Contents
A mist without witness
We seize our modest pleasures
quaking
Great trees that speak
Be silent! Our starry neighbors
knock!
A glow we have no wish to know
Hollow on the crumbling rim
At the swan's death chorus
Around us in this drab radiance
Oh the sad turning of the red cinder
Pasture waits
Into the secret sand of black and
white
Down the dark arterioles
No galaxy can hold
Your smooth brown hands
Your tiny drop of death
In the long lines
Wired fingertip to fingertip
Touch touch the wild message
Sea birds fly flaming black
Winter rules the last world
Behind the slimy mist
Hawks aloft cry fierce objection
The sour stink the rough spike
Last lament of the cold stones
crying
Home
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A Mist Without Witness
When on the curbs of dry streets
Will the wild wind wail away and down
To a whispered gray setting of the sun
To the solitary scuff of a shriveled shoe?
When will barely mutant cats finally
Stalk sunlight from the dark silence
Under porches from the false cover
Of cactus and brambles?
When will the chill of the northern star
Break in the swell of a red sun
Raising a mist without witness
From the steaming seas?
Great Trees That Speak
Boiling around, into the air around
The home of the highest priest,
Around the empty white towers of an aging king
Who once was God,
Great trees that speak and shake the sky,
Great globes of not so much authority anymore,
Explode from bits of pulpy seed, rise wet and ponderous,
Dinosaurs at cloud level.
This house once held the lever that ruled the world.
We believed in the old wizard too much
And too long. So much and so long
He believed his own magic,
His own lies.
He wrote us leather books and passed them down,
Poor, tragic secrets a child must learn, we thought,
Or burn.
He turned the stars a million times or so,
(or so I'm told)
And made the oceans breathe,
And then forgot his name,
His spells,
His pots and pans,
His odd fear of sleeping in a strange bed.
He began to hunt for fireflies in the cool June evenings,
Without a jar, without a baseball bat.
An hour ago or so (I'm told)
A hairless ape with telescope and wrench
Silenced this ancient monarch's poor, sad babbling,
Unbolted his vacant throne
And hauled it perhaps to some museum,
Working overtime, fighting the holiday traffic.
No one heard the alarm.
But those castles still climb into the sky,
And the sorcerer who once was God,
Caught forever on the stairs
Of those seething columns,
From time to time still rocks the earth beneath us
And throws our tiny toys from the heavens.
We must learn his whole name
To call him down.
Be Silent! Our Starry Neighbors Knock!
Blue in the morning sun
A bird dives from the one high cloud
Left by the waning winds of dawn
Feathers blue green drip water like scales
No
Soft with the blue pink fragrance of petals
Opening to the new season
No
Warm with the odor of fur blue black
An arctic mink sleeking thin wings
Through the spring air
No
This cryptic creature has a song
Drawn at a sharp angle to the moon
This melody is not from our ecliptic plane
Be silent!
Our starry neighbors knock!
We Seize Our Modest Pleasures Quaking
Stretched by gravity to the molten heart
To the hot stone at the planet's core,
By imagination to the red-shift limit of dreams
To the bright boundary of time's genesis,
We fix our attention
On the mundane difficulties
On the insoluble problems,
We grapple with the trivial, the crucial,
We focus on the micro, the mega,
We fabricate the molecular, the colossal.
In our dense, tortured schedules
We neglect sometimes
The midrange of our lives
Yet somehow we find our human attractions.
We seize our modest pleasures quaking
In bold protoplasm as we sink spinning
Maple seed, starship down,
Impromptus of a quantum cosmos.
A Glow We Have No Wish To Know
Cold bloom bleeding with the daylight
With the first warmth of the climbing season
When the sun reaches once more
The pale blue shadows filled with old ice
Tight blossom swelling deep
Somewhere at the reptilian root
Of a smoldering brain
Waiting for the moist breath
That triggers the rising
The charged contact with the soil
Now softening
Yielding to the gentle pressure
Of spring
That sparks the pain of growth
The hunger of a new skin.
We lick our lips.
We shiver.
Sometimes these things in our mirror
Cast a glow
We have no wish to know.
At The Swan's Death Chorus
At the cry of the dying swan
At the dry, sandy edge of that river
Flowing without rain
Slapping murk at the treeless banks
Winding for miles
Away from the stifled tumult
Of the living asking questions
Prying at the locks at the bars
On their tiny perimeters
At the bird's only song
Delivered yet at her final breath
Those who have only been born
Gasp at the sudden color of their hands
In the river of raven's blood
At the swan's death chorus
They discover light
At the end of light.
Around Us In This Drab Radiance
The sun this morning slipped past
A single gap in the sky's gray lid
Oranged for that moment
By the tired light of that
Fusion cat's tongue protruding
Through dingy clouds
Slowly sealing the gaps
Denying even a pale color
To a world without shadows
Without corners.
