SAM SHARPENING THE REEDS OF TIME

Between sax and scon, a solar sound
thin as the night nurse's whisper,
"Time to take your medicine, Sam."

Once Sam had a strong embouchere:
a Frenchman told him, beside lip, the word
meant mouth of a river.

Sam blew a torrent of notes, choked
the old yellow dog to death, they said,
in country dancehalls across America,

Stumbled drunk back on the bus,
flourished his long switchblade knife,
sliced roseate filets of dashlight

That made the driver shiver.
Sam would make, for comic relief,
a pass at his own throat

Before sharpening reeds whose slivers
curled like smokerings from his Lucky Strikes,
a curl for each mile of the thousand

One night stands, remembering tp save
one for the night nurse, Evelyn,
who tapped out time's last beat on

Sam's IV stand.


Ray Clark Dickson
Friday, October 31, 2003

 back to the home page

 
BLOOD CHIP ALLEY

The waiter accepts my meager tip from a corner table,
much smaller since the sleight-of-heart switch
from prose to poetry. He's telling the story
of the distinguished old gentleman sitting at the bar,
Every day, this time, sir, right there at his place
forbidden to tourists, just as he's done since I've worked
here, and my father before me on Clay Street
we in Chinatown call Du Pon Goi, the Big City. A legend, sir,
a revered Flying Tiger who has flown the Burma Run -
listen - you'll hear him insisting it was he who jettisoned
Madame Chang's piano with a barrel roll out the cargo door
when the air grew thin, scraping wings over the perilous hump,
unspeakable horrors below. Yes, I nodded, the old man's
first story was a setting for poignancies yet to come
as he spread what he calls his Blood Chip on the bar,
a map of China fellow pilots saved for the jump of their lives
into impenetrable hells below, where, under fire, he had
parachuted down to a group of women breaking rocks
for the Burma Road. All watched, in awe, as he landed
like a white-winged angel in their midst. They quickly over powered
their single guard, chose a strong young woman who knew
jungle trails woven tight as braids in her long dark hair,
secret paths back to the safety of his unit.
On the way, of course, they fell in love, he and Kim Lee,
who was returned to a grateful family, sobbing as she accepted
his promise of marriage when the war was over. a note
to a nearest American embassy, arrange passport visa, meet him
at his enclosed address, an apartment in San Francisco.
And so, until today, age 96, he had heard nothing from Kim Lee,
implores, drives the embassy crazy, describes his 'little flower'
as if he held her picture. Here, at the bar, he tosses down
shot-glass toasts of whiskey with rice wine chasers, corners of his
Blood Chip map curling back to a private garden of his loss,
that only he knew its fragrance, invited one and all to toast
with him the sweetness of their love, enduring and relentless,
as tourists touched their heads behind his back, drank his drinks,
searched, found numbers of cable cars that would take them
to other miracles, perhaps a different boredom from where
they'd come.


Ray Clark Dickson
Tuesday, November 18, 2003

 back to the home page

 
ON SURPRISING THE SEA WASHING HERSELF IN THE MORNING

The sea washes herself
in a pale pewter bowl.
neck, arms, belly
of the ismuth,
down long peninsula legs,
seaweed tangle,
all over,
behind her veil of spray
until the sun
spills yellowing yolk
on combers,
a tern scatters entrails
of a herring, mouth of channel opens
like a soft silk curtain
as she waves farewell to fishermen
who have been, like me,
watching her, most
avidly.

Ray Clark Dickson
Monday, November 24, 2003

 back to the home page

 
ALIVE IN BARCELONA
Bruce Springsteen

Shading eyes
To the sundown flush of sea
Spreading a Cadmium redness over surfers
Pirouetting in the combers,
Listening to the Boss's 'Alive In Barcelona',
Toasting all my friends, here and gone,
All the bell boys, taxi drivers
Who told the stories, gathering wings, rising,
Circling the sanctuary
Of private dream, fluttering words, mute
Against the doorscreen
Like mothwings in the dark, waiting,
Quiescent, for their lessons,
How to sing.

Ray Clark Dickson
Wednesday, November 26, 2003

 back to the home page

 
BREATH OF THE SEA

The island girl
had a sweet lisp
between Carib and Taino;
lips with fragrance
of fish oil
pressing nutrients
of life's spirit
into mine. "You'll live, Sabo,"
she said, luring
the last of seawater
from my lungs, breath indrawn,
expelled
with the fiercest
of kisses; I clung to my
nourishment
far beyond the modest
requirements
of recuperation
until her brother helped me
pack my seabag, stood
with his sister, waved goodbyes
at my departure,
a sorrow every sailor knows.

