| Sea-birds Shrivel on The Beaches
This is the country that falls into the African dream of sores. Rhythm of feet, no shelter. The sun slashing wounds, miracles. The stones are knocking on our faces, make and unmake this insatiable thirst, place of leper and earth scream. Gold and the grateful dead in all directions of religion. The flame that cools down the voices lifting the cries of dawn, the falling of the water. 1 Winter Has Come It does what it has to do: biting the birds and the sea. The ocean a dress lying on ice. Midnight calls the weakest animals into its paddock, the green hills, stinking allure. The small villages are covered with snow. The minister in black is busy carrying his friends into the seal of death. A new generation is pushing the boundaries, us, out of sight, into the middle of an almost empty landscape. 11 Elvis Presley 1 The fall between the towels in the enormous bathroom, his face turning blue, grazing the carpet. The young Elvis died a long time ago. The older Elvis a photograph fading on thousands of walls. But now death struck him with a hammer, pounding his heart, his dead mother cleaning his face in the coffin. 35 1976 - Elvis Presley 2 A pale man on stage wearing one of his famous jump suits. White teeth, and sweat dripping from his heart, puffy hands. Obedient, numb, full of snakes. The night a shock, nothingness. The hour trembling, waiting for some spark to die, withering eyes and sockets, prize, euphoria. The curtain falling like rain. Glowing drops of sweat on the floor, into the car, back seat, two fingers V. Elvis left the building. This burning planet of ocean. Returning to paradise of ancestors. Elvis left the sockets of his eyes. His right arm stiff, as if pointing. The hand a fist, showing where to go. 36 J.L. Hooker 3 Black hat. Black sunglasses. The streaming grass of his black limousine, electric guitar, coming around the corner. Sunset above the cotton fields, Memphis Tennessee, playing on street corners his heart untied on the street, and Hey kid, they called him that. A lonely young and older man. Alone with music and silence. Soaring harder, brighter, and it happened to the sun, rainbow, rivers of lost men, women: he was The Healer. Told you where to go from the deepest. They entered the stones, black voice nailed down, a wreath, and the four-cornered milestone. 39 John Lee Hooker Boogie Man 1 He got this old guitar out of the heavens, through a terrible, biblical storm: his father the minister never gave him the boogie: the guitar was the devil and The Blues its music. His mother was a tree in an open field. A new blazing electric guitar in a wide open space, holding the clouds and the stars up with her hands. As days went past, Jesus was born. Soon The Blues wrote an I.O.U. to John, a spider on full flight, reaping a particularly fine jewel, Homburg, wrap around shades. That was what The Blues wanted. God blessed. John slid into evening, moonshine, bar: The Blues will never die. 37 Return Ocean - J.L. Hooker 2 Ocean deep, time ago, guitar on his back. On the road to Detroit, city of cars, jobs. A city grey and blue, shrapnel, splinter of living, loving, twas good. Never saw mother father again: tough to stay. Tough to leave. Better to leave- Red sand clinging to his shoes. He broke pieces of each day, to eat, and built himself a house resting on his shoulders, blues a medicine for the dark hours, blanket to wrap himself in when the upside-down world shook him. For lovers of bare bones and soft, pale twigs. Bessie Smith sighing through alleys. Spilling seed, giving back to the Atlantic. 38 Space What was there before the rain? Before the sunset, everything average? Things imagining things? Rhythm coming out of nowhere. Questions and the reason of soil, ground. Were the faces already there, the souls of tongues and fever? Droplets throbbing space and love? Was there a visit of love, making? And was there the churning of milk? The stars rattling windows. Once, our features were hiding between the pillars of apotheosis. The rusty sword ready to fell children. 15 Winter Has Come It does what it has to do: biting the birds and the sea. The ocean a dress lying on ice. Midnight calls the weakest animals into its paddock, the green hills, stinking allure. The small villages are covered with snow. The minister in black is busy carrying his friends into the seal of death. A new generation is pushing the boundaries, us, out of sight, into the middle of an almost empty landscape. 