"bossa ballade "

bossa ballade
 
Triste é saber que ninguém pode viver de ilusão
Que nunca vai ser, nunca vai dar
O sonhador tem que acordar
Jobim

green guitar: a foliage of notes spreading into twilight,
notes chocolate, blue smoke, yellow orchid, a
single mayfly, a heart in my hand transfixed with a
half note’s stem, calla lily in perpetual shade & the
sunset’s tendrils as she lets down her hair—your
name inscribed on the one planet visible to the east,
the airplane glides past never touching down as we speak,
waking from one dream to the next to the next

& so far so good—a mockingbird in the willow singing
ultra-violet: triste é viver na solidão—a water-
fall drifting through rocks hollow like cups that can’t
contain water long, which is the garden’s sad
melody amongst rhododendrons—the blue streetcar’s
sighs transformed to major 7 chords in the hills, these
sunflowers gone black against a pale sky as we speak,
waking from one dream to the next to the next

your beauty itself an airplane—perplexity in a
sky so clear, a quarter note’s fade, a willow’s
witness to this sunset—a word arriving from
silence becoming magnolias, a blue train lost in a
forest, a teakettle’s vapor, a crimson cloche—what
wonder: a common language—this evening star
so green, guitar so green, airplane gone as we speak,
waking from one dream to the next to the next

how can the mockingbird be lonely being many
o dreamer awaken like a guitar strummed at dusk
how that airplane soars close by the planet as we speak,
waking from one dream to the next to the next


A.K. Barkley
© 2014

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
Juan Gris: "View Across the Bay" – 1921
Public domain

"song with waxing gibbous moon"

song with waxing gibbous moon

a sliver missing from the lefthand edge
that much shy of a silver perfect circle

in two nights bicyclists will still be pedaling
north on Williams Avenue past chain link & roses

& in truth the roses draw inward dulled by twilight
a vague crimson ache clotted in a front yard

but I was mentioning the moon’s imperfection
& thinking of gawky calla lilies on a lawn

otherwise gone to dandelion & ripple grass—
on another front porch a bicycle’s suspended

outlined in fairy lights—but as I was saying,
when I say moon I mean  you—

you: a word all vowel & lacking a lefthand
edge in my mind, so when I say you

I mean me—when the full moon rises Friday
above bicycles & blossoms & this construction site’s

gravel & cyclone fencing I know already
its disc will glow amber behind clouds & clouds


AK Barkley
© 2014

"water music"

water music

multiple scarlet dimensions of the rhododendron corolla
the sound of one hand plucking “Down by the Riverside” on classical guitar &
whatever took place at daybreak has floated far downstream with
ducks & a Chinese junk & flotsam—

the Morrison Bridges unfolds its bascules skyward—
another form of “hello,” for instance a
baseball's seams’ whirring uncomfortably close to the body
on a serene May evening when you’ve yet to consider twilight—

startling as the sun reflected in a puddle in the little league diamond’s
righthand batter’s box—a woman you scarcely know poised on the
curb waiting to come across—illusion of a rising fastball
sailing between the dimensions—it was another twilight, ever-

green Vermont air, a dirt road, the tree frogs change-ringing
peal the time my father went deaf with the windows rolled down—
underwater—Willamette River heaving gray toward the Columbia under
the celadon spires of St John’s Bridge

coast to coast—a 12 to 6 curveball falling like any other
egg onto a laminate floor—but dragon boats will surge up-
stream in June after all while roses unfold—the
ghostly spring run of kinamasu salmon in quantum space


A.K. Barkley
© 2014


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
Egoyomi by Suzuki Harunobu, based on a mitate showing 10th century calligraphy expert Ono no Tôfu as a frog missing its aim several times before finally succeeding. 1765
Public domain

