Silences for love poems by david cope

Dedication For Allen Calm Sea C/ear Shore Acknowledgments: Thanks to Shambala Sun, Napalm Health Spa, The Guild House Newsletter, Big Scream, The Cafe Review, Big Fish, The Wayne Liter

Silences for Love

In the Inmost Hour of the Soul

Selected poems of Marina Tsvetayeva Translated by Nina Kossman

The Promise Is

by Kip Zegers

On the Bridge

by David Cope

Dedication

For Allen

Calm Sea C/ear Shore

Acknowledgments: Thanks to Shambala Sun, Napalm Health Spa, The Guild House Newsletter, Big Scream, The Cafe Review, Big Fish, The Wayne Literary Review, Long Shot, Big Hammer, The Ann Arbor Poetry Forum, The Brooklyn Review

"Memory in Love" is an imitatio of Jack Kerouac's "He is your friend, let

him dream," and incidentally utilizes a few of its phrasings; Chris Ide, for whom the poem was written, was dedicated to Jack's visionary wandering & spontaneity

Copyright © 1993-1998 by David Cope AII rights of any nature whatsoever reserved

Originally published by Humana Press in 1998

Cover design by Patricia F Cleary

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Cope, David,

A Day in the Life 18

Mother & Child 19

push off 20

Dear Jim 22

For Morgan 23

Memory in Love 24

Not As You Were 25

The Triumph of Love 26 The Lovers at Sunrise 28

CALAMUS

For Antler 31

when the dove 32

July Dusk 33

BACK THRU THE VEIL

The Mechanics Beyond My Garden Fence 43 Homeward Bound, Dreams of Uzi Alley 44

cutting basil 45 Back Thru the Veil (Friday in the Madhouse) 46

Today is your birthday 48

New Life 49 Sitting 50 December 52

Ancient Rain

Everyone gone 55

A Cold & Clear Day, February 56

Ann Arbor Song 58 April 59 Dawn 60 Waking 61 The Rhododendron 62

Silences for Love 63

American Song 64

Kitchitikipi

Three Dreams On the Road 67

Sirens & flashing lights stop 68

In The Alley 69 July 70

harlequin & flowers among stars

He took a long pull on the stout 83

beyond the swiftly rising stream

beyond the swiftly rising stream 97

TURNING

Full Moon Over Whitefish Bay

ragged black clouds scud & break below haze & farflung net of stars thru which

the Northern lights encode a dance:

a distant freighter slices waves,

making for the beacon's turning flash

thru a graveyard where dead sailors sigh before the wavecut moonlit lines

aging lovers turn on stairs, hold hands

& dream as these endless waves crash

where naked shamen pled & prayed

& sailors shrieked among blackened waves come far for sleeping vision, waking dream-lights fade & flare in a cloud-hung stream

Coming Home

descending thru valleys

far beyond murder statistics, the gravity of politicians'

incessant barki ng,

squawking horns & city lights,

thru passes where far below

the white river slides among boulders

& the heron settles for night

as winds roar in the naked canopy,

ravens rocking on swaying

branches, buds swelling

& signing the turning year,

the weary traveller sighs,

lays down his load for dreams

where the one-eyed boy

dances around the granite

bend, stares thru his crooked grin

& passes him on

the fading trail, disappearing

far up on the horizon, his cackling

in the dying lights on ancient

mounds-infant sighs descend to holocaust & spring in leaves of grass

& in the deep night

the comet streaks nearer thru stars

& planets where voices

echo in the hollow lacunae of dreams:

still miles to the quiet fire, the brooding sleep, the dance in the hours before dawn where the sleeper sings

thru his bony mask of

things unseen to come

murky night full of

hissing winds, thunder

storms race across

a horizon of swinging lamps,

booming-lightning stabs the earth

far south, levees give way-rivers spill

into soybean rows, living rooms, among

church pews & grocery shelves: river people swear

this time they'll sell & get

out-prayers break up in tears

They return

three anonymous women

decapitated when a semi

plowed thru their bestfriend Todd,

car-roseate muscled corpse

ripped out of the Chris, who knew who'd get it

sky-when they practiced in the field,

as aware as any might Edge, who walked away his later years

be-among peach trees & corn tassles,

blind, helplessly mad, Carl, giant teacher who swam

two miles a day in Lincoln Pool,

lymph cancer at 36, Irma, Sue's aged grandmother, who

played cards until 3 & laughed,

saying "one won't Jack, hardboiled loving father,

hurt"-sometime barn theatre showman,

ALS early in old

age-so many others-I've stood here

some time watching them return:

Devil's Den

four boys crowd

over the great rounded rocks into crevasses

across impossible gullies,

laughing-their parents

stand above with

maps & binoculars pointing out the

creek, the open field

where hundreds fell, chests &

heads & necks burst sundown: two young deer

open-saunter among new corn, white tails

switching

At the Holocaust memorial

oblivious

to serious

faces

passing before &

behind her,

a wrinkled woman sobs before Einstein's testament:

