Blue and Green: Poems / Word Images

Blue and Green Poems / Word Images

All Rights Reserved © 2001 by Wallace B. Collins

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Contents

BLUE AND GREEN

BLUE AND GREEN

ROARING SEA

ROARING SEA

THE FLEDGLING

THE FLEDGLING

YA-YA

YA-YA

YA-YA

BLUE SABLE

BLUE SABLE

STRAWMAN

STRAWMAN

A MOTHER’S CHILD

A MOTHER’S CHILD

BRILLIANT EDGES AND SOFT CORNERS

BRILLIANT EDGES AND SOFT CORNERS

FAREWELL

FAREWELL

FAREWELL

FAREWELL

GOODBYE

SHADOWS

SHADOWS

DONNA

DONNA

DONNA

THE INFINITE EDGE

THE INFINITE EDGE

A ROSE IN CEMENT

A ROSE IN CEMENT

SKULK AND BROOD

SKULK AND BROOD

SKULK AND BROOD

WINTER’S EYE

GHOSTS

BLUE AND GREEN

PART 1

Bob Clark appraised the lush view in the distance below from the tenth floor window of his Toronto office in Don Mills. Down in the green valley, tops of wet pine trees sparkle in the yellow sunlight. The warm, midmorning, glare punctured the light-blue haze that escaped the green forest and rose like smoke pushed up by tongs of flames from the thick shrubbery. The grey mist dissipated just as quickly as it appeared in his sight, which made his view of the valley below even more unbelievable by his incredulous stare. He walked toward the window, reached out for the cord to close the drapes, then halted in mid action; he stopped after he’d suddenly experienced an unusual change of mind. It led him to open the vertical blinds instead, as if to give the sun full reign into his office, allowing the streaming sunshine to enter his early morning business realm of getting started, and bathe him in its warmth.

Bob’s rise in Yellow Bird Subsidiaries brought him close to a diverse group of people who voiced an array of biases. He became especially attracted to their unusual life style, which intrigue him further. They introduced him to another perspective of living that challenged his fast paced New York lifestyle. Yet, he found the social gathering interesting enough that he became fully exposed to the social and political mores he encountered—ideals that enabled him to understand their particular social mores and the distinct points of view as an attachment.

He was grateful to his wife, Grace for enabling him such an exposure in her world of creative people with words and materials they transform into malleable images of life. Most of them were her peers, if not friends and associates in her field of the printed word. They were people who aroused Bob’s curiosity, just as Grace did that first time they met on the stairs of a Montreal tavern. He fell in love with her right there and then and married her soon after. Later, in their marriage, Bob found her friends fascinating, if not entertaining, in an offbeat way. He recalled how proud he was of her at a book publishing party. He saw her in a new light after that.

It was during what Bob believed then was a well-meaning discussion, which turned out to be argumentative as he listened to Grace engages some of her friends in genial banter—two double Martinis did it to her, he thought—when she asserts herself with utterances that both shocked and captivated her friends. He’d overheard her obvious bias, and listened to her intentional quips, no doubt designed to endear, if not provoke people with opposite views and from either camp.

To be sure, Grace’s uninhibited witticism, meant to alert some ‘bright’ up-and-coming painters nearby that she was aware of the skull game artists played on each other. They were people she knew because of their vigorous, erotic modernism, and their delight on being unconventional. The martini glass she held shook in her manicured fingers, as if to propel her irksome views where she remarked that some artists sold themselves as the genuine article. She taunted them by saying how well they convinced themselves that their colorful but crass distortion of forms on canvas, not so much reflected reality as it was a subliminal concentration of their inner images. She leaned her large head as she continued that she thought they were pandering their boorish, views on ‘us’. Bob approached Grace from behind and touched her elbow with a feeling of endearment and from that of apprehension, if not anticipation.

Grace turned and saw it was her dear husband. She looked at him, her eyes came in focus on his face and adjusted to the loving, and the care she saw in his expression, a look she hoped to see for the rest of her life. With him just there behind her she felt stronger in her persona, in her physical stature among her friends. His immediate presence ignites her confidence and she continued with verve, after she refreshed her martini, and that sculptors—she was being objective toward them; her father worked at it as a hobby, besides she refreshed her drink—were pragmatic. They created from stone the image of man, with strong, firm hands, and—like a god—gave man form and woman shape and beauty. She turned and looked again at Bob who stood firmly behind her, masking a smile, Of course, they are images that were unable to walk and talk. Neither one can express feelings nor emotions until the writer, ’the divine’, she shook her head with ominous pride, breathes life into that image, and animates that image, which lives, thinks, acts and speaks as characters in a setting, about that image. She smiled and looked back to her husband who tried gallantly to pry her away from the group of startled creators most of whom, no doubt, observed her as their prospective subject. Some, who shed their inhibition through the creative process, their verbal autonomy fueled further by alcohol, grew expansive as their voice rose up in challenge to Grace’s sardonic remarks.

