Tales of the Senderos
i.
Sudoku 7.

ii.
 
Laminations in Laquer

In a light bright night
He lays his bed
Deep in hues of Lapis Lazul
In the corners sit the winds
Dressed like musical chairs.
An olive ferments in a pastel saucer
Into mossy green minutae,

Where a  painted flower swallows
Against its form, liquid spaces
in lean reflections into a bottomless well

Veils swim on the verge where the flower
Defines, only to be drawn against
An olive splash of skin
In the glazed laquer

Gloss to the invisible anomynous images
Chanting their cacophony of litanies.

A cock crows cockle doodle do
Discrete concrete on the fronds
Ruffles in the red sprockled throat
A screech of feathers
Stilled in the flowers passion
In the pool's hoard.

The gibbous mound,
The crimson flash in the curtain
Through which he passes
Beneath the bridges
A stairway in pastel hue
Laps tranquilly cool
To a hole in a wall
A cavenous breach which retains
The scream of the arch

Scrawled on a sheen
Defiant in the stance of plumages
Hordes of epiphanies
Buried in frigid pastel ripples.

Below the frond of its eye
The sealed beak that will open
Gleams on the lee.

Throughout the entire circumference
Can be seen the tilt giving rise
To both translucence and tranparency
Where the acid and oil separate
Only to appear to coalesce
In the almost pure liquid sheen
Containing its own  light
Even in the presence of the vegative
Silt at the bottom of the bowl.

At the moment of brim,
That line of definition
Almost lost in reflection
He must rise from his a cannopy of leaves
Pursuing the swarm of disturbed sparrows
From the nests of his hair
as if they were shadow voices
With a chalice of blood for their lips
In a room where people roam
A room without corners
Where the vertigo edge of the flower distills the dish
Together with the quantities of immeasurable throng.

Catacombs display coombes
Head to foot on stilts
On the billowing screens
Where watery groves with bowers
Of ivy are sprung over hidden lairs
Where the hoards are concealed.

Night begins and the dogs draw nigh
Scaveging for scraps
Yapping at the walker s naked ankles
In the dust of unknown allies.

The broken lights of the bazzar
Spangle with glittering promises
And the eyes of the dusky beggar
Sunk in their sockets maze
In crooked cul de sacs embargo
Amidst the furls of silk that foil
The flickering lantern niche
Throttled in an olive tray
Where the flower's blur does not allow
The stroke that blurs its horizon
And all beneath to return.

It is helpless in its light,
A camaflouge to visitation,
To the sigh of the rock's flow
So few, so few, so few.

The olive sates in its wish
Rims that sail in surges
Outlining monuments amidst the rubble
Of momentary musical explosions
But the spell is already cast
Diaphanous fireworks emblazon
An already emblazoned sky
Swooping down on high craggy mountains
With the night, where comets play at kites,
And the glistening beak hisses

iii.
 
Tales of the Senderos.
 
Hello, old friend, strange meeting you here, this time of day.
 
Yes, old friend, it is strange, especially  as I was just passing your house
and showed this friend here about how badly you'd let your beautiful trees grow.
 
How can you say that, old friend, they're only trees after all. What do you want?
 
Me, you say, me? I worked my bones out of the grave and give you beautiful trees
and this is what you do? Your garden is a disgrace, why don't you water the tops,
you lazy dog?

Now, don't get so high handed about a few trees, I water the tops.
 
You let the donkies eat the branches and they eat my fruit.
 
Not my donkies eat your fruit, old friend.
 
Not yours, but you know whose, he eats the fruit of my land and grows fat, him and his family and children, while I starve.
 
You don't look like you starve to me old friend, but it's true, they are rich while we are poor.
 
Still your trees are a disgrace and may his donkies be cursed.
 
So be it, if so you say.
 
So be it,  and you too.
 
Well you are alone.
 
And you.
 
Then until next we meet.
 
Until next, if ever, and may I never hope to see your trees so digraced,
a curse on all your donkies, what it is to be poor man.

 
iv.
 
Mountain sees Mountain.

You do not cross the face of the mountain,
mountain sees mountain, they say,
as the sit over tables by candlelight
hunched against cushions.
 
In sunlight, the dog's eyes in the fields
seem sad, by evening they brighten,
but the chickens care little.
 
Cats mew from drainpipes,
the crippled beggar crouched in ally ways,
stares a coin for your knees.
 
Only the cemeteries are silent.
White rocks on the hillside.
A blue village beneath a mountain,
where the people's voices scuttle
like bugs at home in the dust.

By HELGA ROSS

An April Imprint

A scene teaser...As deep as you look you will see...
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbet; watch the roots. ~William Blake
 
Bullrushes in a rush to grow,
robins bobbing on the lawn,
I spy along the lookout
lovers, hand in hand, let go, go on,
lean into their longing—kiss.

Under prying eyes and mountain ash
too bare for private screening,
light as the brush of an eyelash,
touching lips, fingertips, tongues
teasing hunger, stop seeking—cling.
 
Breeze and song brings us to our sense
outside ourselves, where, a flirting pair,
circles the air, suspends, beating wings,
drawing three stares, two unaware
the third one is there. A fourth?—wink.
 

© Helga Ross 2008

Hillary…

© Helga Ross 2008