Ray Clark Dickson
Monday, December 01, 2003

 back to the home page






CHOCOLATE CREAM
- for Bessie Smith

The black vocalist
was like a big mound
of chocolate cream
sequined
in secret spices; no hard
edges
in her voice
that filled the place
with sweetness.
It was as if the streets
outside the door
weren't paved
with hard experience.
She would take away the burden,
become everyone's mother,
sister, and when she opened
her mouth
a little bit of her soul escaped,
communed
with her children of the night


Ray Clark Dickson
Sunday, December 07, 2003

 back to the home page






SEXTANT

He would lure her
To the sea, share each surprise,
Angular visions
Of coconut and palm, take altitudes
Of sun, moon, stars,
Examine latitudes, longitudes
Of their love, and, during lifeboat drill
Take full measure of her eyes.


Ray Clark Dickson
Monday, December 08, 2003

 back to the home page

 
HEAVENS OF THE HEART

Would I but live on
in paint
by an artist
Instructed by God
In how to brushstroke through
the formlessness
of fog
that hides the enormity of light
shining
in heavens of the heart.


Ray Clark Dickson
Monday, January 26, 2004

 back to the home page

 
MR. TESTUDO AND TASTE OF THE HOOK

Mr. Testudo, round and hard as turtle shell
had smallpox scars
like hard-driven copper rivets; veins like bands
of red crystals
throbbing in his wrists; strong blunt fingers
flashing an overly-sharpened knife;
a shirtless man, suspenders of fireman-red
snapping over muscles
as he filleted a yellowtail before a gallery
of river rats; contagious grin
infecting all who came to watch
as he performed with a baton of visceral
paradiddles; the big fish disappearing,
gill and tail, in a silvery arc
of sun, snip of head erasing taste
of the hook, released, in mid-air, as if
Mr. Testudo had become a necromancer of
salmon spirit, could re-assemble
all its splendor
and make it swim again.

Ray Clark Dickson
Sunday, January 25, 2004

 back to the home page






MNEMONIC TO THE BONE

I'm listening, riding along the city loop, favorite
jazz station, reluctant
to share the Dave Mathews band with angry traffic sounds,
sedated, rapelling down to a baser rhythm
slurring with the sirens; forgetting, bumper to bumper
as we inch along
that this is re-cycling day, payday for the druggies,
a circle of wild boys and girls walking beside me, closing in,
laughing, taunting, funky shoes dancing
on the hood, banging bags of tin-cans, metallic mischief
of heavy metal, a tattooed wrist thrusts
with knife, I see gray sky through slashed roof
of my convertible, dodge cloud of his spit
in gaping wound, listen to a new malevolent sound

Coming down with mnemonic muscle, a hyper-
dimentional dirge, that, at last had found its funeral -
high, up there - from a hundred brick-faced
windows
comes the chorus, hey, you shitface muthafooka pimpos,
wit yo craz-ee psycho bitches - leave tha poor
white bo alo-ne - or we cum dow-nnnn, skin yo to tha bone!
The rats deserted my old yellow Impala chevy, I
saluted saviors from above, turned up the volume
until my eardrums screamed for mercy
and headed straight for home.

Ray Clark Dickson
Saturday, January 31, 2004

 back to the home page






GERTRUDE'S ANSWERING MACHINE

If life is a bank shot,
Experience chalks the cue;
If social activism flaunts custom,
It's clicking in the cube;
Opine, then, to the ghost
Of Gertrude Stein:
A boob is a boob is a boob . . .


Ray Clark Dickson
Tuesday, February 03, 2004

 back to the home page






ST. VALENTINE'S DAY
- a love poem

On this day
St. Valentine permits me
To hold
The string to your heart;
It beats
With warmth of the sun
As he counts
Each restless hour
You're not
In my arms, our lips
Whispering
Each other's names
In the wonder
Of our love.


Ray Clark Dickson
Tuesday, February 10, 2004

 back to the home page

 
UPON PAINTING A DYING LOVER

      'We never really live
       until we fall in love."
        - John Locke, l635

He searches for a reddish blush
on his palette; not colors
that imprison pallor

Hidden between eggshell and ecru,
another mix, something
to liberate the gulag of the spirit,

Farther on, through yellow, white, cream,
wax and flax, too colorless for
themes of love they knew -

Until he touches her face, feels breath
on the tip of his brush, her pale
lips parting, brightening with song.

Ray Clark Dickson
Tuesday, February 10, 2004

 back to the home page






AT THE JAM-BAND JAMBOREE

- for the DMB


As a neo-hippie
keeps on learning,
sings with Dylan,
sanded down
by subculture's
reflective rotors,
unsullied by taxing
tours, encouraging
voices who search for
peace and freedom,
an invitation
to sit in, a rhythm
section, treasures
of civility,
who'll also shout,
sway the day,
swing us
away from war,
play on as bandmates
when lights go out,
and only love
is left
breathing in the dark.


Ray Clark Dickson
Monday, February 16, 2004