John Silver
Twelve Poems
around the bright sky
the purple mountains lie
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When One Becomes Two
when your god ripped the rain
out of my skull you were
standing near engulfed
by fallen floods
he strained you
into something pure
something realized
when he caught your hands
tearing paper into thunder
he sent you to pray with his servants
bowing down away from your sorcery
to fill his churches and temples
with an army of Jobs
only they pointed out to you
by their voices
yelling through
blood rusted screen doors
slamming enigmatic messages
into the night
and you
walking slowly through
his desert
losing consciousness
always and never
reaching you were
sitting on the platform bench
waiting for a next train
searching out another first choice
so you could make it second
you could not have left more easily
Song Of The Garden
in the breeze the gate is squeaking
in the garden waiting
white and yellow crocuses
they were not there yesterday
when did you see them
growing briskly
through the snow
losing the edge
of the whitest of winters
leaving as if it were never here
before
crows are up screaming
mocking us from
everywhere
on soft cloudy days
red leaves in the clearing
they still call out to you
in every way
grass growing through them
wind spinning rustles
into every day
my thoughts were forever
i can not think them
anymore
THE QUARRY
bells are ringing
in a small church
on the way to the quarry
we think we can listen
to what’s missing
when steel on stone rings it speaks
the stone is then smashed into gravel
flowing downward
with a hollow scraping sound
along galvanized steel chutes
into piles along a barren drive
as we walk our way home
a strong wind blows an ache
into our ears
gripping us
until we hear again
the bells
Song Of The Green Forest
inside the green forest
growing up from the ground
you see everything true
it’s all moving shadows are trailing
over mosses and red fallen leaves
barren branches reaching for space
floating swallows still in their flight
can they not see me anymore?
running water floating the drifted snow
away from my sight
you make everything new
then you cast me into the white day
your gray eyes twisting everywhere
can you not hear me anymore?
inside the green forest holding your distance
moving it northward in every way
around the bright sky
the purple mountains lie
they softly fade
my shadow
CASSANDRA
only Apollo knew
the truth of your prophecies
but he would never lift
the vengeful curse
he placed on them
time jams forward
crunching into
a cascade of symbols
spilling ahead of itself
in an order
only transparent
to you
numbered days
condense to a pale doom
standing there
in front of your lover’s palace
in a dream faster than life
amidst that scent of
future’s blood
waiting for the heavy gates
to swing themselves open
unable to change their momentum
your destiny
an approaching reality
even you
could not believe
and so you waited
for Clytemnestra’s axe
and the roll of your head
in the street
ON THIS DARK AFTERNOON
on this dark afternoon
I saw into the rain
your illuminated image
reflected in wet cobbles
as the water grew deeper it sustained
a temporary equilibrium
above the grate
I thought of you leading me
into your journey of no direction
to your door of surrender
our complexity of circumstance
was so convincing
you said you wanted
to pay your final debt
to get rid of it all
your final reach for freedom
perhaps in a singular location
where the beginning of all
ends accumulate
IN EARLY NOVEMBER
in early November
when i saw shadows moving back
before they turned to lengthen
in a different direction
in a different clinging
to a new path,
standing there
at the turn
in the clear embrace
of a broken life
i found you there
inside a brief moment
but perhaps not brief enough
to defeat reason
the drab eternal colors
and the temporary ones
surrounding us
with a mirror of sights
including a precipice
cutting through hands
grasping pointed cliffs
suggesting a surrender
to the air of birds
or gravity
letting go of this view
of reaching out
and autumn walking blindly
The Witch
he was in his battle dream
when they shot his Sopwith from the air
they tossed him on a plank
with some demon corpses there
they couldn’t stop his bleeding
and the doctors didn’t care
but an old hag of a nurse appeared
digging earth for a deeper trench
all the while she counted numbers
downward as they went
she shouted out each integer
till a spell formed clot appeared
coagulating all of it
into one
dark spot of war
A Light In The Door
old ghost we know
you are your work
it was only you
holding on to dark expectations
we tolerated your critical presence
while your hidden lenses
tracked and tricked us into
timeless corridors of distortion
slinking down
you slanted us deeper
into hidden negativity
all concealed
in a hovering ancestral will of deceit
barely detectable
primitive
secure in its other directives
who would believe
you would tighten
and frighten us
but we resisted
if only by catching
some clear sun
through a light
in the door
In The Motion Of Breezes
when all the cast out pages
flame and crumble
into carbon scraps
the dark mirror on the door
will be a way through it
we tried to bury you here
far from your enemies
but even now their hatred
rattles our windows
your life, a twisted code in flight
injects into our visions
we raise them up to clarify
in the flutter of burnt paper
in the motion of breezes
Walking The River
we found a way
to a thoughtless kiss
a consciousness
at once apart from
our separate intentions
an act of defiance
and then a trimming down
a containment of an essence
of what’s really true
and so what else?
a core of regret?
another list of wrong turns?
heavy clouds conceal this sun
only a few rays streaming through
no where to go but rain
and then some boats
blasting their horns
Dream Memory
there was a
band swaying
with dirges
in top hats
all in black
a hand was sweeping
in the steeple
where the birds of Ashmore flew
a chapel door
of colored glass
and a coffin painted blue
there was a garden near
the arches where the horses
trotted through
John Silver grew up Cold Spring Harbor, L.I. Does covers, poems for Tamarind a coalition magazine. Hosted Tamarind Collation for 10 years. Moved to Westbeth. Published in AND THEN, and other anthologies. Hosted Westbeth readings. Curator of The Image and The Word Exhibition at the Westbeth Gallery. Two Books of poetry (UNDERFIELD PRESS). Contributed covers and poems to White Rabbit and other anthological constructions. John Silver also paints.
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