For Martin King

who sang the flesh made word that bones may walk,

that none be turned away-we open the secret histories, bring our varied carols together in dreams & signs,

each to each in turning gyre, on quiet stairs, alone on

the lost bridges of our desire where in vision we see

lights in procession leaving this shore by day & night

& dream the time to come our word's our bond:

no pistol, nightstick, bomb or threat, no pallid law nor crooked courts may unmake brothers & sisters the bells never stop ringing, echoing over Birmingham, Selma,

Washington, Memphis, ringing in Brooklyn & Los Angeles, ringing where babes' eyes are rinsed in elders' blood,

ringing where ancient hatreds boil yet across the globe, ringing through the busy silence of every day, ringing in you

& me, sister & brother, ringing in our dreaming bones

Variations on Summer Mountains

these mountains pierce thru hanging mist

as lotus-wrapped saints lift a blessing finger, silent, awake to the world's rage; walls & ridges plummet straight to the deep valleys & plains that roll below, with crags & crevices, eagles ascending, fish in their mouths, above meadows afloat with buttercups & mountain laurel, whole universes of marmots & bighorns, trickling

springs & waterfalls invisible to the searching eye below, pine & aspen spread across rolling plains

to the sea whose silence is its own roar

& where the foaming torrent rushes to its fall, drops hang timeless in empty air, then crash below half-hidden in the stone outcrops,

an old man, bundle on back & cane in hand, draws wife & child astraddle a horse across

a tiny bridge-eyes gazing up to heights, mist rising about them to mingle & disappear above

A Testament

below evening clouds racing beyond

the treeline's soft red glow, winds bluster

in the olive tree, the candy lily's furled bloom shakes among balloon flowers & sea holly

we planted young, we couldn't foresee our love's journey, dreamed what would be

& seeded our dreams which come again

& again to bloom I was no great lover, breathing fire into every passing whim-

I was steady in my way, and you stood me, stood by me despite what I was not

I bring you armsful of blooms borne

of our dream-let these grey hairs attest

we have at times earned love's rest

WORDS

Old Man

greyish skin & pate & hollowed

cheek-the eyes, dark & large, stare at you here is

the lost babe crying in his mother's arms, the boy who sang in choirs & raced around third base

on a hot summer evening among clouds of flies

to the cheers of long-passed parents, the young man whose body trembled with a first kiss,

who went to war & learned, too late, the epic shriek

of bullets tearing flesh, & saw the fountains

of severed necks here is the man who sweated years

& stared out factory windows in red dawns

to find the stolen moments of paradise

in a cigarette by the tracks beyond the back door,

who never dreamed his body would decay with

bent-backed labor & recurring dreams of fire, who smiled ruefully when grandchildren wanted to

know his stories of war, recalling fusilladed friends

& young boys sprayed with liquid fire

Sarajevo Market Massacre

two men drag a limp & headless corpse thru piles of rubble, body parts, puddles of blood

as in hills above some mother's son crosses himself, dumps another missile to mortar: Karadzic claims the people shot their own

to get NATO involved-he says this faced, reasons lined up like body parts

straight-in death wagons to justify genocide:

let lost howling innocents, eyeless

men & women, butchered grandmothers crying for a simple morning market stroll wake in his own grandchildren's tears,

fill his nightly dreams-let him wake

in his own bed of fire & learn mercy at last let Bosnia finally know a quiet morning; let the mountains fill with singing birds

& farmers come again to market,

the changing seasons herald miracles

let old women teach ancient customs

to babes again; let prophets lay

blessings-February 25, 1994

howl of hundreds

shot in the back

at the patriarch's tomb scorches this

red dawn lovers wake from fragile dreams

& quiet sighs to

stricken mothers,

angry sons with stones, uncles, grandfathers

in tears who can

sum hopes & sorrows in

a single human face? hundreds forever

lost to us now, how many more before

the butchery subsides

A Day in the Life

the last time:

we talked of A Day in The Life,

angst in our time

he'd grown, rod in his back, his acne gone-

his face now handsome & manly

the savage smile had given way to quiet meditation: you could tell who'd get it, he said,

those who slid half-heartedly from the tanks

in training

no reason to assume

we'd never meet again:

I loved him like a brother,

his endlessly

inventive mind,

his mad schemes,

the way he entered my dreams

Mother & Child

erect & stately, her head a turban of scarves, her large brown eyes & nose, the full red lips-her arms are wreathed in blankets, from which her baby cries; she gives him her fingers,

