Category Archives: Marie Marchand

          
for Smile Like the Sun
          
          
You balance tip toe
       On a narrow shelf
Tucked behind the waterfall
       Soft glare of amber eyes
Ridge of shoulders strong
       Taste of salted water spray
Across your forehead, lips
       What I would give
       
       

Preparing to pierce
       The cascade, you linger
Calculate velocity
       Anticipate the angle of slice
Exact degree of tilt
       The sound of water-rush
Opaque, blinding
       Fingers strum the mist
To no avail, you are
       Lost in lightlessness
20 meters skyward
       Poised on a veranda
Set into the steep rockface
       
       

You must choose at random
       With hurried recklessness
One stark moment to
        Release your fear and
Fall blind of your bearings
       Into the gleam
Of turquoise below
       
       

To get to this spot
       Where you are now
You have devised an
       Entire choreography
To avoid cutting your thigh
       On the sharp sleeve and
Joint of rocks
       Held together by
Force of water centuries-run
       To flatten and caress corners
That jut like knives
       In time
Evolution’s persistent torrent
       Will make this jagged hook
So exquisitely smooth
       Not even a woman’s
Silken shoulder
       Will compare to the
Upward sanded sweep
       
       

You bite your bottom lip
       Cut it with your teeth
A final deliberation
       Before you muster a
Moment free of fear
       When calculations cease
Arms stretch wide
       Palms up
To gather light azure
       
       

Body taut, hollow
       Resonate like a lute,
You tip forward
       Into the rushing sheet of
Cool river milk
       Sheen vapor glazing skin
Dappled now with
       Sunset hues
Smile glamorous
       As a movie star’s
       
       

After all that nervous lingering
       Blind and tip toe
On the wet stone ledge,
       This drench of surrender
You ride with spontaneous ease
       A silhouette of cloud-fire
About to hit the eddy going 60
       
       

Between then and now
       However
This lofting shiver
       Becomes you,
Smile Like the Sun;
       Lips speaking silent words
Taken by the wind
       Unwrote poems drowned
Unknowingly in the place of nevers
       What I would give
To find those words and
       Write them on your arms
Shoulders, hair long
       Sonnets on skin
          
          

You will never be more free
       Than you are now
In this moment
       Tremulous, determined
Taste of salted water spray
       On your tongue, lips
       
       

What I would give
       What I would give
What I would give       
       
          

_______
(c) 2013

          
          
                                                                                How to make Communion wafers:
          
                                                                                1. Mix a paste of flour and water
                                                                                2. Press with a hot iron to emboss the Cross

          
          

first the wrists get thin
wafer thin
translucent so
light shines through
          potato chips
          waxed paper
          linen handkerchief
          grape leaves in the sun
one wrist laid atop the other
a humble prayer
secret religiosity
practiced anywhere
          waiting on a bench
          at the typewriter
          on the edge of the bed after making love
eyes open or closed
doesn’t matter where, how
          
that is first
          
          

then after the wrists get thin and the waxed paper and making love
the lone door closes slowly
so slowly every millisecond of the creak
is heard with peculiar singularity
and the entire aural event
radical as hell
is transposed
into a riot-causing symphony
Stravinsky on opening night
four long movements that
sound like a door creaking
avant-garde, all the rage
          
that is second
          
          

then after the lone door closes slowly and the creak and Stravinsky
the circumference of the last window
(as on a fishing boat or cruise ship)
begins to shrink
from a telescopic view of the ocean
to a peephole on an apartment door
          pencil eraser
          bobby pin
          bullet
until there is only a pinpoint
of anything other than darkness
yet it is not light that is left inside
it is the paste of Communion wafers
          
that is third
          
          

then after the circumference of the last window shrinks and the pinpoint and wafer paste
the world closes
because man cannot live on paste alone
light is needed
          an intermittent sunbeam or prism
          a window the diameter of a straw
          one eye an apparition of heaven
even if recalled only in sleep or drunkenness
even if only quasi-believable
there must remain access to somewhere other than here
there must remain access to somewhere other than here
          a window, pinpoint, humble prayer
          waiting on a bench
          before the wrists get thin
          waxed paper, bullet
          all the rage
          riot, riot, riot
          
that is fourth

          
          
