A Circle of Bones Poetry by Gil Hagen Hill
©2018 by Gil Hagen Hill All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of written reviews. ISBN: 978-0-9997784-0-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018941679 First edition
PO Box 5301 San Pedro, CA 90733 www.lummoxpress.com Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments The publisher would like to thank Norm Davis for picking Gil’s poetry; Sermonette was previously published in Hazmat Literary Review (Clevis Hook Press). A Peculiar Shade of Moonlight was previously published in Lummox 6 (Lummox Press).
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Contents
4—A
New Start
5—A
Paragraph In Hell
6—All
That’s Left of 4th of July
8—Always
North
10—Anticipating 11—A
Madness
Tense Servitude
12— Dream
And Dream
14— Except
The Remembering
15— Falling
Sunward
16— First
Watch
18— Flowers 19— How
for the Dead
Else Can I Paint Thee
20— I
Got the… TS Eliot Blues
22—I
Think
24—In 25— It
Six Seconds
Is In The Grieving
26— Kites 27—A Peculiar Shade of Moonlight 28— Koyaanisqatsi 30— Me
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A New Start Orion’s belt in a clear sky, the early morning falling about my shoulders, a chill all around me- an ache glowing in the darkness, a cabin in winter. A dry soft snowfall on the ground, a big rough coated tomcat at the backdoor looking for leftovers… the mountainside quiet save for the whispering tea kettle. Outside the kitchen window like a bare foot mystic standing in the snow hearing voices out of slender air, warming the car up scraping ice off the windscreen dreading the drive to town… foreseeing terrible trouble not knowing how accurate this divination was to be… looking up I see you glaring out the kitchen window the road to town slick. The destination unimportant; the journey to prove a point that wasn’t worth proving… a life falling apart making way for a new start… always… a new start maybe this time there will be a finish… the tea kettle left whispering the tomcat gone hungry.
—4—
A Paragraph in Hell Scrawled at my feet- a paragraph in hell the brawl to be one’s self, a clause in the face of paradise - a mountain in the clouds those around us who in the image of dust would have us be them - like laughing mouths; a grammatical error roaming the earth looking in vain for a declarative sentence. From another room I hear rain against the window. Parenthetically, we are a black-and- blue metaphor; my legs entwined in yours – a prodigal romance, an afterthought – scarified fleshy details we drank plum wine lighting white candles sweet as Baby’s Breath. A second verse after the falla genesis, our yielding to temptation coming and going, (parenthesis), your young breast drooping in my eye I will always see the chair being kicked out from under us- a flagging surrender - the face in the mirror sniggers – oh how that campaign drags oneaten alive, my dear one; gone one step closer to the insubstantial qualifier – the wrong period semi-colon revelation is us; in us; paragraph in the life infernalperiod.
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All That’s Left of Fourth of July Standing talking, leaning over the kitchen sink eating a very ripe peach juice and sticky pulp running down my chin. Barefoot, June first fruit… hot winds wound the skin, wet eyes smarting a smudged recollection: a pie crust, peach pie all that’s left of Fourth of July. The days grew shorter - come September 101 degree weather sweat drenched. Melon season heady laced with melancholy. A distant thunderstorm lighting the mountain side miles away the rumble barely audible ragged muffled tympanic. Someone else is talking, shouting, singing. Night fall, a different summer… seems it was August… a spoonful of blackberry sorbet a trace of charcoal scent… a sip of Cabernet… a full liter… was I sleeping when you came in? Traffic noise… other voices roll tumble down a nearby hill side no rain, no mist, no fog , a dusty moonless sky- then quiet -then a song thin high breathy note holding a relic past life words strung on a wire slow decay. Duplicity solitude a chronology skittles and spins. A preponderance of evidence to a contrary journey just started a road dissipating … free will just out of reach. Preposterous, a peach pie melon sorbet memory jumbled decomposing, the body at rest remains at rest: a soul restless but somewhere all these occurrences —6—
coalesced colluded to make you come back why is this soliloquy harping on a long forgotten misshapen continuum an argument about the soul’s instability weak… contingent… easily driven off course evil and sinful…the cause not effect…you weren’t there that night she was…and he with you…your letter said…or I said…guilty by implication…a ripe peach standing signifying something lost nothing gained…yes I’d been sleeping then waking now in my impermanent coat my collar up…your hand in mine…we wait and wait.
