poetry

The Dark Lady Revisited by Dale Williams Barrigar

(Images by DWB)

If forced or requested to select my favorite character in all of Shakespeare other than wild and wily Shakespeare himself, it would probably have to be the Dark Lady (or at least today it would definitely be the Dark Lady).

She is Good Will’s Mary Magdalene.

Anyone who’s ever loved a brilliant, promiscuous, raven-haired Spanish woman with darkly olive-colored skin and a shady reputation (to say the very least) will understand the attraction.

Her musical and poetic and intellectual abilities, her independent spirit and the fact that she inspired all this (all these deathless sonnets by the Western world’s greatest writer other than those who wrote the Bible) are her greatest calling cards.

“I do believe her, though I know she lies,” is one of my all-time favorite lines of poetry.

There have been myriads of scattered interpretations about the shades of meaning contained in this line.

And I know just what it means.

It’s about, among other things, Shakespeare’s voyeuristic obsessions and jealousies; and mine.

Dale Barrigar Williams

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Cat Woman by Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by DWB)

Loving lady at the end

of the block, you were once an

urban cougar with a single silky black

feline.

But time passed, as it must.

It is a lot of them that haunt you now, I see.

The lizard-eyed landlord tried

to evict you many times.

Then they came, and did evict

you eventually, for this.

The cats were scattered, or rounded up

and taken away, somewhere, some when.

Shakespearian Cat Woman you fought them,

and tried to escape them,

you died for them, you plied them with

fine liquor, wine, and gold eye shadow, and you

heavily sighed.

But when they took the cats away,

did you know,

did you know then that this

was only the ethereal end

of one more love?

And do you now, do you ever remember

me, at all?

And how?

Dale Williams Barrigar

REPOSE AND SILENCE: A DIRGE FROM THE EARTH By Dale Williams Barrigar

THERE WHERE WINGS ARE FOLDED

THE SILENT SOUND OF THE SUN’S CENTER

IS SEEN,

IS SEEN,

GOING, GLEAMING.

…

STREET WALKERS WALKING THE STREETS

HOLY HANDS OF THE MINSTRELS

IN THEIR OWN PRIVATE INFERNOES

124,000 STRONG

WHO SING

THEIR OWN SONGS.

…

LITERATE SOCIETY IS

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

TALENTED MONKEYS RUNNING THE CIRCUS NOW

ALL MY DAUGHTERS AND SONS.

…

WHEN FICTIONS LIKE THESE

BEGIN TO OPERATE AS REALITIES

WITH HUMBLE HUNGRY HIGHWAYMEN

GOING THEIR WAYS, ECSTATIC MEDIEVAL FEMALE

SAINTS REJOICING IN PAIN, IT IS TIME NOW

TO BATHE IN MY SEAS OF THEIR MYSTIC RESIGNATION.

GOOD FRIDAY IS COMING TODAY.

…

BUT CAN YOU FEEL THE INVISIBLE RING

AROUND THE PEBBLE

IN THE PALM

OF MY HAND.

…

AND

YOUR TREMBLING EARS

AND PURIFIED EYES

SO YOU SHALL

WALK FORTH

STRUT FORTH

AND STRIVE INTO THE SILENCE OF

IT:

THE FURTHER BEYOND.

Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by Dale Williams Barrigar)

The Sung Coyote by Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images by Dale Williams Barrigar)

I see her in the symphony rain

with her gown falling off

her shoulders

and the rain

in her eyes that is

her and her tears

in the blue rain.

…

And I saw the Sun Coyote

I called her the Sun Coyote

because she was in the yellow sun

licking her healing wound

in a green field

near creek-side sedge.

And I knew she was OK.

And I sang

quietly inside.

Dale Williams Barrigar and Boo

Saragun Verse: Every Line Sells a Hoary Glory

i

Money shoots up veins and noses

And from bar brawls to city jails

It catches Tigers by the Jim Crow-zus

Don’t go out unless you bring nuff bail

ii

Money dropped on spats and bolos

Adult diapers and bikini waxes

It buys hits on mafio-so-sos

Sooner or later we’re all game for whack-zus

iii

Money is what bellows louder

Than the crow of the power cock

Grind dem bones into fine powder

Then sneak it from hull to dock

iv

Money drives Rats in the river

Who swim faster than the fed

They earn evil gold that quivers

The green orafices of the dead

v

Money is what we are after

It’s a lie to counterfeit

We are invested by the master

As its old age benefit

vi

And yet money can play the hero

When at last the check has cleared

All them crooked numbers and zeroes

Following a faith backed sum so dear

vii

Two for one indulgence funnery

Glitter wacko-jacko clerics devour

Best to get thine child to a nunnery

Ere the Vicar’s bitcoin is empowered

from Icicles…by A.J. Huffman

(Ed note–We are pleased to present the site debut of A.J. Huffman, with five looks at the mysteries of icicles–The Eds.)

from Icicles this Anticipation

The point is: creation takes

more than seven days. A lifetime

of would-be Sundays disappear

one drip at a time. Liquid tears race

down suicidal slide. Will they beat

the wind, land on chilled cushion

of accumulated drift? Never

count out Southeasterlies,

their decimating gusts hold the most

aggressive drops in stasis till nearly invisible

dagger welcomes them to blade.

from Icicles this Ephemerality

Solid is circumstantial,

hanging in the four corners of any home.