"paper moon nocturne"

paper moon nocturne

white picket fence without belief attached, mere fact in this 
landscape with parked cars, three stars just past reach of
city lights between backlit clouds blowing north-south

so I asked you where the moon will come up—“above
the weeping cherry”—just now weeping without benefit of
blossoms in an evening fraught with gusts

as if weather were changing into something it’s not—camellia
buds clenched into green fists, bamboo on Mississippi Ave
green all winter, lissome, long-haired, green leaves

beyond belief, groaning bus at the light on Skidmore—me
walking into the future past that sushi place we ate ramen an-
other winter evening the fish tank brimming orange & blue, in-

tangible in yellow light—walking into: orange lights a-
long river's indigo current, streetlight’s glow above an alley
the moon assumes its place beyond

A.K. Barkley
© 2014

Image is from Wiki Commons: Bamboo Yards, Kyōbashi Bridge - Hirgoshige (from One Hundred Famous Views of Edo); published 1856-1859. Public domain

"tromba marina"

tromba marina

tango pink queen conch shell aperture
the drone within like a radio all shades of
static—serape draped on a folding chair

scarlet maize emerald indigo next to a
flamenco guitar silent at this moment—
back & sides cypress wood like amber

enfolding quavers—the asian pear bloom
white & crimson where bees would hum on
a blue May morning that hasn’t taken place—

chromatic harmonic—birds unseen in
hedges their ultra violet feathers existing on a
spectrum the eye can’t see—you have listened but

heard not—crunch of kwanzan blossoms on
concrete I couldn’t prevent them falling

AK Barkley
© 2013


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
illustration of a tromba marina (marine trumpet) from Olga Racster's "Chats on Big and Little Fiddles" Frederick A. Stokes, NY 1922 - public domain

"tanka chain for the spring equinox"

tanka chain for the spring equinox 
portland, oregon

weeping cherry unfurls a
blossom umbrella above the playground
the sky can’t make up its mind

finite or infinite or placid pond
pink blooms broken along the walkway

a side street’s camellias open generous
hands perplexing the breeze
a bicycle passing them by without comment

a hat blown down the sidewalk
change arriving in a whisper and a gust

yoshino’s coruscate white & abrupt
a memory overtakes you 
traffic’s red shift as the stoplight changes

a back lot white Buick swathed in mold
and the garden gate’s gray boards stand open

two magnolias gesture, their
fingers perfection cupping gray air
a half moon in afternoon for all that

surge of interstate traffic on I-5
the Failing Street bridge spans a handful of sky

A.K. Barkley
© 2013

Image links to its source on Wiki Commons:
Blossoming cherry trees-anonymous artist; from 1615 until 1868
Gold, ink, and tint on paper
public domain

"february sidewalk satori"

february sidewalk satori

these dormer windows, the afternoon sun’s flash
splashing across their eyes. the sidewalk’s impassive
at any rate, despite a crazy quilt of house colors looked at
asquint, and bare gnarled cherry boughs.

the young woman, lavender wool cap askew, walks
a black lab, who has other ideas entirely. the girl on the bike
calls in Spanish to the boy steering a kick scooter over
chalk hearts and flowers and cracked pavement.

the half moon’s a silver parachute, it goes without saying,
and six people with plastic shopping baskets mingle
in the market amongst eggplants and egg cartons and
an actual vinyl lp playing Bob Dylan.

you might be asleep: lilac purple of early crocuses,
plaid-coated plywood clown, paint-chipped, in a garden;
how moss shimmers like seaplants atop a stone
retaining wall, the couple returning from the café,

their coffee in red to-go cups, camellias blooming on a
front yard across the way beside the birdbath.
you count the steps you take. history is always like this,
in motion in increments along this sidewalk.


A.K. Barkley
© 2013


Image links to its source on Wiki Commons
"Street Landscape" - Mikheil Bilanishvili (1901-1934)
public domain

"the camellia rag "

the camellia rag
 
the spinet piano transmogrified to dormant tree:
an A# diminished scale’s black and white keys
tumbling into this January sky—

there is nothing to resist:
hoarfrost on green lawns, a single camellia bloom
dangles in a welter of branches, a red quarter note.

exuberant felt hammers,
the song sparrows in their boxwood hedges—
the syncopation of breath & step & peripheral vision,

the many walks I’ve taken down this very street
with you, yes, you! arpeggiated white key chords
from the left hand, the right hand’s

fingers holding the promised first camellias
before their season, but barely. holding an envelope
with its cancelled stamp,

holding a ginger snap, holding dozens of
black and white abstractions against the blue
where apartment houseplants gesticulate to the tune.



