Caught in the rain

the first few drops
warned me to turn back
but the dogs were pulling
excited about their
first walk in a week
I heard the remote booms
smelled the ozone
but continued onward

first chance to cut back
slipped past even though
more drips were coming
the dogs kept surging
and I just followed

it had been a wet day
since morning
a quick shower
then a few tears tapped
from an underground spring
flowing up through an afternoon
of sleepless dreams

the first wave rolled in and
we found refuge
under a stranger’s carport
hoping they wouldn’t
suddenly drive up
and glare in consternation
my eyes prostrate
voice muttering
I hope you don’t mind

we crossed the street
to complete the circuit
even as the deluge
hung off to our left
I could hear the rain
bearing down on us
there would be no escape
we were going to get wet

the swollen globules
splattered us
the dogs trying to break loose
and run like hell for the house
still a block away
but I held them steady
and felt each drop soak into
my hair and shirt
down to the skin
I plodded my level course
the dogs grunting and sneezing
and pulling

I wondered why I didn’t just
set them free in that moment
while I danced like kokopelli
singing his gratitude
for the life-giving water

what a picture
a middle-aged woman
doing a gene kelly
the dogs hauling ass
down the street
to wait on the front porch
snorting and shaking
while their mistress takes a swim
in the drainage ditch

a fitting end to the day


© 2001 Melissa Songer

In a word, no

In the pure high joy of the moment,
I found the twiggy dance of opposites
blowing through the tall cypress trees
and gliding across the mirrored ooze.

I know I have no name
and quiver through the tepid day;
roll on the carpet,
bark at fleas,
trace a line of hope
between my knees.
Tweedy sleeves envelop me
and I regard the art nouveau of my toenails.
I roll in the darkness of memory.
I have no eyes -
they have been dusted and sealed shut;
looking inward at fractal light
and pulling the last laughing rabbit
out of my disheveled hat.

Now I must go away
to the land of this and that
and ride the high sway of the trapeze
(the shelves are empty);
stakes and stocks of wondering
give way to plastic crystal claims.
Who needs an answer to the rain?
The muddy soon runs clear.
Raphaelist tendencies frame the day -
square and true and full of feet.
What else am I seeking?

Flying backward
to the days of my twiggy youth,
raw and uncertain,
digger of leaves,
grubbing for thoughts
in the moss beneath
the shining trees,
I ran to a field so far away
there was no place to stand
and I fell down shivering;
and the night died in me,
and I ran to the reedy banks,
and watched the shrinking shore.
I was the boat cast onto the tossing sea
and could not run aground,
until rapture found me finally.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Almost There

I wish we could have spent some time together -
we could have comforted one another
in our emptiness and parted, understanding
that time is the thief that steals our happiness.


I should have stayed
and attended to the cypress trees
swaying in the Autumn gusts -
the mallard’s winged flap,
the otter’s voluptuous submergence;
listened to the birds’ entreaty -
stay mired in what I was,
instead of returning to get tangled in the
dangling skeins now being braided
into a hangman’s noose.

A house of junk
crowding in the corners,
creeping across the floor,
wrapped in dated stories;
treasures hiding in corrugated boxes,
stacked in the backs of closets -
I forget they even exist.

A sense of something missing,
gathering silica and mold spores -
mustiness of old despairs;
stuff and facepaints and hairpins
rattling inside shoeboxes,
make me wonder what need
placed them there.

Garbage bags full of trash,
twist-tied and thrown to the curb;
how easy it was to let it go -
first a closet
then a room
then a house
until the echoes rendered up the hollowness;
releasing the symbols of security
and imprisonment:
the cobbles of my life.

Everything I have is slipping away.
Even as I wrap my fingers
around materiality,
my knuckles will not tighten
and things clatter to the floor.
Attachment to the world fades
and I wonder what
could bring me pleasure
at this stage.

Breaking up the concrete
hardened around my ankles;
skull cracking against the ceiling,
shattering the boundaries
I mapped out for myself -
divestitures of space and time,
moored to no thing
and no where -
a nomad of the mind.