—7—
Always North* From the sea – we wet and primitive blinking, lungs frail, bones soft we harden in time our breath but echoes pale and thin – back to salt water the needle always north quickening the pace reckoning a cold faint star: mercy a dream- liars grown old- child see us remember this conceit. Unraveling the sky grey and vague, the horizon a zaftig goddess – the sea heavy. Are you there in the shadow Estragon? Et tu, Vladimir? Somewhere on deck - Lucky and me the truth being nothing to believe in –as night begins to fall… we natter a tincture of sweet sentimentsour souls attenuated our anaclisis complete. Sing – prey upon this behemoth life or it will prey on you; truth child, I have pleaded with Ariadne to give us a thread… truth child …we talk, we sail, we search weak limbed on land sightless the monster beckons. Call me Teufel call me Cristo - call me nothing at all. Virgam et lineam hamum et escam —8—
bind my dragons - pull the cord tighter round my neck. I’ve scribbled this love letter on the masthead – child, truth bleeds despair. Always wild always slippery, truth child - you and I and all the rest always north. Child you’ve grown so quickly Another listen child, another listen you’ll hear the music soon enough. *See reading list
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Anticipating Madness Like an Old man shambling forestalling madness tilting the fabric of life thread bare. Eyes glaze over looking down at the side walk, leaves falling, broken, cracked faces mingle mouthing surrender a phalanx of citizen soldiers fight an endless war against an endless list of once allies, once enemies for state, for nation for mammon, for profits bloody hands blacken, I am the anarchist that won’t let the bomb go.
— 10 —
A Tense Servitude “…slave to ideas contrary to observation…alien redemption for a previous existence” From Henri-Charles Purch “The Concept of Redemption in Manichaeism “ 1936 A tense servitude…a circle squared I am the first sinner in line… a traitor… a non-believer Judas Iscariot close behind Trundling toward Aceldama - potter’s fieldin vain – I weep- you laugh- birds sing love out of time – the wolves begin to howl is it ever love at all? We die a little each day…moths into the candle flame we see and we saw and we steam ahead only to fall behind… arriving at one more threshold – one more deference… one more series of false starts…a delusionloving rips off another precious mask and excoriates us…skins usour consciousness blurts out a primal imago birds don’t do that wolves don’t do that moths don’t do that. It is our nature to behave so. Maybe there needs be a mandatory council in the garden of Eden, maybe Eve ought to rebuke the snake give back the fruit that gave us knowledge of our nakedness; to perceive good and evil. We ought put an end to contemplating our own passing because we will pass…all our sins our loves… our indifference left behind. — 11 —
Dream And Dream Theseus and the Minotaur roving in my Labyrinth… dream… fancy… dark and close stone passages- a preposterous head carried on hulking shoulders and tender loins… and you… my constant companion; a vast shadow - elbows swollen holding the heavy span borne by tedium – oh please not here… a horror, a loss - deep bone deep dozing, a lurking secretmy slight, my dark aficionado shimmering… beckoning and hovering… icy silence crumbling … a future… the past a crying sparrow… oh please not now… suspended nowhere and quiet… not here… not now… A red moon; a half spoken elision smoldering and ashen… a high hot wind… a wailing… another year is measured… oh please not yet… light years… light years… distance not time… residual bluish starlight… a long lingering… a touch - space and moment cause and sky opaque … an instant blinks by… the blade slips… Theseus is leaving… legs collapse — 12 —
hands still… feet planted lurching… fallen… the eyes open and close …the ears listen not hearing the head aches the bull staggers - an image after… I am Minotaur…please not yet… useless hunched back blood red – night hawkish harlequin black and ruby beast kneeling… sterile death kissing my ear… the distant peace… thunders and thunders my war is over and over. I dream and dream and dream… startle wake and stir kindle and rouse… I am thou who you are… who I am; I am …now… not yet oh please not yet… don’t say your name outloud… no… please not yet… not now… please…
— 13 —
Except the Remembering… The mentality of remember… cleaning out the old house taking out boxes, old shoes, a hint an abstraction , a fact -a ring, a sock, a penny, a picture frame, melancholia; the brick work of lament. A laugh, a dirge, motion, inertia- a narrow ledger of what had been gently adrift a measurement abandoned, with a grip like iron… memory casts another taunt down the hall- a wooden cane propped in the corner…use for it soon enough. Behind the small black dusty book shelf an empty cup a stitch in the center of the dream- when will we be able to say tomorrow and not look back that things will be different …on a highway out of town nothing is ever the same… except the remembering.