AK Barkley
© 2013



Image links to its source
Camellia Japonica: from Flore des serres et des jardins de l'Europe: Louis Van Houtte, 1860s. Wiki Commons – public domain

"ballade pour l’orchestre"

ballade pour l’orchestre

a flute afloat where buffleheads glide green
and aubergine in F major and it’s already March;
observe, the oboe emerges, this Bb hummed
in some tongue that concedes blue and green are the same
and why does dogwood spring maroon from the clarinet’s bell
under April’s Alice blue clouds and flurries of swans?
while May’s full bassoon and moon modulate up a tone
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

though June comes soonest, the cello drowsy where willow weeps
and blackbirds do not snooze through dawn’s puce verge
but violas drift on a Sunday drive through
cherry blossom Sunday perfect skies crooning A 440
for the violins to echo come July, oriole brilliant
counterpoint to croquet mallets’ crack, but
the double bass snores terra rosa under August’s umbrella
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

see here: two French horns in blackberry bramble tangle
where September’s brass beds and wind-up clocks arabesque
though trumpets in any key flash folly red as the last rose
nods her head and another moon’s left hanging,
a whole note sounding throughout October as geese veer past 
and pay no mind to the timpani among November’s
dotted quarter notes and crows on so many fence posts
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color

in winter, theorbos and bangles and raindrops
and Davy’s gray sky and harmoniums in the fog:
ancient music and vox humana harmonic minor
singing the burden of Time’s impossible color


A.K. Barkley
© 2012

 

Image links to its source
"Stilleben mit Musikinstrumenten und Früchten" (Still Life with Musical Instruments and Fruit") - Cristoforo Munari (1667–1720)
Wiki Commons - public domain

“berceuse with passenger train”

  berceuse with passenger train

 
contingent whip-poor-will in those woods where “lonesome” is the response to all questions—
in woods where the question always sounds like “green” and “saturday”—
this humungous luna moth in the porchlamp, this bottle of milk of magnesia—

everything happens in threes along that specific riverbank—
a chalkboard, a rowboat, a sawhorse notched from cross-cuts and gray from sun and rain—
to say “i love you” or “i love you” or “i love you” in this actual yellow meadow—

blackeyed susans contigent on goldfinches contingent on a clapboarded folly under the elms—
that was your day, and this is your night, a brass floor lamp, a vinyl LP record, a bookshelf—
everything subsides to birdseye maple and a piano key and then another piano key—

crescent moon contigent on cows in the neighbors’ pasture contingent on a grackle—
those same white birches, these mason jars phosphorescing with fireflies and stewed  tomatoes—
veni, veni, midnight train and hold my child in your wings without contingencies—


A.K. Barkley
© 2012

 
Image links to its source on Wiki Commons   
Dampf auslassende Lokomotive bei Nacht (Evaporating locomotive at night) – 1896:  Hermann Pleuer [public domain]

"interior exterior sonnet"

interior exterior sonnet


a sink of dishes stained yellow with turmeric
conches and scallops stashed in a shoebox
all white and brown, this box of 64 crayons
lurks in shadow past the desk lamp’s

green shade—enjambments are all in your head—
that wall heater’s hush-hush heat humming almost F-sharp
a bottle of fish oil capsules with its blue cap
raindrops patterned on window glass through the

blinds: where it’s lonesome as a water tower
as a train station’s yellow mosaics & rhythmic tin roof
as a laundromat beside a Thai restaurant—lonesome as

this bus stop under a dormant cherry where these similes
fly up into mossy branches much like those scrub jays
and you are shuffling a full bag of laundry home


A.K. Barkley
© 2012
 

Image links to its source
Early ad for Lux Laundry Soap - Wiki Commons - Public Domain