The brocade of being;
the tips of tree skeletons
scratching bony fingers
against window panes.
I collect my spiritual trinkets -
ching-changing
in the existential register.

Sack-cloth rants in a burned out garden,
ice crystals adhering to the ashes.
I am wrapped in chicken wire,
fingers torn at the edges and
my grandmothers’ hands are looming.

The pines waver and leaves bustle
but the birds are quiet;
a beagle plots his course
through backdoor repasts -
the winterberry sheen and
the gleam of pebbles roadside,
surrounded by intent -
things with nothing better
to do than be the wind’s toy
in a fraud’s game.

Angles shifting -
north to northeast,
south to southwest,
and still the compass swings,
unable to find its point of rest.

No more clinging like bark,
I shall fall away in shards
and become a plume of grass
scattered by exhaled breezes,
energy pulses, and hushed rumors -
as I pass as fine as hair
on the throat of a child.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Autumnal meditation

time creeps by
as if fearful to disturb its participants
the sun impels the sky
to the place where
shadows hide beneath objects
embracing the dark

gathering the flow
into a seamless hand
the abundance of the moment
cascades over and under
and through the stillness
into the marrow of
an ever-bubbling cauldron
emanating each sliver
of eternal now

as light drives out shadow
so does night devour day
Persephone readies herself
for the long sleep underground
the dismal polity
besieging the earth
trails in the balance

elemental reflections
burrow into memories
the carnelian glow of
extant leaves turning mellow
migrating droves cry out
their bitter farewells

the sown reaped
seed scattered aimlessly
the dormant progeny
abides quietly
through the dark night
for honeyed days to
erupt into boundless joy


© 2001 Melissa Songer

tender rationalizations

that night I was caught
in a raintree shower
diminutive heart-shaped leaves
in a downward flutter
sticking to my windshield
as I drove up and down
trailer trash lane
looking for the family
I had driven 30 miles to find

blank eyes stared
from peerless windows
tagging me as alien
the wind rumoring
from gate to gate
sideways glancing
doors slamming
dogs barking
against their chains

the moon flew
with the blackbirds
until it faded into the light
washed away by the
immediate shimmer
of raindrops exploding
on the broken asphalt

I’m back where it all started
or maybe where it was finished
the world clock keeps spinning
tonight I see my own shadow
finally emerged to blot the light
look closely you’ll see the dull glare
of its melancholic suspicion
shoving aside the mantras
weighing down the silence

once inside the home
assess the minimum standard
barely adequate is generally good enough
build rapport til you’re in like Flynn
sympathize most when the suspicion flares
urge onward toward
the letting down of defenses
the Freudian slip
play with the children
bring small sundries for their joy
let the family dog slobber on your hand
laugh and commiserate
one day you see what
they try at first to hide
by then you’re half seduced
by their helplessness and trust
even though they still lie
to you about almost everything
so you document

now you’ve seen
what doesn’t seem like me
just because you hadn’t yet seen it
sitting sullenly in the corner
picking at its own wound
prying it open
to allow the paranoia
to escape

it’s really a job skill
a functional asset
to view the world
with suspicious eyes
and believe the worst
of people and events
problem is that
it bleeds over
and becomes a furrow
through the heart
and I’m usually on one side
or the other
but sometimes
I’m deep inside
excavating


© 2001 Melissa Songer

if we were transparent as jellyfish

we could see the secret fire
that lights us from within
could witness the neural nets pulsing
with signals from digit tips
into the massive conglomerate
back and forth
activating the endocrine system
cells humming in concordance

if we were transparent
perhaps we would know and
we could feel
the electric flow inside
and honor this brief foray
of fundamental elements
into life with reverence
for ourselves and one another
we could see the vast perfection
of the form given to us
and recognize the true nature
of our being instead of having our light
smothered by the overriding density
of fleshy sensation

then we could listen to
the silent plea issued
across the vital sun-warmed air
and through the secret moonlit night
to be seen and heard
beyond the wrappings
and the trappings
of our opaqueness


© 2002 Melissa Songer

As a child

I remember looking at
the galaxies and seeing
the exquisite movement
of meteors and stars
swirling and sparkling
in multi-colors;
red/ yellow/ blue /white.
Sunsets made my heart ache.
Trees were something
to climb, even live in.

