A Narrow Escape

It started slowly,
this dove-fluttering.
Inspiring knotted tapestries
of jewel-tone reverie,
while hearts leaned awry
in ramshackle devotion.

A bird within a cage,
forgetting what it
was struggling against;
sweetly overpowered -
the bars tangled
in a jasmine vine.

Wings shredded
by the soft furor
of a desperate retreat,
pinched by a noose
of braided gossamer,
indiscernible - almost.

A flickering disguise,
the veil lifted for
an instant - feathered
head gleaming as
she hurtled upward;
whooshing through
a winking eye.


© 2002 Melissa Songer

Nature break

Muffled thuds
across wooden planks,
suspended above
the wetlands.

Bulbous trunks
of cypress
surrounded by
knock-kneed tots.

Whir of insects
concealed in high limbs;
floating upon
sultry currents.

Secretive eyes
watch the intruder
from rustling birch;
and water’s idling murk.

On the trunk of my car -
a dragonfly, poised.


© 2001 Melissa Songer

Ups and Downs

Beyond all passion is a quiet place;
The right place for you and me.
We belong there, it’s our home.
It’s a small wood-frame house
Overhung with white oaks
And wild hickories,
Reserved for the birds
And their enticing songs.
How we love to languish there,
Beyond all tears and ashes of regret.
We lie within the twofold doors
And watch the rolling lands stretch away.
Hyphenated with fences
Punctuated with cattle
Tree-megalithed:
Home for dissolute souls.
There they can crystallize
And harmonize. Become whole.

At night-
The Dance begins.
Toe-tapping antics
And frothy frolics
Beneath the stars.
Segments of creation
Come together for us
As we make joyful
Memorials to eternity.
We wait for nothing.
The wind riffles our souls,
Cooling them only slightly.

‘I’m weary of heat-bound days and nights
and Sultry Decadence,’ she sighs.
‘Come Autumn and blow a new wind on this
overheated soul,’ he replies.

Outside
these double doors of joy and pain
The world,
the cosmos resides-
Do you seek to hide from
And do you fear?
Fear dulls the glittering soul,
Renders dreams sterile,
Lays waste to Hope;
Initiates Despair.

Turtles sigh, but for whom?
They live alone in their houses,
Peeking out tentatively, moving slowly,
Withdrawing from dangerous hints.
Their withdrawal can’t always protect them,
Cars and catastrophes can still end them.

I don’t care to be earthbound,
Waiting for catastrophe to shatter
My house of protective thought.
I prefer instead,
to soar
And be a bird.
Knowing that I might well
be blasted
From the sky;
My plummeting plumage
would streak
Towards the dust
And I would end there.
But I would know where I had been.

The quaking is temporary.
Ballast of my soul-
It soars
It plummets
Loop-de-loops
and summits

Then plunges into abysses;
O, the silence of my wishes.
As mute as fish
Struggling against
vicious currents.

Outside of reality
And away from impotent nostalgias,
I find hints of oncoming joy.
It’s a tickle to my mind,
This ecstacy I await,
This phoenix-flight.
No mourning can belay me.
I cannot mourn anymore.
I trust eternity and that is all.

Metaphysicality and the
Structure of the universe
Entice me into admissions
Of confusion, disillusion.
(Where’s my transfusion?)
I want rejoicing.

Syncopated sighs
Slice through alibis.
Yes, I’m the mother
Of my bastard rhymes.
So many fathers have my children
That I can’t begin to name them all.
There’s no discounting my whorishness.
My voluptuous and eclectic appetite
Sends me to dark streets
And back alleys
Seeking wayward, dissolute souls.
Past all temporal dreams
And nameless anticipations
Is the joy of my dissolution.
Joy, because from those ashes
Rises the flame-devoured bird;
That plummeting bird,
Blasted from Reality
And Resurrected.

I am One
And Whole
And Hopeful.
Creativity is my regeneration.
Even my marrow rejoices.
And my broad joyful cry
Pierces the most obstinate ears.
No morning song is sweeter
Than this intoxication;
This delirium that has no earthly excuse.
The lushness of my thought now surpasses
All chagrin of past disillusion.
(Transfusion complete)

My will has willed this:
My poem is Infinite
And my name is Infinity.



