White Bone Claws
White bone claws
against
tan wood patterned panels
with Etruscan silver keys
Do not confuse
snobbery
with style
says Yves .
Moment of
discontent
spent
in the anger
marscapone madness
dissipates.
The beauty of flowers
In a stone mausoleum
Embrace of Midnight Hours
You wash my body with water
and tiny crystals of dissolved salt.
The myrrh refused,
is now welcome,
and received with oils on skin
from rounded vials and bottles
of scented red and blue.
Rubbed on flesh is
fragrant cedar, cypress, myrrh,
and oil of Lebanon.
Tongue, arms, hands,
legs,and feet,
are motionless and limp,
stigmatized with love.
They reside here in limed spa
of striated stone,
so dimly lit by wick of lamp,
and laid out wavering candle.
I hear monotone music
of the chorus
of your beating hearts,
and the feel labour
of experienced hand.
Wrap me in the shelter of your linen
one final time
as in the womb
once long before,
celebrated
with flute and song.
When will I awake
from this narcotic state
to stir again
from my so deep,
and palliative sleep?
Irving
Irving,
I just read your verse.
Where are you
composing now?
Your words remain
and echo on the page .
What fine voice,
and what fine mind,
and what a heart
worthy of a
pharaoh or a king .
That fine voice,
that fine mind,
and the passion
In your heart,
with all its’ many lovers,
resided in
an old age home,
in a mental haze,
In your final days .
I can only hope
you had a garden
In the sun
there .
From “Ruminations of the Dead” by PWChaltas
Senile, My Sister Sings
By Irving Layton
Senile my sister sings. She sings
the same snatch of song over and over
in a quivering voice, her lips trembling
when she tries for the high notes. Her white
hair close cropped like a prisoner’s
and her unobstructed tongue lolling,
over her furrowed lip while her dentures
grin at us through a glass of water,
my sister is some kind of vocal chicken ,
especially when her small raisin eyes dart
from visitor to visitor as though about
to pluck worms out of their garments .
My heart breaks , remembering her beauty
and wit , the full mouth with a tale in it
she finally exploded our ears .
Is this my sister so frail and emaciated,
whose valour and go were family legends ,
her smiles so dazzling they made the roaches
leisurely roaming the walls of our kitchen
scurry behind the torn wallpaper
to hide there till the incandescence had passed?
Sing, my dear sister, sing
though your trembling lips break my heart
and I turn away from you to sob
and let the tears course down my cheeks ,
my grief held back by pride and even a kind
of exultance. You do not mourn or whimper,
you do not grovel before the Holy Butcher
and beg Him to spare your days ; or rock
silently like the other white haired biddies
waiting to be plucked from their stoops. No
though His emissary ominously flaps his wings
to enfold you in their darkness, you sing.
Your high-pitched notes must rile him
more than rage or defiance. You sing him
no welcome and if your voice trembles
it’s not fear or resignation he hears
but the crack voice of the elan vitale
whose loudest chorister you are , abashing Death
and making him skulk in his own shadow .
Signs
Sign on the Highway :
Life is a gift to be enjoyed . Happiness doesn’t have to be expensive .
Sign on A Cemetery Wall :
“Space Available ”
Sign on A Church::
“In an empire of lies, the truth is treason ” – George Orwell
PWChaltas 