Sometimes I couldn’t
decide if I was awake,
or if I was dreaming
I was awake,
or if I was dreaming
I was dreaming
I was awake,
or if I was a butterfly
dreaming I was a little girl
wandering in the woods
looking for wildflowers
and birds’ nests,
Jack-in-the-pulpits
and Lady’s Slippers;
jumping off fence posts
and roof tops trying to fly;
making clover chains
and leaf hats to wear;
tying strings to June bugs
to watch them buzz
frantically in the air.

Sometimes I think
I haven’t changed much
or that maybe
I’ve come full circle
to that sense of wonder
and possibility,
but still let the world
of adult concerns
thump me into
the illusion of reality.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

The Aftermath of Being

We begin in the dark
groping for luminosity.
Perpetually longing to revert,
eyes squinting at a radiance
that cannot be seen.

Urging the unknowable
to ascend
to defy the edict
of the secret core
of ourselves.

Many
few
or one

it matters not
since as matter
we are subatomic
equals.

Slippery concepts
engulf and bend us
to word and deed.

We are
fields of pure energy
and the will
is master
of all.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Garden language

Spring’s elaborate gown -
its hem’s seductive flutterings
tease the languorous airs.
A thousand tongues
sing delirious forest music;
creek side burbles a joyous myth
of sinuous rills and nymphs
hiding in the niches of rocks.

The teller sits in cool shadows
cast by the standing stone,
contemplating gnarled hands
from which prophesies are born -
clouded eyes see inward.

The fallen one rests on a dais
surrounded by swarming rats
and roars - why deliver
Sodom and Gomorrah
with its hierarchies of false gods
and sanctioned murder?

Spirit may have had a plan
when it twirled the wheel,
shifting course toward ignition.
But here at the flashpoint -
paused for reckoning;
the garden is burning.

It gets hotter by the second
while concrete flashes
sparks at the sun -
the flowers are scorched,
yet the solution is denied.


© 3/9/2001 Melissa Songer

The Last

He had a rawness about him,
(as if his godhood did not befit)
and wrapped his flaws
around himself like a shroud.
But I loved his radiance
as much as his fall from grace.
And though there was nothing
I could make of my shredded
illusions, still I spun and spun
and wove a tapestry out of
the tattered remains
to shelter my heart.

Between the first time and the last,
I strived to obliterate the shadow projected;
to sponge the anguish from our betrayals -
his and mine -
and replace it with the scent
and taste and feel of other flesh.
But over the years he would return
as the prodigal
and I was always the forgiver -
the receiver.

I had nearly forgotten his impact on my life,
so deeply interred were my dreams;
until I remembered the last time I saw him -
so many years ago -
how he used me,
how easily he pulled me into his arms,
how I finally had seen him for what he was;
past the rickety hopes and the shattered skies -
how I fell into a torpor,
how part of me died,
and how I had forgotten
that he was the last.

And when the sepulcher was opened,
the decampment of flies buzzed
in long formations of sorrow,
his ghost leading the charge,
wringing the last drops of blood
from my riven side.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Confessions at Midnight

There’s a place
into which I sometimes
fall and languish;
until struggling, I lift
my hand through humid muck
and grasp the singular note
of lucid air.
A concrete-like stasis
greedily attaches itself to me;
and I wallow in it.

For the time being,
I write a book of chthonic verse
where my legends thrive;
lauding illusory efforts.
Mystic love sidles in like fog
covering me in fluent kisses.
Each startling flicker
teases my skin and I feel the
correspondent shimmer
as it paints its synaptic trail.

An unending transformation
shoves me through countless deaths -
waiting for dense flesh
to scatter across higher realms,
to merge with angelic songs
exhaled in cosmic breaths.
Though fastened to this gravity,
I will not move through
viscous night into morning.
I am queen of the dark.
My pallid glow illumines
the road ahead.


© 2002 Melissa Songer