© 1977 Melissa Songer

Over the top

"We're all stumbling towards the light with varying degrees
of grace at any given moment."

Bo Lozof


When was love ever painless,
free of expectation and fear?
I’ll pass on what I felt,
direct from the heart of a child.
An overwhelming adoration -
unconditional, pure, and simple;
it damned near disassembled me.

The memory of that flash
of sheer love helpless
raps on my shoulder -
wrings me like a mop.
It wasn’t as if I had loved
any better before or after
that moment and I’m not sure
that I was anything
more than a conduit.
Beyond anything I’ve experienced,
it was a clue to how
we felt as babies surrounded
by love and safety;
but in the face of limits -
girded by the existential no;
we forget.

All our lives we seek
to recreate the yes
by expecting another person
to give it to us, unconditionally.
Despite our conditions and frailties,
our blathering imperfections;
somehow that other is
supposed to be all that
we are not, and it maddens us
when we find out that
they are just like us -
weak frightened foolish
flabbergasted children.

Love is not just
something we need to get,
it’s what we need to give;
and what you give
you get back tenfold.
And the more unassuming
the gift - the richer you become.
You don’t have to believe this -
just live it and you’ll see.
Don’t try to stem
the rise from its incessant source;
become what you are,
a chalice overflowing -
life begetting life.

Who would have thought
we could find heaven
inside our own chests?
But the saints and the masters;
they always knew.



© 2001 Melissa Songer

A strange story

One evening while watching
X-Files (it just had to be),
I was feeling lazy and didn’t
want to reach for the remote;
so I thought (or did I)
that the channel should
just change by itself -
you know, mind over matter,
(here comes the kicker) it did.
I became the remote control,
the infrared eye moving molecules
through the energy field
(now do you believe);
the object responding
to the mind’s intent.

Then, a few weeks ago,
Sunday morning -
I let the dog and cats in to feed,
settled on the sofa,
and feeling drowsy thought
I’d catch some alpha waves.
Now I was only under for a minute
or two and it felt so good when
I opened my eyes, but
when I went to the kitchen
the animals were outside -
back door closed,
looking at me like
beatific or something
as if to say
‘oh there you are, thanks’
(what’d I do?).

Of course there are no witnesses,
not even me on that last one.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Pinetrees Glow

The bees humble the swaying stems
of the radiant grasses. An agitated jay
angrily denounces the injustice of being.
Pinetrees glow in the morning sun, brushy limbs
shimmering in infinitesimal movements of air.
Sunflowers bob from the assault of black and
yellow drones wearing their pollen chaps.

In the dawning it all looks so different.
What appeared irreparable in the dark
now filled with luminous potential.
The sounds that last evening were muted
and dismal today brim with busy confluence.
Taking my coffee and toast to a garden seat,
there’s more to note than to swallow.

Nature’s catalogue of marvels wax
mundane, yet I wear its afterimages
and drape my soul with the perfection.


© 2000 Melissa Songer

Asked and answered

What of the shadow
raising its shroud
to come between
her and the sun?

Crawling in gloom,
she finds the sequestered
and sees what
fades in the light.

What of the words
jangled before her
as if they were the
keys to the kingdom?

She closes her ears
as her heart speaks
so loudly it rattles
throughout the night.

What of the boxes
and barricades;
the diminutive places
where cowards hide?

As spirit pervades
all light and matter,
it caresses every
soul’s concealment.

What of the moment
screaming at last -
when the world falls
into its own trap?

Alongside roads where
smokestacks spew
their desolation;
the path winks freely.


© 2001 Melissa Songer

A Glimpse of Winter

The unfolding day
brings forth flowers
soft as the breath of mice;
abrupt exhalations of pale blue
snuggled within the grass.
Autumnal hues -
vermillion and ochre;
dabbed freehand
into the scrub.
I pause to watch
the surrender of leaves
to the wind’s tugging,
as they are heaved up
in billowing whorls.
First and last hint
of the season passed.

Invariably overdue,
winter’s swindled time
marked only by this
flicker of icy starlight.
I’d like to sit beneath
the clear sky -
breathe the cold air.
Let the chill seep through
layers of clothing,
until shivering forces me
to seek the warmth
of shelter and gratitude -
until spring pushes its way
into the next month.



© 2002 Melissa Songer