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
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
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
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
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
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
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
