Five Poems by David Chorlton

 

Spider Rock

 

The horizon is a long breath turned to stone.

It is beyond reach. It is

the Earth dreaming. It puts on

a good show when the sun

goes down and vibrates a little when stared

at too long. The land could never claim it

for its own, the sky

rests lightly upon it

until a thunderclap declares

the night is near: the night

with all its fears and mysteries, night of

grand illusions passing

overhead but not

once coming close enough to

be analysed or understood. In the time

of dancing rains all roads

soak into the ground, all journeys

cause the gods to laugh. It is on

such sparkling midnights

desire and curiosity marry

and their firstborn is the slender rock

breaking from the cliff to walk

toward creation’s edge

while its slow and futile

journey makes it

beautiful.

 

 

Trading Post

 

It costs a pocketful of cloud

for the brightly colored rug, a shade tree for

the mesa where the other world begins,

a cup of darkness

for a feather floating down

from the lost wind.

There’s a stream

 

that never gives up

and a ladder that climbs by itself

to the houses in the red walls of the sky

available to anyone

 

willing to trade a camera for a memory.

Try the drum, and listen to

its leather heartbeat. Recite a prayer

for rain and hear

your voice returning to you

burnt at its edges and fading

 

to that moment of being so foreign and alone

even thunder speaks

a language free as dreaming

when the lady working

at a frame made with tears for nails

 

weaves the rays

back into the sun.

 

 

Land Alive

 

The land isn’t empty, it’s thinking.

What will it become when

the clouds disappear and rocks take their place?

Where will the roads lead

 

when they reach the edge of human thought

and turn into philosophy

where the compass needle bends

and points toward itself?

How much history

can a lizard carry on its back

when it moves at the speed of a reflection

 

that waits for no one?

It’s as dark as dreams in the canyon

where shadows conspire

to climb the red walls

and fly, as questions do when

 

they outgrow any answers

that would have bound them

to the Earth.

 

 

Navajo Dusk

 

The clouds part just enough

for the sun to shake the ashes of another day

down onto Earth. It’s the time

that silence has wings, that houses

sparkle on their cheap foundations

and roads get lost

on their way to the next red

needle of rock

standing with the wind for company.

Out there, where lost dogs roam

and the traffic purrs

fate runs straight ahead with

a broken yellow line to guide it.

That’s where broken promises go

when it’s late, too late

to mend them and

spirits ride bareback into night.

 

 

Reservation Midnight

 

Fate moves incognito through the stars.

The mesas do not know

who will falter, who will pass

and seek admission to the timeless mysteries

for which there is no midnight.

Water in the streambed can’t decide

whether to evaporate

or flow. It’s a dry time in the canyon

and a lizard clings

                                  to the moon;

moths become whispers

with wings; a discarded

snakeskin wriggles

remembering when it had a bite.

And the long miles lie

across the land, like breaths relaxing

in the back seat of a dream

that can’t find a way to go

underground.

David Chorlton is a longtime resident of Phoenix, having previously lived in England and Austria. While his writing has been predominantly poetry, this year saw the publication of a nonfiction book from New Meridian Arts, "The Long White Glove," which is an account of the wrongful conviction for murder of a family member in 1960s Vienna. He still produces occasional watercolors and is attentive to the local wildlife.