17 Hanging They tied the rope around his wrists. Warm and red, still alive, living. A sudden rush of air and his mothers broomstick snapped, very dry, hot. He entered a house where men were playing music on instruments made out of bone, the vertebras of his father. He was quiet. His mother entered the room surrounded by lions, saliva. Tigers hidden in grey corners. Somehow, she took him by the spine, yanked out the nerves and put him to sleep on a bed of roses and autumn leaves. 12 Another Day The yellow flowers hurt his eyes. There is this vast ceiling of cursing blue and pain down in his heart. The rocks and the sun. What happened to what we were before we were born? We were a mess, corrugated, of souls and stories, ghosts. The wind awakes, wrapped in a dirty blanket of skin and hair. 16 Jackson Pollock 5 -Autumn Rhythm- and -Jackson Pollocks body at the accident scene, Fireplace Road, Springs, 11 August 1956-. Constellation, the fingers of the creator, the breathing of someone or something, fingers trying to find out who we are, what we are, eyes piercing the dark, colours, pressing buttons, pressing bottles and a luke- warm night under the stars, 1956, Pollock. He looks like a sacrifice. Oldsmobile and booze, coffee for the lonely survivor* without fractures, lacerations, skull and both lungs- haemothorax-shock. Blood on ancient stone of leaves, summer and darkness of shades. Where did the agony come from? Now lying dead beside his green car, green leaves, policeman in black, torch pointing a pole towards dead Pollock. Socks, no shoes, no watch. *Girlfriend Ruth Kligman survived the crash. A third occupant did not survive. 49 Jackson Pollock Biography 1 The chopping block, 1916, piece of his finger, 4 yrs old, lying in the sand. Enamel, like a language and vanish. Left were the shots of bourbon, Last years of not working. A car speeding towards the last line. Cries were floating above the canvas. Dripping wings above a canyon, circling between sun and crevice. 45 Jackson Pollock The Jungle 1931, from New York to L.A. 2 Hitchhiking, restlessness, Route 40. Freight trains and the fast moving landscape of brown, yellow lines, splashes blue sky, evil and joy that hurts. It terrified him. Number one, number two, number 3. It was all on the track. The hot sun brandishing signals, oil rigs in the shimmering heat. Lightning storms near Terre Haute where bootleg liquor put him in jail: the jungle preyed on newcomers. His knuckles scratched, his head un- conscious, the drinking a glass in his throat, the large hands, heart beating in his shoes, stains, paint. The swollen river and the stick. Black paint. The swirls of enamel splattering the earth: horizons and dust, comets, empty faces, the stars, never tired, dark, on their way. The comet called Pollock caught in a box. Brushes gone hard. Caught in a car. Oldsmobile: he entered, top open. The cylinders were moving as the earth moved through black and the holes of fire, Gods spirit, running as deep as the waters where ships rest, their eyes taken by teeth and death of light and spring. The salmon rushing towards the green leaves. Sheets of dented metal, hands in the air. Whos hands built this grave for a man? This is his best painting, this one. This is the one that died, thundering. The 1950 car overturned, yellow and brown, totem waiting for him, lavender fields, the last photograph, lost everything. 48 Look! A new day bursts into flames. O God, I probably dont know what I am saying, but I wish I was retarded, lame, deaf. I wish I could lock the coast, find the goose with the golden egg. I am shaking all over: tomorrow, today. The tower is getting higher and higher. Now it is night, a good time to visit the well, the dead and the living, framed and unframed. Look, their winking has started. 18 The Cast-Iron Planet Detention, destruction, poverty, hell. His house is his new prison. His body. He is free to go, free to do things. He stares at the birds in the sky. Now he carries the walls with him. His ears the locks. His arms the iron bars. His job the prison guards. Returning to work. Going home to eat. He can still smell the sound of necks. The cleaning up afterwards. The bricks outside his cell door would sing the song of noose, the song bound for hell. 3 The Writer of Poems I feel the word on the shoulder take time, and whisper the columns of death. Season expands Time. What greater earth there is to be, an animal, a horse, a Time inexplicably surrendering? Linen cloth embroidered on the ancient walls of devil black castle and rupturing intestine. The dogs in the courtyard. 