of his wings like the immigrant dressed in his foreign accent, with foreheads that changed among themselves so often that he was always flying disoriented and, of course, with a flaming sword sharpened to perfection by his daily grind in the factory.

If he could, he would have gone to a church, an empty one like a Lutheran cathedral or one of those adorned with a miracle-making icon like the one in the old merchant's church in the center of town.

Somebody should invent Lutheran churches with miracle-making icons! If he is to comeback to the land's end he will personally build a church that is Lutheran outside but has a Christ Pantocrator all-knowingly adorning the ceiling.

The streets of the East End were pretty strange with all that rain pouring down, half riverbed, half tarmac and with a bit of effort, even half fjord. He felt like flying a bit. Not much, like in the old days, when he was imagining himself flying over the mountains and the sees to get in his wife’s bed in the East End. No! Just a bit, 'till the center of the town.

“Cherubs have four wings. Two for flying and the other two for redemption. How the sleepy taxi drivers in the taxi station nearby would have looked at him if they could only read his mind.

“Redemption? What's that about?” Taxi drivers are saved in the good old fashion Romanian orthodox faith, not like that in some orthodox-protestant gibberish from some far away heresy!

“I redeem myself, you redeem yourself, they don't redeem themselves.” Was that correct? Was his English still usable?  

The merchant's church was locked. The sky is closed at night for redemptions. Taxi drivers don't get salvation ‘till early next morning.

He led a cigarette watching the evangelist's four beasts adorning the church's old gate. Strange beasts they were. The immigrant could just make them up in the reddish lights of the cigarette. The eagle, the lion, the bull and the fourth one, the... Come on! He must know the fourth head. They were the heads of his cherub body. Lion ,bull, eagle and...what was his fourth head?” Make yourself comfortable 'cause you are not leaving 'till you find out what you other head is.”

He was so preoccupied with that problem that he did not even noticed when he passed through the gate. Did he fell asleep?

The miracle-making icon was beautiful but hidden by the chains left behind by the believers that got their wishes granted.

“What do ya' want?” Asked the Virgin Mary holding her baby Jesus from underneath the tokens of faith.

“I'd like to be happy. Can I?”

“Didn't I grant you that wish last time ya' were here”

“Well... I don't know exactly. Did I make the right choice”

“O.K. I can sea how ya're pined...I'll help you again but...now ya' owe me a Lutheran church with a miracle-making icon. Got it?!”

“Yes ma'am, I got it.”

“Good! Now go away. Su' little one 'cause in the morning I has some faithful comin' to get some salvation and I has work to do. They already knows what they want. Serious people with serious wishes, not like ya', I mean.”

Now he knew for certain that he was dreaming. It can't be happening! No way.

“Hey! Hey! Snake du norsk?” The police officer asked him while he was waking up in front of Frogner Kirke. He was numbed, he probably slept for a very long time.

“No! Sorry lads, I only speak English.”

“Are you O.K.? What are you doing here so early in the morning?”

“Nothing much! Just looking for a bit of redemption.”