OLYMPIAN CHESS

(screen capture from the film "Jason And The Argonauts")

A whale is swimming
In the wine glass
On the chessboard.
Zeus takes a sip,
Puts the glass back.
The whale, startled,
Thrashes its tail,
Spurts a geyser of wine
From its blow hole.
Unlike Zeus, the whale
Is getting drunk, drunker and drunker
With each breath it takes.

Elsewhere on the board,
The gladiator, angel, duck and frog
Are plotting their escape in whispers.
Zeus, who knows everything,
Finds this amusing
To no end. But he makes a mental note
Not to give the pieces
Consciousness next time.

Across the board, Hera –
Whose mind he cannot read,
Since she’s a woman and his equal –
Cooks up her own plot,
And discusses it
With no one.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

ABOUT THE ANGELS

(Photo: Engel auf dem Friedhot, Sandramat, Oct. 2006, GNU Free Documentation License)

ABOUT THE ANGELS


Long ago,
Before the New Age vogue for them,
I heard a bearded poet
In a battered leather jacket
Say he “had a thing for them;”
He loved the marble statues of them,
Sad and solemn,
Posed forever among tombstones
In the old Louisiana cemeteries.

More recently, I heard
The spoiled young daughter
Of a well-to-do churchgoer
Say she “hated” them;
Anyone who’d own an image of one
Had no taste. She looked smug
In this judgment.

When I was younger
And more literal,
I pictured them
With feathers; they were men
Whose shoulders sprouted
Giant pigeon wings –- no, gull wings,
All white, made
Of bone and muscle, and yet
Giving off faint light.
I wondered if they made a sound
Like birds.

Now that I have seen them,
I know better
Than to try to fit their likeness
Into words.
All I know
Is that you only call on them
When you are really desperate,
And that the sight of them
Will turn a young man grey,
And that the shattering vibrations
One feels when drenched in their presence
Leave you deeply shaken,
And forever chastened.


-- (C) 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

RONEE BLAKLEY

Her voice is low and warm and resonant.
She birthed her first songs during her wild youth.
She had a knack for showing the whole truth,
The edge of which is all timid souls want.

America first saw her in a film
In which a lone wolf would assassinate
Her character. This staged death would create
A haunting image: a deep soul, a struggling will –

That she’d outshine if you should meet her in
The flesh, but she’d still seem larger than life.
She might try other roles, including wife,
But her story would endlessly begin.

“Who is that?” people ask, if she should pass.
Some stars are too bright to stay caught in glass.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

…AND SOMETIMES Y

I am the first letter
In the Holy Hebrew
Secret name of God.

In that ancient language,
I look like
A tongue of flame –

The kind that hovers
Over someone’s head
Sometimes in paintings

Of the people
Some call “saints”.
In English,

I can be a consonant
Or vowel. But
Vowels in Hebrew

Are not written down –
One has to breathe them out,
For they are a word’s soul.

Consonants provide a shape,
Define the limits,
But you can’t speak out loud

Till the Spirit moves you.
In practice, I am
As much consonant as vowel,

Shaping the fire that
Springs from my own
Spark, and then

Descending like
Hands into wet clay
As it spins. Open

Your arms to the sky
And feel my energy
Come down, infusing
Everything
With both its start
And ending.

The question “Why”
Contains me as
Both breath, and answer.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )

WINTER INSIGHT

A fly on the lip of the glass,
A drink that the room has turned cold;
There’s some contradiction in this.
This season indoors breaks the mold.

You take an intoxicant sip
Of brew grown belatedly strong.
You let the nip soothe your cold throat
And find your voice, but not for long.

The drunken fly’s small life expires.
The flush in your skin will not last.
You sing about seasonal fires
And stay inside, dreaming the past.

The summer to come is far off;
The previous one, just a blur.
Your song terminates in a cough,
And you feel worse off than you were.

You know no other moment will provide
Relief that – though you can’t reach it – you crave.
It’s more than a dark lull in the year’s ride.
This quick flash of the wings is all we have.


-- © 2011 by Jack Veasey

(All rights reserved. This work may not be reproduced or duplicated in any form without the author's written permission. )