— 14 —
Falling Sunward In the moonlight wooing, bemoaning a dream, dark and laughingtucked away in a photo album she and I …then she was gone and I was gone, the world gone…we dreary and fogged pieces of one world falling sunward… she asked that we dance one last time… I lit a cigarette hesitating… it was a dream … vivid it was years ago. Blind clouds cover the egress to the old neighborhood… forty years spent… but there at the end of the lane Joanie’s house still painted the same colors… black and blue with a smile then a frown Joanie opened the blue door fragments, remains, fingers fumble… in the dark… tumbling pieces…smoking rubble, she pulls at me falling sunward… I gently stroke her neck a smile, a tendered kiss what we had forgotten what we’d never hada poverty of spirit plummeting angels in the moonlight wooing falling in abstraction.
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First Watch Cones and rods, retina, vision… first watch the ocean gray blue vast a creaking wooden deck a squawking gull a single boat whistle screeching… hearing high and low… pitch and yaw deep dark evening silting down this empty moment this nightfall like no other…click the shutter opens chemicals capture this second…second sight a bell sounds- second hearing second chances… not in the dark- things change and the moon rise washes the surrounding sea a pale glow …a sand bar a shoal of fish perhaps… startled awake in my chair the moon a festering regret illuminating piles of books… bits and pieces stops, starts, a map…a world globe a dot in a matrix of galaxies a swirl in a pond…a small boat on an open sea — 16 —
an apparitionthoughts stream like noiseless portents… vision, hearing, high and low…pitch and yaw… the last watch…one more apology is not enough…is it likely nothing but an anomaly an errant protein an electrical dischargereally is that all it is…really…
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Flowers for the Dead Flores palamos muertos Flores palamos muertos Flores palamos muertos Flowers for the dead A black rain begins to fall On every street corner Hunger I see them the flowers In men’s eyes Greed Flowers for the dead wilted Avarice Flores palamos muertos Usury Flores palamos muertos War Flores palamos muretos Flowers for the dead The black rain falls and falls Flores… flores… flores… Palamos muertos… flores
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How Else Can I Paint Thee… For eyes not yet born for teeth not yet formed a tongue not yet supple broad meter in an antique song, Pandora left the most dangerous burden from the box to issue last … if at all… hope has plagued the world and changed the cruel innocent… and innocent cruel… kings and queens jacks and fools… the world has lost tens of thousands to a vicious card game -a wretched world- a fetching world -a hole in the cosmosbang, rhythm, yin and yang - word contraptions a utensil born, grows, dies… a motif an existence made of words… a monster or ghost naked and clothed how else can I paint thee profane and sacred, willing and meandering, oblivious… ornamental eyes to see, ears to hear- a despairing wasted landoh to see the painted pottery dollop it red hope is unconscious- hope is blind.