13 I Do Not Know I do not know where to turn to. The wind wrestles with itself. A black stone covers my face. The area is covered with heather. Vertically out of the ground. Theres the resounding of music. A few drops fall to the ground. Voices are everywhere. They carry heavy things. They carry the earth. They carry shoes and a new shirt. Perhaps they carry the moon. Perhaps they carry themselves, each other. They carry the car. people from afar, with lead in their shoes, apples on their bread. Apples in their yellow hair. And an old donkey shows them the way out, ashen donkey, the colour of rain, the colour of a heart, of someones wounds in the dark. 14 The light turns crimson. A doctor is near. He prays his heart out. He paints the colour of the sky. Nurses remove tubes. They paint the walls white and wild. They undress themselves, take dogs for a walk. I can hear my note pad cry. I can hear the crying of the wind. Of the staircase and the heavy people. Those who work in the sand. 9 Geese Today is the day of the sun and the moon, and of uncle Charlie who is going to die of a heart attack, just now. And it is the day of many suicides, births, drunken money, animals, blood, sick, stamps, groceries, toilet, wet hammer and geese going north, taking with them a molecule of every sinner and lover. Up north. North. 13 - J.D. Morrison No Return A green arm out of the ground. A pill and a handshake. Wisdom lost sight of the roses, the anchor spilled, wasted away. Splinters and wooden worms crawl all over the place. The door has been kicked in. He left his hands. He left his ears. The sound of bells. A huge clock tells us when to fly, when the grass grows again. A soft car mocks, fumes, hot and ugly. A soft black door removes the skin, bites, eats it all away. No return. Yes, and now sleep out of the corners of your dark blue eyes. 31 7 - J.D.Morrison Landscape He is all over the stage. The hooded head standing on the edge of dry land and rain. The songs of joy and joke, into a strange night of doubt, sweeping the pieces of doubt. Cold gusts keep him dancing, song of joy and pride into strange night of ice. Cold girl. And landscape: comatose pine covered by snow. Scream It was the day of the scream, the dream of the pale-faced boy locked behind the Naval* hands, the index-finger of God. Sending tons of metal and flesh from horizon to graveyard. But who was he around the house? The soles of his slippers were worn. It was the day of the butterflies strewn all over the bloody road, a river cut by blades, twisted metal. Useless bleeding wings beat the air, beat the painted Indians and the helpless hands of his father opening this very first door of fear, handing Jim the tabernacle, his portable shrine. It was the day of the sun. The day of the pale-faced boy. The beginning of a generation to be whipped, every bit, pious and all. Every mouth white and still, his hammer swinging past the invisible treasure, the riches of saying a lot and not speaking. We did not see the line, the blade, the colour. Nor the freshly ploughed field. The sun rising behind our backs. *Referring to his dads occupation. 29 15 - J.D. Morrison This Morning This naked morning dew. Severing the anchor chain. His shy arm retiring until the gates opened wide and the flower turned brown, dead and snakelike, dripping from mother fuckers of blues, a yellow and more pills till he reached the ground, his fingers digging into green, into the island if ice, the sun and the birth of life. 33 8 - J.D. Morrison Listening Waiting to follow the strange fields. Yielding. A hand full of coffin. The globe spun in its writing, a blue face. And the story of the wind, dreaming faces, anointed, breathing on. 26 A Tribute James Douglas Morrison 1 Rooftop The hunt had started, the great search, forty years in the wilderness, step towards shamanism, peyote, acid. His body close to the birds. 19 10 - J.D. Morrison The Whisky Verses about honour, rites. Slowly his blood on the scaffold, the foreign, strange nights under the boardwalk in Venice, hiding in his own pockets of steel and acid, his royal blood. I am haunted by this mark, this silhouette stooping along, to and fro, his fingers a bolt of lightning, mine a cup of tea. 28 6 - J.D. Morrison The Tainted Room He lies on the stage, camouflaged, broken branches, camouflage. The pace of his crowbar increasing, stretch marking our minds. He staggers, brightens up the stage and the snake curls like hair around his body, the gift and spit in his face. The omega, starting, to rust, his left hand on fire. The seed is being poured into stone. He knows, he knew, someone said. The love-knot of the green fields. 