Bob stood quietly behind his wife, appearing totally non committal, sometimes. Though he was a nonsmoker, he found it necessary, as a businessman to hold on to a cigarette, just for the appearance of socializing with clients. Then, he would avoid refreshing the martini he held firmly in his hand, partly from his desire to stay on top of what was happening around him. Often, he would glance, inadvertently, at Grace who held forte, but who would return his look with her familiar sidelong stare that said, I have a secret and we both know what it is. He would smile openly with her as he watches her move around the room to chat with her friends. And, the more he got to know her friends the more he marveled at how deep they were steeped in the nuances of living in their Canadian culture and supporting their particular provincial ideals, both in their art and in their politics. He gleaned valuable tips from them that improved and enriched his company’s operation that he would not have had if his wife Grace, not allowed him to enter the sanctity of her artistic group.

From The Exit Interview

BLUE AND GREEN

PART 2

Intruders, do not enter the mind of the unborn child in the womb of thought; or pry into the innards of believing or knots’ distress; and dare abort the source that births ideas with grief; as just, a credo gained from stress, ennui and disbelief; that heeds a gut reaction, of how to live or how to die! Do not give into believing or knots’ distress, knowing that—

Flurries of ideas like russet leaves, tumble lightly from limb to branch—a bough, shed from that place of rest in the mind—as though, it is your thoughts and beliefs that plummet to the once sunbaked earth to a time in fall, where they descend furtively to feed and to nourish, that rich loam soil that grows in the unseen eye.

Young stems plunge quickly to the ground. Dry leaves cry out like burning cinders, underfoot. You know then that autumn is here to chill us out. And you begin to think of winter and Christmas, after the dry brown leaves sunk deep down, into the wet, moist, thanks—giving earth below.

They become entombed under sheets of black ice, beneath the turf, devoured by Jack frost’s bite, blanketed later by drifting snow into its frigid abode. Trees bristle in the grip of frost’s ice-blue shroud; Cold captures the living solitude of ice and snow.

Come spring in all its budding glory be, flowering the nectar to a bee, to you and to me. It blooms with open petals for new love bugs. Green leaves bristle, then shimmy with passion, under nature’s fresh, bewitching breath—Oh Spring.

You part your lips and bare your teeth in ecstasy, and smile with joyful innocence—you love to hate. Then spring bursts into that splendor—your adulthood. When, you merge avidly with blue and green to purple’s hue; while in your opened mind these colors imbue an aura, in time when every tint, and shades in flowers, bloom.

ROARING SEA

PART 1

"And, in a way, I emerged as her surrogate husband, for she became reliant on me in several ways. She canceled some of her club dates on the North Coast, to Zarb’s chagrin, as a gesture of her devotion to me. I saw also, in many ways that her happiness, based on her wanting to be with me always, along with her needs, and I believed this without hesitation, depended on me completely. Her honesty assuaged my ego, and I felt comfortable with her. We consummate our love, for the first time, way out on Rockfort Beach, not for want of a better place, as it was spontaneous, and a natural outcome that fulfilled our feelings for each other.

"We sat in her car on the Palisades Beach, quietly watching the eerie slopes of the sand dunes diminish in the darkness of the sea below. I felt at home then, at peace with myself and Lana, even after the intermittent stillness of the sea broke by thundering murmur as sparks of light flew up and glistened in the darkness. Foam surfaced from rumbling surf; it emits sparkles that crest charging breakers as the roaring Caribbean sea rolled ashore in a big wash. The salty sea air reeked with wet seaweed and decaying, wood washed ashore and blew moistly into our faces. She’d laid both her palms on my face and kissed me in a way that made what followed felt natural to me.