& he fiercely sucks, lets go & cries wildly; finally, shifting away from the curious crowd-aging women & young men with tired eyes homeward bound from a day of dirty work-she looses her coat, revealing the full nipple

which his lips surround as she lifts him

& pulls the blanket across for warmth

against the sullen stares, the freezing air,

her head resting atop his, one arm below, the other cradling his head where

dreams spring now in waking sleep

push off

into silence, steady

snow falling, floating about us,

high banks above, white swirl in

firs' rising ranks, gnarled cedars, aspen thickets,

the high deciduous crown

in its cloud of white

our paddles hiss & plunge,

hiss & plunge thru gaps

in the now-blinding ahead, wreathed in mist rising over

storm-roiling current, thru drifting snow,

you turn to a hairpin bend & disappear in a soft blizzard beyond:

upright, stroking slowly, evenly,

calm beyond command

in the dark at last, we lie flat

high on the plateau, now clear night: crescent

moon, ancient tales spun in stars,

Mars glaring on the horizon,

still pools reflecting clouds & lights back into the sky as our breath rises

& disappears & still later,

waking in deep night's wild dream,

I look up to northern lights flashing,

ancient signals, flaring thru

vast sky:

you & I

flashing

small & tender in our moments together

as in moments others will share,

in time to come, relieved & awakened

as we were

Dear Jim

9:40 am, I'm alone

in the quiet of your empty room, soon to leave

again,

my heart newly

charged-new mysteries & the unheralded webwork & finchsong of

friendship 0, the places

we have seen, the

springs in chiaroscuroed shade, aspen thickets, waterfalls,

Indian paintbrush & columbine spread across the scars

of avalanches, the

blue monoliths of Arapaho Pass

on a bright summer day,

together

on the high winding trail, a story

we make, always opening, always various,

dense as a dust mote in a vast sky,

right to the grave

again,

adieu-For Morgan

the mountain's ever new

as we climb-again & again

wipe your tears: this day also passes,

is always full,

always a miracle

though your lover

is far away,

your love may stretch

& cover the globe

visionary singers watch over you,

friends await your voice:

the mountain itself

will come to you 0 sing

every chord from spine's base

to heart's seat & know

your company & tribe,

nomad com pan ions

on this empty trail

Memory in love

for Chris Ide

Venus winks on the blue horizon this evening:

my mad boy star-crossed rimbaudian dreamer has passed through the veil at last with his

leaping poesy of fireworks for no tomorrow

no simple song unravels the riddle of heart & eyes tonight: go find your way, sing the pity of it; hear your lover's sleeping song & keep that

tuneful breath as a torch in memory's night:

he was your friend & however fitfully carried your dream in his time, juggling hope & fear

in the gleam of fading youth, unable to sit

long enough to give his own suffering space: you who know love, go sing it now, hold

nothing back, let your sighs swell as paeans

to the long trip's passing under empty stars

Not As You Were

your lips blue, face laved with

undertaker's paste,

relatives in denial & the priest

handing us his

sunday morning pitch, but

onstage at the Reptile House

tossing pages

to the floor, burning their words,

your voice afire

with a new generation's news, or hopeful with a new love despite

silence-The Triumph of Love

for Carmen & Craig

from the high tops of the Carpathians

to the valleys of the Owashtanong,

sing the unfurling of tender blossoms

for tonight my friends will marry,

dance the wild dances of love we raise our glasses to the heart's veiled grace:

dawn begins a new ascent thru wilderness where by turn delicate fields of monarda, lilies, yarrow & columbine awaken you

& torturous paths half-blocked

with fallen rock & shattered steps

stop you-& bring you together;

generations long past hover over parents renewing vows have

you-sacrificed all for love & give you

their blessing hands: your triumph

is in the gardens you nurture together,

in the hard night when all seems lost

& you have only each other: keep

your dream, but now, dance, dance

for love's triumph, dance for calm:

from the Black Sea to Lake Michigan, tender blossoms fi II all the valleys

under the vast blind curtain of stars & sun

The Lovers at Sunrise

a cup of tea, sliced

fruit-a long gfruit-aze still swimming in moonlight

fills the cool sharp light of an autumn dawn, cherry trees full of blackbirds-

their eyes return

to each other, naked together:

the hands twine & they move slowly, turning

inter-together in the sunlit room

CALAMUS

beneath

our feet

& moments

together

when the

dove nested

chicks take

wing

July Dusk

a fly races

fire-wild

bend

among blackberries-

lovers

in last light two

& coax

their fire

to beyond, man & boy

light-lie on their backs together-

Venus & Mars,

shadow branches above:

tonight

is the only night

their bright eyes

& playful touch in

late night lamplight, their valved voices humming under Flatiron's stars

Fireworks over the Flatirons

shouts &

cheers up

& down Broadway:

faces rise

again-dead sweet-faced

friends-boys like these now

howling-so mangled

their caskets

were sealed