Just Friends
She crosses her legs, my words
Entangle in her stockings.
She leans towards me,
Her breath massaging my neck –
Our friendship closer than my own skin.
Bare shoulders shrug,
My mind goes into orbit,
My pulse racing as her smile
Slowly takes over the room.
A mere mortal she drags me onto
Mount Olympus, the sheer sides
Of her thighs hold onto
My eyes. When she laughs
Her head is thrown back
Her soft neck, her throat,
Tormenting my hands,
Though my fingers are empty.
We part without touching.
She walks away, the rhythm
Of her hips pounding my heart
With that rounded, tightness,
I will imagine throughout the night,
My hands still clinging to her shape
At dawn.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 04.04.12)
editor's note: The object of our affection is most beautiful when just beyond our reach. - mh
Deja Vu
Always in the early hours
Demons creep across the void,
They beckon me to play with them,
Their memories in black and white -
Celluloid of flickering thoughts!
The jerking movement of their limbs
Carry spirits of the past but then they tell
Of future plans already writ by those
With sins inside their eyes –
Yet, are these lies or bitter truth?
We have no choice in what we do?
Those twins wrenched apart at birth,
Meeting later find their lives
Identical in every way.
Pressing these keys I think I know
But then I don’t. It’s all been said
Before, in some past tomb
A mind lies quiet; he’s played his part:
This is their law.
- Derrick Gaskin
(added 04.04.12)
A PAD OF HIS OWN
Beneath the old pier, a hand scrapes
Wet sand into sketches, carving artistry from
Within him, pulling the crowd, who watch
Over the rail and throw into his bucket
Their coined applause. A metallic clap for this
Still life, culled from a husk of the sea.
A hulk of a man, never showing his face,
Bent over his work, he oscillates
From boot to boot. From hip to head,
A woolly thick knitted spine suddenly collects
Its wages and then with meticulous timing,
Vanishes, just before the ocean spawns;
A shifting glaze, through which
The artist’s visuals can still be observed.
His London Skyline becomes
The Underwater City, its muffled churches
Stifled by a pulsating angelus of waves.
The etched mane of horses and the wet fur
Of dogs, cats: these drown quietly
Under bubbling ripples.
And then surging from the deep, thick
Opaque slices, slabs obliterating
Each deliberate line. Mouths and deeply gouged
Eyes shut forever by the shapeless being
Lunging at the beach. Ordinarily incredible,
Hard to imagine, this liquid body being dragged
By its tail, thrown back in a heap.
Yet this is the way of it.
When the quiet industry of a beaten surf
Rolls out its shores of yesterday, as if...
As if there had never been, mistakes, fools
And foolish dreams, you could
Almost believe that this, then, is life:
A smooth unending slate – wiped clean.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 02.01.12)
editor's note: Each day we start tabula rasa. The rising of the sun lights an empty page; yesterday's scrawl wiped clean by the waves. - mh
AFTER WE’VE GONE
Heat shakes the still resistant air.
In shy silos, thorn trees stand guard.
The sun cruises. Noon dust
Clouds argument in the lion’s throat.
Dewlaps of blood dry-clean
Inaudible protest.
The cheetah coils
To a sprung escapement.
His shrunken head rolls below,
Barely keeping abreast,
Of the following
Hump of his shoulder. Casually
He puts the menu down
And orders lunch, does not complain
At the service.
On the stroke of sundown,
The dark shadow
Of an elephant’s face
Vegetates. Antelope parade
Their banners, their ears
Unfurl. Surely they vanish.
The dusk, uncertain, returns.
- Derrick Gaskin
(added 02.01.12)
The Collector
The sun sets
Shivers on the evening.
The dog inhales weaknesses
These woods bring
To his cold muzzle.
I unclip a steel ring from its chain.
Half beagle, pure dog,
He measures to no one –
For an hour he’ll worry creatures who alone
Store the earth’s few treasures.