"Everything that happened after that, was, to me, inherent. We moved up closer to each other on the car seat, despite the stick shift gear that separated us. Her soft, pear, shaped breasts cushioned my chest as I held her. We could not turn in the front seat of the car, and I opened my side door and pulled her gently out onto the powdery, white sand. The firmness of her grip on my arm, as she removed her shoe, conveyed to me a gesture of her dependence on me—I was there to support her physically and otherwise. We walked hand in hand till we got to the wet sand. Our feet sank quickly into the cool, mushy sand as we raced each other. We turned toward the sea and splashed into the dying, frothing waves as if challenging the rolling breakers that topple then crash as they collide with stones and beat-up on shells. Lana appears exhilarated by the weird, never-ending yawn of the receding waves sucking the shore as they withdrew from the slate-grey sand, dragging the timeworn pebbles back into the sea. She was so carefree and immature with me that, when she fell softly onto the sand and lay on her back on the damp sand, I felt it natural to do the same, and playfully turned over on her. She hugged me tightly, desperately even, with her warm perfumed arms encircling my head. She felt warm and cuddly under me. An unusual feeling of pure intimacy overcame me. I inhaled her sweet and sour alcoholic breath, and tasted the curry from our earlier dinner that still lingered under her tongue. I thought then that two people that close to one another that it was all they needed to consummate their feelings for each other. We were not alone on the beach. I could hear voices further down on the sand dunes. No one could impregnate the solid wall of desire that held us prisoners, nor douse the passion that engulfed us.

‘Use something, darling’, she whispered in my ear. Then she bit me gently on the lobe of my ear. She watched me with anticipation as I took a tiny envelope from my wallet. When I opened the package, it was empty. I looked strangely at her in the oscillating moonlight. Quickly, several expressions scurried across her face. They ran from an initial look of caution, to that of fear. She appears to lie cornered by passion. Ardently she drew my head down to hers, and whispered, with abandon, her hot breath tickled my ear, ‘I like to feel the real thing, anyway’.

"Her warm hands ran down the side of my body under my shirt, and than back up on my back as she stroked my shoulders. She made me believed that I had all the time in the world. That made me relax. Then, she began to make several utterances as she tried to tell me a million things, but I wasn’t listening. My only thought was how soft and comfortable she felt under me; how I was enjoying the slow undulating rhythm, sometimes an upward thrust, and then, the squirming sensation of her body under me as she coaxed me quietly into her warm, smooth body. Time stood still as the nerves in our fervent bodies pulsated and jumped up to meet each other’s, under the constant barrage, fed by the pure energy of her soft undulating body. I answered her with raw desire, sometimes, and she gasped and held me tighter, and eagerly sought my mouth with hers. Until, as our heated bodies rushed violently, headlong to fulfillment with the slapping, slurping, sucking, sounds of perspiration and love coming into one delightful mix, I became dislodged. Hastily, I began anew and she gasped, in agony, ‘Sand! Sand! Stanley! Sand is in me. Darling…sand’! Her moan was a mixture of pain and pleasure. At that juncture, I couldn’t understand what she meant. I wasn’t feeling any pain—really.

From Swell Tide Shimmy

ROARING SEA

PART 2

Just a kiss, like a thundering murmur, fangs lash out, and stings unfurled. Aqua tongues unleash the cobra sting; surging venoms unfurls and ravish the seaside.

Rumbling surfs burst out aloud; rolling breakers topple then crash; collide with stones, beat-up on shells, shuck on clams, push on squids. Crabs flushed out, driftwood wiggles then, raging swells recede from sucking the wanton shore.

Eternal song you’ve played before lands’ end, your flowing music serenades the coast, to the rocks, the boulders atop the lunar dunes, enthralled, they look, they see, they feel, captive to your solemn Majesty they’ve weathered, from the awesome power of your dashing embrace, crunched to pummeled grains, they inhale your daily drift.

Then, you beckon to them, and you reach out to them. You hug them tight, and you cuddle them close. Now, you spawn them, and you clinch them fast, you fondle them, you caress them and now you kiss them.

Until, engulfed in that endless embrace, your rhythmic surge, yielding to the interminable swells of your ebb and flow. Oh ageless, roaring, raging sea, its your endless caress, your perpetual kiss of life and death that comes with Infinite joy, on sand, stone and shells; it’s your everlasting embrace, of the sea shore, on the coastline, and in the mangrove swamp.

In nature’s galleries they do remain, the rocks, the boulders atop the lunar dune, impassive to the rumble of your swell refrain, that echoes inland with tumbling, waves bursting out. They erode from the wear and tear of winds that howl, and cheers the stooping voyeur, the horny Acacia tree. It stands desolate, on guard, a stumpy stature held erect, knotty and sharp, with stubborn barbs that arrest the gale!

Its thorny sentinels whistle at the squall; a gnarled stature stands the gale at watch. With short dry nettles that defy the storm, while its bristling sentries howl at the hurricane. Prickles puncture the wind with double-edged blades.

Now, you