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I Got the God, Gawd, Goddess, Gaza, End of the World, T.S. Eliot Blues… And so I begin to speak before the lord…asking about Gaza As if anyone really gives a rat’s ass? Hubris whimpering in league with the Satan…a bang hubris - the unseen avalanche before the flood. Calling out God, Gawd, Goddess Yahweh, Zeus, Jupiter, Aphrodite, Christ, Allah, Jehovah…Gaza? Aeschylus spoke of God’s awful grace Agamemnon’s folly his story a daughter fearless and broken split his pride hid a ruined carcass …a son unburied became wisdom or something like it; we die, we are reborn in anguish. A silent crime…Gaza… a neighbor perisheswar is murder, hell is war…a mass of lobotomies might work it makes as much sense silence becomes enmity, an antipathy- foe to all. Mass before an open grave unfiltered, unaltered order to the chaos….God here our plea…
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see our depravity, my confession confusion, confounded, cussedness… here our plea…it drips like bitter acid with a whimper? …is this way the world ends?…Gawd awful
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I THINK THERE… Is
a horn growing over my left eye…
a reflection in the glassy sea… Leukothea* in the left eye and Hera of hearts in the right… my oubliette…my prison, my prism a shallow sea a silent ship a small ship sails… slips on an ebb tide… susurrus… Chronos is swallowing a stone in a blanket an oblique rubric an endless floating down through interminable clouds… mythos … a slight and skeletal change in perception… Argos…eyes and eyes… a thousand eyed sky sees infinitesimal cracks in the bulge above my sinister left eye a fragile chance… a recollection of something ingenuous? a fractal glowing… three pink embers in a warm bed a few years… a few minutes ago the past a cradle rocking in a hurricane… I see you … rocking falling stony silent… I reach for your attention and the grate slams shut silence… silence rests and rests… the consequences … events and secrets… sequences, sequences interminable relentless swirling drifting across The sea … green eyes your eyes… smile sweetly… before your long blonde hair fell out… a bucket on a rope sloshing water on dry lips… a hole in the ceiling Uranus and Gaea sleep… a prism — 22 —
the wall sea foam green… the hole in the sky blue swallowing… a horn is growing… a broken one at that… … your lips are dry… sequences… I sign for you to sign… you sign gesture nod… your eyes gone… your eyes gone *Greek goddess of Sea Foam
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In Six Seconds… Six seconds fifty odd years past. A pink dress white in the photograph. Blood stains- dark blotches. Red roses black in a pale white hand eyes hollow, smudged mascara. A blue white fluorescent shadow light glinting an insubstantial rain falling. Facts muddled, tongues thick. Just hours before smiles and handshakes. Six seconds, fifty odd years past. A gaping head wound, a forgotten Friday fixed on grainy film. Rumors about a debt to be paid: sins of the father, theories, inquests, details , a family curse… in six seconds.
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It Is In the Grieving Do You Hear the Keening… I am writing, I am writing I am chanting, I am chanting I am a nabob floating in an endless seething circle… sliding toward the unmoving crux… nonsense! I am lying, I am lying… I am singing, I am singing… I am Nimrod and my third eye is closed… I am laughing, I am laughing, laughing… possessed… see the tiny yellow jacketed figure eternal… he is tapping at the window… not without dying… dying not without thriving… thriving. It’s only our life, it’s only Life… a dreaming… it is not caring… it is the old house burning… wax candles melting on the hardwood floor… life is cheap… too fast then gone. It is in grieving that we are reminded… reminded and reminded of the tenuous embrace… I search for a remedy and rear off the floor… the skin of my upper lip begins to bleed… I am bleeding… I am bleeding. In twilight limbo… our house the old place is burning passion, passion… do you hear the keening… we’re already bereaving… bereaving… — 25 —
Kites (In July) Paper kites caught Dangling on telephone wires Childhood hanged against A grey sky. Light wind late summer Foggy coast the temple bell Mute – prayer flags ripple The Buddha laughs. A stone wall borders Greenfields – slender legged A young woman dark haired Steps gingerly across damp grass, The sun struggles, warms Through the dense silent mist A small child points, “Look, Papa, Kites! Kites!”