‘That’s enough!’
Only his tail and paws stop as I call out
In rough Old English.
Tongue-tied by my small mind,
He pees in a buttercup.
The trees suddenly give up.
Alone in the clearing,
He nuzzles the tall sky.
I am brought to my knees
As fingers twirl in tufts above his heart
Where quiet strands unwind my nerves,
His eyes clear and guiltless, destroy
My collection of fear.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 12.03.11)
editor's note: Yes, let's exchange our cowardly contraband for the canine collection. They're the gods and we the domesticated pets. Give your god a rump-scratch; store up treasures in heaven. - mh
One Day
I’ll slip into the driving seat,
Steering the world out
Of this long dark tunnel,
Friends following me
Shouting directions
Their voices raking me
Like sullen bullets.
Our first glimpse of the new planet
Will be a skyline fringed with whispering trees,
A crown of hills with emerald lakes,
And beings lining the roads
With offerings of hot tea
Fresh bread and new ideas
For our hunger –
We are starving,
Yes, they know it,
It’s been so long
Since the dawn
Was so generous
To people like us.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 10.16.11)
editor's note: I'll crawl into the back seat of that car and let the driver take us to that day. Let's go! - mh
OPEN DAY OF A STRANGER
Dawn
Breaks a year
Of delicate mornings. Untouched,
You remain a statuette. You turn
Pages, fragments of a magazine;
Your eyes, reflecting cosmetic ads,
Deceptively wear me out;
Turn me down to a fading star.
You shrug; indifferent gestures, becoming
A different person: a chrysalis
Sealed from within. Surrounding you
Earthly words are frozen, holding
No surprise.
Burning-up
In rarefied air, I become
Unattached from your being.
Even passing you chair:
An acquired skill,
An estrangement of hands
Devoid of feeling.
Already having
Thrown clothes in a bag,
There remains
The simple act of opening a door;
Hoping my exit
Is without your thunderous applause.
I would prefer your tears
Or some of your old magic.
Those ancient ways you had,
Of arranging
A mid-morning falling of stars
For special celebrations.
Perhaps our precious days
Could be words in a magazine,
The legend would tell
Of ecstasy and the moon,
In the night your white throat
Arching, yearning for that sigh –
The sign of perfection.
Untouched.
Hung like a star.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 08.31.11)
WORRIES ME
Up there,
The acrobat who always keeps
His balance on the wire;
The pirouette, the dancing feet,
A secret glance towards the ground.
An earth that looks so soft, so far below:
The sweetness of a kiss, a gentle touch
Of sawdust in the spine.
The restfulness of sleep
Is all he needs.
And now,
The audience applauds and children squeal,
Their ice-creams held... and lovers feel,
Hands interwoven in a secret dark
Outside the spotlight beam.
They cannot sense his tired mind,
A body sick of perfect pace.
The peace,
The earth that looks so soft,
The sweetness of a kiss,
It only needs one step, one miss.
His final trick: he gathers in a ball
Above their heads. A triple somersault,
So easily it’s done.
Screams that fill his ears
Are music in a dream.
His mind so still
Like earth;
The acrobat, no longer
Worries me.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 07.17.11)
ONLY OF WORDS
Seven times you brush your hair
Lying on your pillow
Your hands above your head, you hear
Of tides that wind the sea,
Of knowledge and delusion.
To say goodbye, seven times I lie
That truth keeps to its own time,
That loneliness is real.
I take you by the hand and tell
Of leaves already turning pale,
Tell you of the tears of men
And you say, show me. Or do not show me
And your poems are nothing.
You say you do not wish to live,
So I talk, and talk. The room absorbs me.
I encourage your beauty, compare you
To a slender tree... like yellow leaves
Above your head your hands cast shadows...
Three times I write the poem.
Your fingers scurry
Like children late for school.
Your eyes burn like empty stars.
- Derrick Gaskin
(featured in the poetry forum 05.24.11) |