          
_______
(c) 2013

          
          
piano faintly heard
a neighbor’s window cracked
the singer pulls in lonesome souls
baritone a campfire
          a croon
          a wail
winged serenade slips
through sateen curtains lifting
one lamp signals life
otherwise darkness
his voice a stutter
in breath
shake of tears
discernible discord
          

this singer
the Psalmist he must be
poised on the rim of the pit
hands curved around mouth
bellowing lamentation
letting down knotted sheets
the first and last responder
for the hot clay mud
crusts about the ankles
no song can save
          

lampshade, windowsill, piano filters in
dread enters silent as a needle
graceless fodder for the
hot coal walk
          
          
          
_______
(c) 2013

          
          

In what life do all clouds
coalesce into one
so we must not guess
at their metamorphosis
but see without mesmery
the genesis, the direction
of life indefinitely
reflected wholly in
the open sky?
How to let go of
wailing and seeking?
          
          
Humans seek in vain!
Lost forever in the
dusky gloam of endless tides
pulling us under
to where there is
no being found
ankles tied to
cinder block with
invincible knots.
Everywhere a gangster.
Everywhere a gangster
out to do bad.
No redemption in the heat
for us, no point in trying.
No point.
          
          
Poetry redeems.
The moment I stop believing this,
gone will be all my breaths
across time to the
final horizon where,
motioning towards the edge,
I whisper “Fly.”

          
          

          
          

Returning to the fields
to lay down
one last time
in the soft beauty
that once held me.
My fall this time
will be felt inside
the land unendingly.
Here where it meets
the sky on the horizon
capturing me between.
I am born here
so naturally
here released.
          
          
The feathering wheat
lifts its face to the
strange and
final quiet
taking me along
in its silent
wind-drawn wake.
          
          
Before the jarring snap
my broken listless sigh
I hear kind words
spoken over
a lifetime.
A compendium of
language and love
I leave behind
except slivers of
the most sweet
I take to the open
unknown peace.
          
          
I sleep in the glinted barrel
give in to the drafted stream.
          
          
With a graceful spin
diaphanous white
my dancer body drops
conforming to the
cradle of the land.
          
          
A blanket over
my eyes
the wheat’s caress
will be
a stunning release
into finality.
          
          

          
          

pages read
of sand
          
held in fainted
heart
          
unwritten poems
washed away
          
blue wind
faded sun
          
whisper of history
Zen illusion
          
an adoration
I cannot shake
          
          
          

______
(c) 2013

          
          

Keats has nothing on this garden
                    darkling.
My once bright eyes now blind—
        in flame from a tinder
                    spill of kindling.
Unseeing of his savior the Nightingale
object of his forlorn and pleading mind
my heart remains deflated and frail
empty of the song
                    through leaves, I cannot find.
          
          

He managed envy of the dryad’s happy lot.
At least he could envision happiness
        whereas I cannot.
Resigned to tumble and fail
in my deafened songlessness
searching for his
        immortal
                    Nightingale.
          
          

In this drowsy orchard dark
I await the sun in vain
to reveal its noonday arc
and shake from
        my heart
this fruitless stain
that has left its
                    binding mark.
        
        

_______
(c) 2013

          
          

          Aloft
in the mystic garden
wet from the river soak
I witness your persona
fading backward
          to soft
shedding its
white sleeves
in favor of what
our reverie believes
          when you walked
          into a coffee shop.
          
          

Every memory
piercing the
brightness
we hold inside.
Olden brightness
          a sacred tide
untouchable
except by us
          washed of sin
the only two who know
the bareness that
          cold pulls in.
          
          

In your delirium
you speak truths
you may not otherwise.
Your tongue eased by a
          wearied
          unfettered mind
for which you apologize.
          
          

Only I won’t take what you say
with a grain of salt
for I love this prose
when from your lips
opening like a rose
          it drips.
Through years you sift
to find your essence
in remembrance
your imaginal world
          a gift.
          
          

This whimsy of word
          is my fate
the language I speak
the only verse
I’ve heard.
It is how I navigate
through the heartache
          I curse
into the beauty
          I seek.
           
         

A Siren I swim
in the swell
          of your waters.
Your words go through me
splendid secrets
          you tell.
In the shimmer of moonlight
we are not ready to see
the beauteous reflection
          of what could be.
          
          

Your words go by:
          a river
          I can’t touch twice
though I try.
Swish my hands in the rushes
          to catch them
so quickly they flee.
          
          

Ill-fated endeavor of trust!
As if searching
for a single thread
          of saffron
after a thousand have
been tilled
          into dust.

          
          
_______
(c) 2013