Saturday, 1 April 2023

Three Poems by Chris Blake




Daoism



When my body says enough

I rise no matter the hour

Soon discovering the baker is a fraud

To all the strangers without curtains

But sufficient light and clean windows

I know things only lovers should know

Here children barely more than babies

Walk themselves to school

Like silhouettes manoeuvring vapour

Armed with nothing except orange vests

Children wander

Having their own way of going and doing

But they arrive

Here they always arrive



While I was asleep I dreamt

I was a woman not a man

I wasn’t beautiful

The world didn’t worship or loathe me

We went to a favourite café

With people sat close together

A column of sunlight easing any lines on my face

Warm and present

Splendid as only in autumn

Simply talking to my friend

About the way things just are

Authentic expresso con pannas

Prepared by a young barista

Probably a student not yet the least bit weary

A girl who still believes

Served by a central casting Italian

Who I thought smiled more than required

I worried if maybe I cut my hair too short



Having years before said yes to wu wei

Even now I’m on any given day

Completely sliced in two

Soaring through skies pregnant with rain

I can’t breathe

Another day too much the opposite

Carried away by a welcome freshet

I don’t seem to need air

But still grasp for the shore

Every day

I’m like everyone I actually know

Craving

Wanting one plus one to equal one





Orchards



Your pride that sun struck pearl Impala

Not new but fresh sterling clean

Moaning gently almost a caress

Rolling slow binding the light there is

You my father I’m a child

We don’t utter one word

This moment exquisite complete

Let it linger now late in the day

Heat cracked country road shadows long

Miles and miles of bursting Winesap orchards

Orderly rows of endless apples

A barely there first chill in the air and us

Each of them water and earth carved

Possessing full measure of charged will

Capturing and paused all that red summer was



We so helplessly feel the celestial wheel’s turning

Here before and even so remains there now

An undefinable realization startling well beyond us

Absolutes no language can voice



I saw you grow old resist unable to move

And finally pride let loose a sudden rush

The shell you wore rotting

In arid peculiarly rust colored dirt

I struggled as a man

You called me once more

Two rings then hang up the code that’s us

By rote I rang back though

The house stood empty already for months



Leaving is hard where we wander from

Always pitch black coming back

The orchards limbs trunks and fruit whole

A looming presence grasping for us

Then we went fast heading home a blur

The inky orchards bleeding in the murk



Out there closer than skin

That can’t be touched

If I could choose it’s only the going

Never the coming back

Truth is every moment forever

All at once no arrow of time





Kissing Scarlett Johansson



She would say

Close your eyes

Hers lit from an inside

You will never reach

Not something you can

Get your head around

One more time

Close your eyes

Expecting only the waking

But it’s parting of air

Animal proximity

Dark cinema porcelain gaze

Dew dropped cherry mouth

Zenith ripe

Then tongue

Faint zest of minty gum

Fourteen again aimlessly wondering

Any dreary mall anywhere

Looking looking and looking

Wearing out

On fire

Still looking

For what you found

A philosopher’s stone

Every knowing word

Written or heard

All of it

Nothing but her tongue





Chris Blake - Poet and playwright Chris Blake is from the Foothills of South Carolina but currently resides in Zurich, Switzerland. Most recently, The Stray Branch, Down in the Dirt, WINK and The Laughing Dog published his poems.

 

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