Five Poems by Raymond Berthelot

What They Can’t Take Away

 

The sailboats at anchor

            are pulled in one direction

                        by the tide between the keys

 

Remember that woman

            crazy or drunk, walking by the sanitarium

                        she too, refused assistance

 

What is it about moonlight and tropical flowers?

            for a while at least

                        peace seems possible

 

But back to the sea

            and the sun distantly setting, swollen

                        at a place we’ll never be

 

 

Le Old Navy

 

I stand in the doorway

as Gabo once stood

very long ago

hungry and broke

but not quite broken

and peer

into the space that is, was

Le Old Navy.

 

There is Cortázar

at the corner table where he once sat

to the left, writing hard

as if his very hair were on fire.

 

I turn, walk away

as Marquez once did

and leave so to create a memory

of my own

from their ghosts and anecdotes

of non-existent encounters.

 

Le Old Navy is exposed now

barren and naked

an empty Parisian bar on Boulevard St. Germaine

in the capital of literature

an empty, soulless vessel.

 

As these things go,

the pilgrim finds salvation

in the accounts of

the redemption of past pilgrims

who staked our claim

to the calling.

 

 

Flower Water

                        for J.B.

 

One thousand and twelve black birds

capture youth, only to disappear

this ironic sense of this

and that

assuredly cringe worthy fact

is that their existence varies

like in the exaltation

of flower water.

 

The kind that brings to a head

retrospect and outliers

as good as any

moniker for Roy Rogers

searching, searching, never finding

the trigger to our disarray.

 

All of this to say

an appropriate river

can still flow

to an ocean

that has always humbled me

and perhaps, even you.

 

 

That Town Best

 

I like that town best

in the very early morning rain

cobble stones newly wet

mist blankets the cathedral and plaza

 

The dark smell of coffee

and a hint of last night’s liquor

remind us that we’re here now

but only passing through

 

The gypsy lady and the carnival juggler

declare their place in the square

and Calliope sings her song

to the rising sun

 

As she opens her eyes

weary, the smells of night love

still linger

as she reveals a suggestion

of somnolent contentment

and asks                                             

to sleep for ten minutes more

 

 

Impressionist

 

Laid to rest

under the flower bed

out back, behind the garden shed

alone but for the sprawling moonlight.

 

Shadows talking low

give them wide berth

for the calico pony

is forever wanting.

 

The second time tonight

I heard the chitter chatter of angels

black and dark

between her eyes.

 

Always in gasps

the yellow woman

wants yet more

the thin and bent air

miles too high.

 

So, is this what is meant

when the wedding bells

have been silenced

till dawn.

Raymond Berthelot is the Historic Sites District Manager for the Louisiana Office of State Parks and also teaches at Baton Rouge Community College.  His work has appeared in diverse publications such as Progenitor, Mantis, Peregrine Journal, Apricity Magazine, The Elevation Review, Journal of Caribbean Literatures, the Carolina Quarterly and DASH Literary Journal.  A chapbook of poems, The Middle Ages, is currently available with Finishing Line Press.