Around us in this drab radiance
Atoms hum their quantum rhythms
Singing the illusion of the solid ground
The ambivalence of the neutron
Of the next minute.
Hollow On The Crumbling Rim
The wind whistles hollow on the crumbling rim
Not far from the rush, not far from the dim
Glow of the road that passes nearest this bowl
Dug in the desert by an iron ball from the stars
Melting fierce and white in the thin skin of air
That covers the sand, that covers the distant sea.
Here soil and rock ran like water rose into the sky
A flashing sudden fountain of flame into a cool morning
Thirty thousand years ago before we gained the name human
Before we gave the name meteor to these messengers
Of metal and stone from the deep spaces beyond Pluto
Before we learned to send our own fire into the future.
Oh The Sad Turning Of The Red Cinder
In the black shadows
Of the forest dead
No creature walks in the brown dust
No quick hide no slow scale
Brushes the dry moss.
In the dull flat light
Of the empty plain
No slender grassy blade turns the hard crust
No wing of steel no feather
Breaks the still air.
Is this is the world
Where rhyme was once possible
Where the young danced without shoes
Where spring rains drenched the hungry soil?
Oh the sorry smoke
Oh the sad turning
Of the red cinder
Into The Secret Sand Of Black And White
Once I sat loosely glued by formal pants
To a peeling piano bench.
My feet itched in fancy shoes.
My thick fingers stumbled on the keys.
I knew the Opus 57. I knew
How the sad storm of F minor overflowed
My throat's small cup, how the salt wet skin
Around my eyes shared the dull red of so many ideas
Born in the hard soil of ignorance,
So many leaves spreading under skies without promise
Of rain or light.
I knew I could not reach to paint this picture.
Paralyzed by the virus of this knowledge
Immoveable on the keyboard
My numb hands sank heavy with soft, syllabic murmurs
Into the secret sand of black and white
That holds the songs of every moment sinking
Into the past.
The bench creaked; the audience coughed.
I stared at the future pouring in silver streams
Through the window, through my tears.
And helpless I began to play.
Down The Dark Arterioles
You've lost the icy edge
The cold flame that screamed once
Down the dark arterioles
Forcing to the surface
Your bloody answers
To the pain of the pounding clock.
You cook glass on a cold stove
Slowly boiling air away
In thin layers
Exposing underneath the crystal skin
The dead sand
The frowning faces of couples
Twisting in their brainy tangos.
You close your useless door
In its bent frame
Smelling the frost between your fingers
You wait for your winter coat
For the next molt
Metamorphosis.
Pasture Waits
So swift it comes,
Full gallop down the fence lines,
Crumbling tooth, hardening ear, dimming pupil,
Faintly ticking clock.
Roads that stop worlds, win wars,
Do not delay this wagon.
It rolls full tilt, wheels smoking,
And does not touch the ground.
Easy patterns decorate the days
Before that cart's arrival,
If I have it right,
And final breaths, for those deserving,
Draw deep and clear,
Far from choking chimneys
And dirty, desperate streets.
Pasture waits,
My scarred and weary legs,
Only flies will tell us now
That we still live.
No Galaxy Can Hold
I thought it sad
I knew not how she died.
Her life was like no other,
And touching it,
I cried.
Philosopher 1: Dancing dust in sunlight
Glories only briefly,
Flashing once or twice
To mild applause,
Then fading into centuries,
Lost and quickly
Never known.
Give your dead friends graceful memories;
Let them fall and rest
Free of pleadings and regrets.
Philosopher 2: Whole worlds turn
Under dim stars too cold to kindle life,
Where no one dances,
No one watches dust that casts no shadow.
Our brief warmth is too rare a gem already,
Don't stand in line to beg for more.
But sober, cosmic scales give little comfort,
Though preachers find them easier than tears,
And no galaxy can hold
The grief of mothers,
The loss of lovers,
The empty clatter of a missing life.
Your Tiny Drop Of Death
I tried to stall you not to call you
Hold you back by will alone
Anything to keep you from your
Terrible spinning meeting
With that car's rough heat
You panicked under its buzzing face
And paid the awful tumbling price
Then somehow ran your last steps
Into the crumbling walls
Of the house across the street
You prowled so many nights
I found you there I had to crawl
With a flashlight into those dark spaces
Where you cried softly for your legs
For your broken back.
Your moans
Your tiny drop of death
Burns me like slow acid
A cat asks for so little
Why did we crush your life
With hot filthy metal?
In The Long Lines
In the long lines
In the wet hours
When you spread your hair
Across the scowling sky
When you fought with empty hands
And bitter words
Against the dark rules
That held us all
Against the ugly power
Of the past
You forgot your hat
You forgot to back away.
Your Smooth Brown Hands
On the wind today
The sulfur stench of the refinery
Bleaches our fenced roses
And tarnishes our silent throats.
