Form and Pattern

Must I bow again
To the clueless King
Whose sleepiness
To my needs
Contrasts his
Attention to
My flawed obeisance.

Form and pattern
Is boy girl boy girl
But not meaning.

Form and pattern is
This blotless morning,
Moist summer air,
Promising suffering
And brown grass;

Form and pattern is
Slow step by step
Of the lonely old
Woman who doesn’t
Want to die,
Walking in morning,
Wanting more of
Waning time.

Form and pattern is
Bowing to God
For this little dog,
This plate of fruit,
The hope I breathe
In fits and gulps,
But this is more
Than that.

Ode for the unseen chorus

Why is it that I am at peace? The
Quiet has lulled me to a sense of
Things which float rather than scurry or
Scramble. They are not in the bushes nor do
They climb the trees. They are not fervent nor
Fearful and have no need to hide or lurk. They
Do not need the darkness for they are bright and
Airy and we don’t normally see them when we are
About our usualness of doings that rob us of this
Sense that an order we don’t understand nor couldn’t
Create, is all around us, seemingly beyond our
Senses but not really because it is heavy in a
Light way, like air. We can feel it if we try, like the
Breeze that rustles the curtains and lifts the
Table cloth’s edge; that caresses our skin in
Such a gentle way like love enjoying our
Surfaces while filling our interiors with such
Gentle overwhelming that our skin is
Transformed into something pleasant and
Delightful, an organ of the oldest and most
Beautiful music.

The day is cloudy and the dog comes to
Sit beside my foot and, as if on schedule, the
Sun comes out and makes a halo for
Her body; the quietly noisy of a trillion
Rustling leaves stumbles over me in a
Pointillism of sound and she brings to me the
Aromatic wealth of her hot, dark fur for a
Pet before sitting back down. I inhale the
Day and there is a
Prickliness inside me like
Standing hair in static electricity
Before the new found sun hides
Again to the rhythm of another
Cue and the cool shade spreads its
Soothing hands across us to
Rest there.

There is a silent roar as the
Lips of the wind brush across the
Lips of the land and trees
And buildings and wires,
TV dishes and antennas, and
Through the open window and
Across the clack of this keyboard.
I float a little on it
And settle back down.
You are with me now.

Parlor of the Duchess

Is it in the rhythm of the heat that the
Dark parlor of the Duchess undulates?
Sitting in the shadow she sometimes
Shouts, sometimes murmurs so that dark things
Dance as they always have but not so
Comet-like as now with wagging tails sowing
Susurrant light sashaying through the short
Swirling summer curtains.

Light that will go to join the stars
Only to be visible on those nights when
Mars shows its fat, full redness in the
Glowering sky like a bloody mist, a
Rust-like tint not lively like the color of a
Tintoreto redhead but more like the reflected
Light in Nero’s ancient saurian tears as he
Played for the party of the hate that he had
For the great that he wasn’t. He let the violin
Murmur and shout savoring the saving of his
Peptic voice for even more caustic times,
Peccant as a tossed down angel floating
On the crest of waves of flame, tottering
But not consumed, buoyed up but without
Purpose.

Hour glass light that is tied to time, slowed
Down to something that is measurable, even
Creaking and struggling as it moves, given the
Air but cursed with clumsy wings and the need to
Perspire into flight to be safe in the most
Dangerous of ways, always a struggle except when we
Try to comprehend because it is so slow and
Sluggish that it can’t squirm away from our
Gaze nor slither away while we search for the
Lenses and scopes we need to see with, the
Glasses we’ve misplaced but need in order to be
Able to find them, light in a time that is
Squeezed and narrowed and forced to go
Grain-like through a narrow space so we can
Count them like our restless sheep.

But now the Duchess needs no glasses nor
Even eyes for she now sees what she has always
Known without sight for it was that light she
Could see when she, as a scared little girl
Lying in the dark, squeezed her eyes closed
Really tight and the reddish blue dots appeared and
She began to look at them, petrified but
Calm as they became lighter and finally began to be
White and billowing like clouds, her clouds
Through which she could fly on clanky childish
Wings, careening and almost crashing, without having her
Eyes open or being forced to see anything she wasn’t
Prepared for. Her parlor is filled with that light
Tonight and surrounds her like the heat of the
Summer night. Not chastened and sent to hide
Until no one could see, but encouraged and
Sung to with moans and gurgles, the sounds from
Juices that aren’t being processes but stay
Inside her to poison her with the waste she
Creates by simply living.

Say goodnight, Duchess, if you really cared to, for
Around you the darkness burns as if to be
Consumed by that which seethes from you
As you sit relentlessly precarious to the edge of
Your day bed. Turn on no lights for they are
Not needed, a life and all its reminiscent clingings
Claws this air with gnarled talons, sparks it to
Fluoresce in the churning night, and is not afraid
Of closing doors anymore.

Sue Hardy-Dawson changes the world we live in with grace and love. You must see her art and writing. Go to Poemcat and see for yourself!