Quixotic

If Soul Were A Country

IF SOUL WERE A COUNTRY

La bella Italia, our hearts weep for you,
Land of cypress set in stone,
Jewel of the Mediterranean.

Before the shadows of night are gone,
Hold fast to the 'moon with a bite,'
For it will be made whole again.

Your spirit cannot be contained,
Come, walk into your garden,
We listen for your voice.

The evocative sequence of joy,
With the power of love's surprise,
So familiar, and treasured by all.

—G. B. Congdon, 22nd March 2020

The poem is dedicated with love to Bergamo, Italy where I have family. Prayers pour in from around the world during the pandemic, add mine. The kids play in Lucca's piazza in Tuscany, spring 2000. The 'moon with a bite' is what Black Elk called the quarter moon.

Please watch Darika Montico's #ASCOLTA, #LISTEN:

Ode to Winter's Word

ODE TO WINTER'S WORD

Were I mute, my pen would remain,
And my thoughts burst forth,
A folly of fireflies on an invisible skyline.

Were I deaf, old friend,
I'd endeavor to improvise like
An auctioneer of ideas both rarefied and asinine.

Were I blind, dear child within,
On you I would rely,
To ramble with elegant grace most Florentine.

Were I old, when once young,
I'd ask for humor,
To traverse the path both dulcet and serpentine.

Were I mortal and not divine,
I'd realize it's not a question of epiphany,
But rather the elusive patience to realign. 

—G. B. Congdon
22nd February 2020 

 

Into the Woods

INTO THE WOODS

If my inner sanctum is where light falls softly,
And birds dart and play,
Then that is where we live.

If my inner sanctum is the backside of the moon,
And the sun a halo only,
Then that is where we dispel fear.

At life's meridian, in gray attire,
The maps and charts, drawn and examined,
I opened a drawer and found a labyrinth.

Something, finely drafted from antiquity,
With meandering paths of clipped box,
Where the signposts are writ in poetry.

I hold the missing chink in the mortar of my wall.
There is little in my day you do not share.
The sky is a vault of wonder everywhere.

—G. B. Congdon
14th January 2020

Ode to Necessity

ODE TO NECESSITY

A light on the open meadow,
bends the wind on a marbled afternoon.

The threadbare woods, haunting in form,
render me tongue-tied.

And again, I see you, my fair-faced one,
writing words upon the blank universe.

Sipping from the cup of honesty,
you pierce the sea with virtue.

And singing in the shady grove,
your smile reaches to the crystal peak.

—G. B. Congdon
12th January 2020

Storms threaten, tease, gather, and push off. Winter 2020 is a visceral experience with change. 

At The Vietnam War Memorial

At the Vietnam War Memorial

That war was fought in their names too,
who preferred jail to jungle,
who would rather empty bed pans
than body bags, who said:
may we die alone in Canada 
before melting a village
or burying a buddy's pieces.

Fought  also in the name
of that soldier's father who cranked
my arm tight to my ear,
ground my face into the cement,
kicked repeatedly between my legs,
all because it was easier for him
to cut my hair than to open that dreaded letter.

Fought in her name too,
though she linked her arms with others
and lay as if dead in the streets,
the tanks rolled on through the rice paddies,
and on and on over the namelss.

—Jon Tabakin, 1993

Here's to the fiftieth anniversary of Woodstock. As they say, "If you can remember, you weren't there."  Jon is among those who can't remember, but LIFE magazine says he was—captured here in the lower right corner he wears orange foul weather gear. He does recall Joe Cocker singing the thunderstorm in, and Jimi Hendrix playing "The Star Spangled Banner" on his guitar with his teeth. The ticket covered three days and cost seven dollars. 

Listen to the Roar

LISTEN TO THE ROAR

Rolled and tumbled by passion's call,
my love, unlace your shoes,
lock your hands in mine.

Lay still, my love, breath to breath,
our heartbeats anchored,
and swim in the distance no longer.

We are home, where words spoken live
in three/quarter time,
and a kiss is an inkblot, a dimple on the moon.

The stuff of dreams and longing,
saved in summer's linen pocket,
you are an ocean at rest within me.


—G. B. Congdon 24th July 2019

 

Tide pools and starfish, sand dollars and purple urchin, since birth, summer was the Maine seacoast. Salt spray welcomed and crabs called out to me. On this blue orb that we call home, I will never feel more at peace than by the sea. Call out twice, if my head is bent, while I make a study of sand ripple patterns. An afternoon at the sea is both profound and recondite, and why we love it so. 

Until We Kissed, That Is

Until We Kissed, That Is

How can a kiss shake the earth,
or cause time to stand still?
How can a kiss part the waters of a soul,
or call out with laughter to the stars?

I thought that was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we kissed, that is.

How can the gentlest kiss be a volcano
and blow the roof off of memory and longing?
How can fingers folded together and intertwined be tantric,
and coupling itself be within time and last forever?

I thought hat was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we lay together with your head on my chest.

How can a kiss make the wind blow through your hair,
and our bed turn into an ocean rising through the air?
How can a kiss cause a dog watching to try to speak,
or summon birds and turtles and bears and tears?

I thought that was hyperbole, poetic license.
Until we kissed, that is.

—Jon Tabakin, 4th July 2019

Dedicated to Jo Brunini.

The Linen Cupboard

THE LINEN CUPBOARD

All the many things I desired,
When young love garnered my attention.
Where did they go?
Buried somewhere beneath the wedding linen,
With eight monograms free of claret stains,
And folded flax that hasn't witnessed daylight.

Treasures I grew to value,
More than the fibers of my being.
How is it so?
I sat on my laurel,
When life begged I wear joy.
And once, I listened for the pulse of longing.

And still forgot that twin hearts beat as one,
Trade not my yearning for fear of failure—
Hands entwined can't be undone.
Better to beat my wings and sigh.
Better to lie beside you.
Better, far better, to know your tenderness.


—G. Brunini, 3rd July 2019

Dedicated to Jon Tabakin.

 

The Man in the Moon

The Man In The Moon

Your great-grandmother knew all the old stories,
but I'll tell you something that even she didn't know.
The moon is a pirates' lookout.
Long ago, before there were tides,
when over the deep the great ships
skimmed silently and only at night,
the greatest and fiercest of these great, fierce pirates,
perhaps the ancester of our own Captain Mallet,
not content with his view of the bay and the lake,
commanded tens of thousands of men to forge a huge mirror
shaped like the working end of a gigantic spoon,
which he then had hung in the sky.
And after a successful raid, and they were all successful,
when the fleet turned at last toward home,
he, himself, already drunk and his boots filled with blood,
would turn toward the most frightened pirate among them,
one of our ancestors perhaps, little one,
and "Man the mirror," "Man the spoon," "Man the..."
"Man the moon," he would cry.

 

—Jonathan Tabakin

13 June 2019

 

Nocturnal Voices

NOCTURNAL VOICES

How I love you.
Who else could I share this with?

I don't know?
No one I pray—
Already, you are my everything.

Did we invent love?
It seems so.

Liberation and release—
The timber of free-falling.

How I love you.
And each lost year, remembered,
since time began.
And each second, watched over
by the moon.
Shelter me in your tenderness.

Age, upon age,
chiseled our inner worlds,
like Michelangelo's statuary.
And now, by candlelight,
with our fingertips,
we trace veins in the marble.


G. Brunini
31st May 2019