How can your smooth brown hands
Find their grip day after day
On metal etched thin by acid
And the harsh polish of rubber gloves?
Where is the beauty
In the bend of your back
Against the cruel, corroded valves
You wrestle in the caustic steam
Of product, of profit?
On the wind today
(In a dream)
The sweet loam of Ohio
Tickles memories
Of corn and wheat and soybeans,
The stink of hogs and chickens,
And the hot, sour breath of cows.
There is nothing kind about dirt,
But how much better than steel it would be,
To harden your smooth hands
In that sweet, brown soil.
Wired Fingertip To Fingertip
Wired fingertip to fingertip
We confide in screaming electrons
It's like telepathy
Speaking in jittery syllables
Words silently glowing green and gold
Running through walls through air
Through vacuum to the full moon and back
So many miles apart we lock minds
Sometimes distracted by the sounds
Of glass settling in the window pane
By old people
Mumbling their dissatisfaction.
They have no way of knowing
When we touch.
If not presence and breath,
We have words.
We have the knowledge of contact.
Sea Birds Fly Flaming Black
At the beach
Separately
Sea birds fly flaming black
On the slanting sun
Across the solid face of clouds
Gray the entire day
Now at last light
Bright and white
With golden fences at their borders.
Desperately
Humans teem the oily sand
Searching for the water ways
They once knew
Wiping the filth from their faces
They design routes of escape
From the land
They dream of exit
From their soiled planet.
The young ones plan
Their journeys to the stars
The old ones weep
As the tide rolls away the future.
Winter Rules The Last World
Winter rules the last world discovered,
A lonely planet with no moon
Turning in the cold sky.
Stars flare and die in the proton dust.
The ancient galactic fires
Dimmed by entropic granularity
Barely glow.
Again (and this is the last time)
We find no footprints but our own
We wonder why in the beginning
Someone made that first tool,
Tamed that first spark.
We read the end of history
In the pale light of snow falling at night.
Touch Touch The Wild Message
Touch touch the wild message
Even cold skin flushes under
Rough currents washing the land clean
Ready for spring's onslaught
Youth finds a face in the old rocks.
Laid uneasy in the grip of compromise
Yelling the days away inaudibly
No one sings the arias of growth and summer;
Neglect and winter hold the high country.
Distant gleams of day make dim shadows there
On the shrubbed borders of our dreams where
Stars fade into a faint magnetic blush
Etching our desire persistently probing
Kept at bay by spears of dry bone.
Behind The Slimy Mist
It's raining hydraulic
With oily hands we wax our eyes
In disbelief as though
We have never read these lines
On the curbstones of our old neighborhood
In the confidence of adolescence
When all the next minutes stretched
Ahead of us so easily so far.
The lenses of our instruments
Fog in the fatty stink
We have come to breathe without question
Behind the slimy mist that domes our sky
Planets circle silently
The stars the stars.
The Sour Stink The Rough Spike
Low tide
Sand sliding under crab shells
Under the rounded sea stones
Lifts and swells the water
Nursery at the shore
Where swarm the myriad tiny crustaceans
The sandpipers nibble
The flopping fish
The gulls devour soaring and screaming
Small dying things
Skimming stabbing the surf
The sour stink the rough spike
Of the beak we never speak of
We remember the silent sweep of the wings
The miracle that hangs birds
Weightless in the air
We disregard the ugly punctuation
The briny slop of oily plankton
The raucous cries of crusty feasting.
Forgetting the salty serum in our veins
We think these are other kingdoms
We choose not to hear the ghosts
Burrowing where the beach never dries.
Last Lament Of The Cold Stones Crying
The long lament of the last proton
Swings at lightspeed
Across the cold, stressed bowl of space
Emptied of suns long ago
When shattered planets spun
Great fibered light circles spewing
Rock along their parabolic paths
The distant memory of life jittering
Through the temporal lattice
Where once humans wept
Where the stones cry now at their
Inexorable evaporation
All this dust now unwritten history lost
There is no heat left for noise
Or even any flat surface
To mistake in the cosmic black
For the recollection of a song in counterpoint
The long lament of the last proton
Sings in the likeness of an actual melody
The old verses of the cold stones crying
The last lament of the cold stones crying
Hawks Aloft Cry Fierce Objection
Could other anvils bend and break our lives,
Would paths now twisted
Ease our steps down friendly hills
Now boulder-choked and wicked?
Think! Travelers now dusty
And brief in careless meetings,
Smiling hope,
But never grasping laughter,
Touching fingers, wisps of hair,
But never clasping arms, embracing,
Glancing never gazing,
Might then sleep and dream in easy pairs.
But turbid rivers then
Might surge down canyons cleansed of waking life,
Stealing sandy wisdom,
Slamming doors on children's eyes,
While hawks aloft cry fierce objection.
Tom Vernier
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