24 14 - J.D. Morrison Dust The curly hair fell dead on the stairway, towards the skies of his peace of mind, feeling at ease, entrance light and heaven lying, floating, almost, in this lukewarm bath. Body and the encrusted smile. Trace of blood on the one nostril, pointing at the ceiling. Eyes closed, arms, hands dripping- Did he fall back, all the way to the bottom of the stairs, of glass; only looking, not touching? Back to where he came from, back to square one? Rocks broke rocks. Sand put sand to dust. 32 5 - J.D. Morrison New Haven The soaked ocean. As he fell off the blue stage, muttering sounds against the marrow of decency, anxious windows, callous hands hitting teenage daughters, terrible wrath, ears of millions became cluttered. They came to see the play, not listen to his fountain of earth, eternal signals. He gasped, talked to the withered towns. People got wings, flew away as he laboured into lakes of souls. Here was this big mother of emptiness, sucking a straw. The ship of sweaty hair was turned upside down, lowered into a fast peaking orbit, moon of wet fur, lingering, sleeping the couch at Santa Monica Boulevard, Hollywood, city of paper diamonds. 23 3 - J.D. Morrison Miamis Dinner Key Auditorium There were spiders on the stage, a broom circling the icy moon. In front of their eyes they saw, in front of their eyes they saw not. They saw smoke and tears, the warm shower of noise, darkness dripping, alchemy and souls, and the law unfurled, their eyes preset, crazed by the voice. Decades later some remembered the dream, the dawn and the fall, emptied stage. Ocean of people washed ashore. The mould was shattered, silenced. 21 12 - J.D. Morrison The Big Sleep Now you rest I your well. We are honoured to have known, in one way or the other, this once in a life time man. Take off your shoes! As we drift in this fog. Try to listen, taste the dark cloud above our houses of straw, the wolf rushing, gnawing too soon. 30 16 - J.D. Morrison Paris Your grave is ugly and short. Definitely not your choice. But I dont think know you know. The ground has opened your mouth, digested the L.A. throat. You are the pale bones of the moon through our kitchen window. Your face carries the scars of decades of day and night, sound of the wind, candles, music, the anchored stone. Our stethoscopes spent years listening to your name, date, the joints, booze spilled on the sand, not knowing that one wet and dark night the sky took you away, slicing the fog. No more light nor darkness. No more sleep nor waking up. 34 2 - J.D. Morrison A string of comets, planets circling that hair of yours, those wild, dark question marks. Your eyes consumed by the fire, a cushion, pillow, mattress To soften the fall from your pillar; first acid, then alcohol, hollow spirit filled with romance. Your train was caught by the red signal of the spider in the tree, it submerged its soft flesh in yours, injecting less than a shade, but your powerful voice. 20 4 - J.D. Morrison Helmeted In His Waters Amsterdam took him by the hand and led him away as three Doors played the night and he took a dive. Fading. The fading began, glazed his lips as he wandered past the gables, someones rose. His golden age of craft and art turned into dump and single sun, a permit and a half to exist. 22 9 - J.D. Morrison Valley of Peace No, they say. They dont want to die, fathom, rusty chain. The sharks teeth undiluted. They dont want to hear the birds, the flute of love singing. 27 The dead man stands on the railway line. This morning he heard his wife calling him. He was asleep. She killed his sleep. She killed the dream. She, she, she is the murderer. No pity. The train is now too close to hear other sounds, birds, doves, the rustling of leaves. Someone else, still alive in ten seconds, will hear these sounds. He stands there with his arms in the air. That is his freedom. His hands wave until the steel crushes the birds in their skies of fever, and slides past his name and time, horizon. 8 First published in 2002 Copyright Joop Bersee, 2002 All Rights Reserved Thank you: John Lee Hooker, James Douglas Morrison, Paul Jackson Pollock & Andy Warhol. Also thank you: Bob, George & Neil. Thank you Sandy for all your hard work. Acknowledgements are made to Botsotso (South Africa), Donga (South Africa), New Coin (South Africa), The Breath (Canada) and The Melic Review (USA). This publication is copyright Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the author. joopbersee@elvis.com Joop Bersee Poetry: www.geocities.com/joopbersee/joopbersee.html Andy Warhol 1 I see this silver line from your eyes into mine On top of the world with a fix others and you would run around the corner to the mother of Warhola And your gay eyes closed behind a lens you are on camera, darling wowwowwow Got anything to show me? I will stick it on film darling 40 Andy Warhol 2 There is a silence and it comes out of his fingers the gravel the path weeds eating the cemetery Warhol is in love flowing up the hill sitting on his chain (pale face of the night) restless as the drawings in his drawers. Jed! Colacello! Isnt sunlight something wonderful Truman? 