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A Peculiar Shade of Moonlight… Under a peculiar shade of moonlight this particular Night, let’s just say I’d been reading Yeats, Before finally falling asleep, his play, “On Baile’s Strand”, there’s Cuchulain gone Mad in his war frenzy muttering, “this mouse that’s gnawing At the timbers of the world!!! …” I wake screeching, “Pay attention to the grist, the morsels and bits!” Oh, we have come to know how ordinary This tapestry becomes, because of birth, Because of death, that copper taste on the Tip of the tongue – provenance; a bloodied River; a frequency of occurrence, statistics Modified, massaged, a messaged history, Phantom of truth streams through the wobble of this war Or the next one and next. Oh that chill frost of an Early morning fray beneath the cold distant stars Now what is left for us to do? It’s like screaming at a phantom limb. That’s how it is sometimes in the deepest blue Of any given night when the war continues to Rage and the fleshy parts of us burn when Children grown old contort before our midnight Eyes… and there is a house with a mouse gnawing At the timbers- the a sleek little bastard Has almost chewed through…yes, yes… What is left for us to do?
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Koya-ani-sqat-si * A mockingbird song singing nearer tree by restless tree it’s 3:00AM long past time for sleep sleepless coal trains rumble, clang bugle up from the harbor; thin whistles and ship horns warble mumbling grumble ceaseless screak, hoist and haul. Ocean air cool as a mausoleum spins through the spectral insect derricks relentless night hum, drone; hiss, rasp loading and unloading commerce. Diesel rigs - double doors - maws open to receive box upon crate - candle wicks dreams and dust. It’s 4:00 AM eighteen wheels gears whine climb up over the bridge desert bound out passed city lights east passed shadow buttes and coyote ruse in the moonlight: the trickster yowls chiding laughing; — 28 —
world out of balance whiff of smoke then gone. Dreamless the star quilt dims feathers pale twisting, twisting in silence. *From a Hopi Indian Proverb: world out of balance - life (nature) in turmoil.
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Me… Me… sprawled on the sofa, legs figure four the fool’s pose. Through the casement window a spring purple blossom visible, peripheral, incidental; you sitting in a corroded lawn chair, lace curtain in the window dingy. An old rickety fan turns the pages of a dog-eared book. On the veranda a table with a photograph of a young man and woman standing in an archway- a four poster in the background, penciled on the faded edge, Sausalito, 1971. The spider of despair crawls wistfully across their lips, a bottle of Merlot emptied not a giggle left the world unkind no place left to run. The past an emptied vessel.
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The LUMMOX Press was established in 1994 and has published the Little Red Book series; the Lummox Journal. It publishes chapbooks, a perfect bound book series (the Respect series), a Poetry Anthology & Poetry Contest (annually), and “e-copies” (PDFs) of all its books. The goal of the press and its publisher is to elevate the bar for poetry, whilst bringing the “word” to an international audience. We are proud to offer this book as part of that effort. For more information and to see our growing catalog of choices, please go to www.lummoxpress.com
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A circle of bones Poetry by
Gil Hagen Hill
“The past haunts these highly allusive poems, rich with thoughtful, precise images that convey ‘numinous ambiguities,’ as in the title poem. A Circle of Bones is a welcome addition to 21st-century American poetry.” —Clifton Snider, author of The Beatle Bump and Moonman: New and Selected Poems
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“Gil Hagen Hill’s poetry rises from deep within his soul with the force of a mythic oracle. Echos of Homer, Joyce and Whitman form the background chorus to a siren song that beckons us to enter into its mystery. And yet this poetry is so intensely personal, so grounded in our very real world, that it strikes at our heart.” —Frank Kearns, author of Circling Venice and Yearlings
This is a sample. To order the complete 60-page chapbook, please visit our website: www.lummoxpress.com