External forces alternate retention,

dissolution. Air and sun

are keys, constant pressures

to be endured. Foundations

are fragile. Cracks

quickly turn into shattering falls.

from Icicles this Fragility

Metal may be monumental,

but its grip is tenuous

turmoil of balance. Temperatures

rise. Reactions hold

no depth. Eyes can see

through every attempted defiance.

Angry breath releases frigid finger.

All that is left is silence,

absence, the answer

to gravity’s call.

from Icicles this Reflection

Nature holds certain

affinities for symmetry, inherent

need for balance. Clouds

contain liquid, precipitate solids

that accumulate, generate heat, melt

back to liquid, fall

into the wind, freeze solid, form

a point. Everything disappears

inside itself. Eventually.

from Icicles this Refraction

Solid is sometimes temporary,

lacking visual

purpose, transparent.

Such reflective moments echo with potential.

The seemingly invisible see

the world with unshadowed eyes.

A.J. Huffman

(Image is of the poet)

ALF by John Grey

Today, you’re looking at your hands.

You’re thinking time has made a mistake

and those palms are far too rough and course

for someone your age.

Yet you remember the uncle

who fell and never got back up.

That’s not you.

At least, not yet.

You’re always fending off an attack, you say.

Or are in need of hammer and nails.

There’s work to be done –

on a bookcase

and maybe even on your frontal lobes.

You do your share of pacing.

You’ve had it with people who are

always threatening to shoot.

You’re concerned by all the books you’re not reading.

And your job – what you call shoveling shit.

Yesterday, a friend took sick.

He’ll be in hospital for a month.

You don’t care much for your neighbors

but you respect their differences.

You miss your wife.

And your sanity is not fully engaged

with what’s happening in your head.

You prefer your dark room of sleep

to most company.

And you see the Earth as an ark,

floating through space,

constantly ditching the ones

who can no longer pay their way.

You stand in the doorway,

feel the draft of the world’s grief.

And yet there’s still

this small persistent heat.

John Grey

(Image by CJA)

Self-Educating by John Grey

The boy is learning

what to do

with his own tiny steps.

Beyond diapers

and breast-feeding,

he’s onto the good stuff,

knocking a glass

from the coffee table,

getting his fingers caught

in doors of cabinets,

toppling and

landing on his jelly bones.

He’s putting stuff

in his mouth.

He’s touching

what is there to feel.

He’s embracing a teddy.

He’s tossing it

out of the crib.

He’s trying out

his knees, his elbows,

his arms, his legs.

He even bleeds a little

now and then.

Or runs into a wall.

And he cries –

why not-

his voice must be there

for some reason –

hungry, thirsty,

hot, cold,

or simply bored –

they’re all an excuse

for sound.

And so it’s

push, pull, reach, fall, rise –

it’s choreography for little people.

John Grey

Being Me by John Grey

The fault, if there is one, lies in the way

my days keep shedding parts of speech.

Loose nouns roll under the furniture.

Verbs are still warm from use.

Adjectives get up my nostrils

whether they’re sweet perfumes

or rotting stench.

Even the adverbs cling like burrs.

Punctuation is all over the place.

I bump into quotation marks

and those oddball semi-colons.

I trip over commas on the floor.

Cut me. Please do.

You’ll see that what emerges

is not blood but a clause, a syntax.

Dig further and you’ll come up with a handful

of half‑formed paragraphs.

With any luck, they’ll still be breathing.

I didn’t know, back when I first

slipped into a book, that it was an IV line,

a drip-feed of people talking on buses,

or quarreling in kitchens,

or riding to the rescue

or wrapped up in the satin sheets of romance.

Every gesture they made left a bruise

in the shape of a sentence.

Call it a birthmark. My mother, carrying me,

startled by a sponge, or an encyclopedia,

or a poet declaiming to no one in particular

on a park bench. Something lodged early.

So who’s to blame when language

flutters around my skull

like moths drawn to a porch light.

My head can only hold so much.

If I don’t empty it onto a page,

there’s the real risk.

My brain could bust.

Imagine the mess.

You’d either have to

clean up the spill or read it.

John Grey

(Image by DWB)

Homeless in Winter by John Grey

(Today we welcome back poet John Grey. Get used to seeing him over the next four days!–The Eds.)

From a gray and restless sky,

the snow comes down like a verdict.

Guilty, it says.

And the cold is ten degrees below mercy.

A leaf is torn apart, as is my face.

The wind makes no distinction

between what belongs and what’s been cast out.

Swirling drifts erase birds from the sky’s memory.

Shards of ice collide.

They pull me into their quarrel.

Am I, like them, a fragment blown off course.

A stray cat wails from the pain of exposure.

A rabbit disappears into the earth before night can claim it.

A mouse finds entry in wall

sealed tight against the likes of us.

Somewhere, I tell myself, a fire still burns for me.

And a woman waits with an embrace warm enough to unmake winter.

But that is a country I can no longer reach.

For now I walk the frozen floorboards of this weather,

unable to think of anyone else’s suffering,

not with all this needling, this stabbing,

this piercing reminder of where I cannot ever be.

Tonight, it’s my turn.

I’m the one

who needs dragging in from the streets.

John Grey