41 Andy Warhol 3 The factory is a curtain of sorts a very professional sheet of metal face of the camera eye of freedom and a squeezed throat and a baby rose from between her knees like a pretty, wild flower 4 Machines are coming out of your wig yes we love you too very much But what does it mean? What does it all mean? he cried as the Californian sun but he was in New York 43 Andy Warhol 5 Wild wild bird of neon strangers at her feet, and the New Yorker writes about sex, it is in the air you know. Jackson Pollock 3 Jackson froze. Car hit elms. The car spun. Speeding backwards now. Another twenty feet. Suddenly flipping over, front end over back. Catapult. Jackson was catapulted into the air. To paint, years, treated like an alcoholic, flying, conscious, ten feet up, it was sad to watch discussion on the basis to find wild turkey Jackson in turn was flattered relationship being terrific began experimenting, began to see all those swirling images adventures for the eyes as a celebrity began to work again The casket remained closed due to the extent of the injuries. 47 They won't leave me alone. These thoughts dressed in white. The colour of honey and seed upon the walls of drunkenness and wisdom whispering. They wont leave me green and crisp; road to Franschhoek, place of scattered ashes under the feet of the labourers, sweat and the cursing. Here I will blossom. It is here where the lovers of words can pick the fruit, the yeast and the lord, from the trees. Make me a part of nothing. Where no one can find me. Where Rest In peace will be a thunderous sound. 4 Midair Collision (1 July 2002) It rained, no, it poured innocence, deadbeat. Their destination was the sky, lonely bird weeping tails, ends of plastic, metal. People saw a ball of fire as they arrived, arms holding each and every one, dead leaves falling to the ground, yellow, brown, rusty, their time of life stopped by the great secret of all spirits, nightlife, the clumsy roll of a drum filled with water, dull Scottish pipers, mist, valleys. The whining of engines, rudder, throttle. Their wings felled clouds, the tears from the sky, that large open wound never counting, just adding, the whisper to the brim of our hearts, each hand only wanting each other. Now the meteor has disappeared, the sunlight, the curtains closed. The swan as light as a feather, still in full flight, never arriving. Purpose It is the end of the road. I go through the doors, fragrance and love. The sky is a tray with food. Peace, fishes and birds. The dead and blind people. The ocean is filled with sand. The earth plays soccer. Wall Street and AIDS. God is a book, the burning of ones spirit. Hands decompose with love. 6 Foreboding night, daunting lights. They have to pay the rent. They have their own family. The sun torn shirts. Dark wind tears leaves, cut throat, broken green bottle spilling blood. The end startled. Bearing immortality, delirious. - This land is lava, heaven everywhere. Land of leaping out of bodies. A knife cuts the moon. Broken waters, sunrise, manes. A new day, erosion, new blood building towers, high, higher, on top of a six inch blade. There is a string around Time, around the golden globe we possess, with rights and laws and the silence of those who should speak, and the death of those who should be silent. Massacre, mass graves of words and more rights and more laws till the end of infinity, the Universe as we understand it. God, help us, me! There is snow on the mountain. Birds carry my bones. A small piece of my flesh is smiling. Yes, it is good to be alive and well! 2 The Blue Parade The Blue Parade CONTENTS Sea-birds Shrivel on The Beaches 1 There is a string around Time. 2 The Cast-Iron Planet 3 They wont leave me alone. 4 Foreboding night, daunting lights. 5 Purpose 6 Midair Collision 7 The dead man stands on... 8 The light turns crimson. 9 Geese 10 Winter Has Come 11 Hanging 12 The Writer of Poems 13 I Do Not Know 14 Space 15 Another Day 16 Comet 17 Look! 18 A Tribute - J.D. Morrison 1 Rooftop 19 2 A string of comets,... 20 3 Miamis Dinner Key Auditorium 21 4 Helmeted In His Waters 22 5 New Haven 23 6 The Tainted Room 24 7 Landscape 25 8 Listening 26 9 Valley of peace 27 10 The Whisky 28 11 A Scream 29 12 The Big Sleep 30 13 No Return 31 14 Dust 32 15 This Morning 33 16 Paris 34 Elvis Presley 1 The fall between the towels. 35 2 1976 36 John Lee Hooker 1 Boogie Man 37 2 Return Ocean 38 3 Black hat. 39 Andy Warhol 1 I see this silver line... 40 2 There is a silence 41 3 The factory is a curtain... 42 4 Machines 43 5 Wild wild bird 44 Jackson Pollock 1 Biography 45 2 The Jungle 46 3 Jackson froze. 47 4 The swollen river and... 48 5 -Autumn Rhytmn- and -... 49 |