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Home of acclaimed artist, writer & publisher T.S. "Steve" Minton. |
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Talking Back to the Trees, Part 2: Selected Poetry by T.S. Minton
So shall this be the year the flower explodes And scatters her petals in sacrifice To herald the time of the dream that heaves the
heart And spirals so swiftly upwards from whirly depths To meet soft-hued eyes that surrender, never fading To spark the flow of sweet nauseau mercy milk Rekindle the sprinkled leaves of wintergreen And revive the silver mystery of frost? Such was the sway of ensnaring illusion Set in play when her face I seized And all in a flash I saw it floating: Petals of the bloody, effusive rose Spreading for the sun Desire's unblemished complement Outward radiating, to me or so it seemed And so in the auditoreum the poetry reading droned
on The cascade of honeyed words blurred Though to her, girl veiled in mystery, I could
speak none Down that path to limbo went our chimerical meetings Where words would tumble And spill into conversations, hot mazes That lead to mysteries opening, like petalled
fingers That tip-toe toward that secret spot Where time stands still And the laudatory egg of bliss Too eruptive to bear Engulfs us And we drift in aftermath Toward the yearning depths of the swishy sea III Careening rip-roar of the blue-tinged sea Where amoebas spin round and round in halo'd light And the whoosh of akashic breath Brought from realms above by the cognate angels Toss me through time, a traveler, to dance the
primal dawn Though in the dying rays of the empty theater
called today I can only fail to trace the lineations of my
fine desire And no effort of imagination can move the halcyon
wave Let go of the pendulum, strange sailor! And let God let it come in all due time Electric green light pours from the lighthouse
of the mind And I see the silhouettes appear on the water's
horizon Like the glass-blown heat of a mirage An image, a faraway apparition of nuclear sentinels
so keen To surge and streak and wreak havoc Bringing the ash of apocalypse to bear With time so short, and the night so very long
and langorous Won't you traipse with me through the fields of
Avalon? We might stumble perhaps on pink meadows in repose And let the sharp stark tablets that record our
past Sink low into the murk and muck of everglades And Hades will not know which way we turn Why wait to find that in death all ends are known? Oh to dream, to pass through a liquid dimension And to visualize your doppelganger, quicksilvery
form Materializing to hot breath, breathing flesh To just pluck my slip-shod daydreams from their
web And smolder right through the seething vale To greet this steamy place of concrete streets Where the hermit has hid, he's hankered in silent
retreat In a cold place, the place where silence seeps Or will love come like snow that falls in the
desert Appearing suddenly, then gone, melted by the rising
sun? Will I be the arcane passerby who never dives Into the bubbling fountain of your soul? All the while the strangled ghosts of hometown
nights Spin round and round in roadside effigies to my
ire And we are no more to wonder: "Oblivion, is that what the messenger came to
claim?" And then, beneath the stationary moon How long will I wait For the sounds of celestial music to spur me on? There in the hazel light of the never known You will be the one born from the dark ash Who goes through life glowing like gold (Tucson, circa 1993) Vocabulary Akashic:
From Akasha, Sanskrit term for space or "ether," the primordial substance from which the four elements of antiquity
(fire, water, air, and earth) are derived. Halcyon:
1) "A bird identified with the kingfisher and held in ancient legends to nest at sea about the time of the winter solstice
and to calm the waves during incubation 2) calm, peaceful." Doppelganger:
"A spiritual or ghostly double or counterpart, esp. an apparitional double of a living person." ( Latter two definitions from Webster's New
Collegiate Dictionary, 1988 edition) "Reflections: On Writing" The moment remembered, rehashed in the mind Becomes a key To the free flow of artifice The moment lodged in the mind Gets made into a linguistic hieroglyph And the reality of events that slip and shift Becomes something more than it was And something less (fall 1991, "Conjecture
on the Night" The night runs deeper, Deeper than negligee falling may fathom Consider the way Black eye-liner lingers Just until dawn usurps With her rosy-petalled fingers The sting of forgetful wine Brings an unconscious litany of snowflakes... Melting, just wishing I had Ah, the power to streak your face While the night's as inbred and woven As all your father's chosen habitudes And the rude, unseemly Unmelting moon Sloughs behind a symbolic dark cloud Aloud, the silence of phasing stars Unamazing for their vibrant discharge Of rings in apparitional white The night means black. (Boston University, winter 1989 - 1990) "Apres" Hey there, O Mr. Director above (from
your omniscient angles unseen)
Was it you who did the deeds that're done
And determined the denoument Of the wee and woeful human strain? Under those blazing lightbeams
We'll all, inevitably, have to be Face to face With the why behind a why Behind
the mask, penultimate, in vain
Flying unfettered toward the cosmic scribble Strewn across the face of the vast Circling
Shining
Shimmering
Smiling Soul (Home
found within, at last,
not far away, not dreams) And he so sly, here Lighting, puffing his cigarette Blowing smoke rings which swirl upwards and disappear (1st version at "The milk-rich
flow of memories" The milk-rich flow of memories Can be recovered like peeling an artichoke Layer by layer Until you find yourself, a tiny child In back of a pick-up truck rolling with grown-ups Rumbling down the road Then the mattress suddenly flies off And tumbles away, spinning down the street Doing crazy cartwheels off into infinity (Boston University, circa 1989) "Fear" Pillow-hiding from the red-eyed wolf Who paddles slowly by Row, row, rowing his wooden boat Billows of smoke curl from his eyes Icicles lit by flames surreal Drip, drop like funereal tears My eyes in frozen horror stare Through the open window, cob-webbed no more (Boston University, circa 1989) "Summer haiku:
Footprints in the sand, Seaweed in a swirl of waves "At Beach uncomely, riddled with waste Like a hit of crack, you start and it's so hard To stop, so easy since everybody else is Equally implicated, just one more fritter
a paper bag
a piece of crab (but that's nature's litter)
a plastic straw
a shovel and pail through with a day's castle ephemera
soda cans (pollute the sands)
and a cruddy litany of etc.'s Negate anyone's responsibilities So it seems, as the waves keep doing their thing And the seagulls dip down low Sure never to touch or come down too near The sunbathers Undaunted as a spectre Amid the fruitflies of the damned (Boston, summer 1990)
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