I'll Be Seeing You

August302010

© Gay Reiser Cannon 2008 All Rights Reserved

On a Greyhound
headin’ out past every place
I was sure to pass
again a hundred times.
Let out of Amarillo
and floatin’ right under
the clouds—past Claude and
Clarendon and Childress.

Up front sat Will
recallin’ how it was
when all twelve of ‘em
grew up in the depression
and now spread to the wind,
But Mama still in Quanah.

Sammy, across the aisle,
in a real gray-green uniform,
on his way home to Vernon,
let me look at little
school pictures of his
sister and brother—
fine white smiles in
rich black faces.

In Wichita Falls,
the Preacher came aboard,
holdin’ the hand of
a tiny blue-eyed girl.
He was takin’ her home,
he said, to her Granma, in
Denton county. She’d
been picked up by her Daddy
at school and he’d taken her
half-way ‘cross the state
‘for the Rangers got him.
He’d been on the run for over
a month, and her grandfolks’d
been worried sick!

After Bowie, Lazda told us
about that gothic castle on
Decatur’s hill and the
old gray woman who comes out
every morning at ten
on her balcony between the
twin spires to make a
speech to anyone or anything
(real or imagined)
who can hear her.
She ends it every time by
firing her double barelled
shotgun, then turns and
goes in to wait
until tomorrow.
Lazda said oldtimers
could recall parties they used
to have up there…once even had
a Ball and invited the Governor.
Why, she said, it was their
slaves who quarried the stones used to
build that monstrous courthouse
which still holds dominion, just
as the family always had
until they all died off—
all but the old gray lady
and her younger sister.
That same sister, well past
thirty, ran off to Houston with
some Midland oilman and left
the town to whoever’d have it.

That long tale brought us in
sight of Dallas which looked like a
Camelot kingdom, and
statewide was reputed to house
oil and cattle barons
computer castles, exchange towers
and the only decent dress store
in the whole damned state.

© Gay Reiser Cannon All Rights Reserved

August232010

ARDENT WISHES

Would that I were not the poet
Witness to your tortured soul;
Warned by a guardian angel’s wings;
Wondering at your absence and your need;
Withering under your taciturn outward calm;
Worried by your internal conflict;
Wishing you pacific balm.

Would that I could stay your fears,
Open those dams and release the truths
Buried beneath your memories,
Would that I could retrieve that
Watery evenness of former waters;
Wound through calmer pools,
Woven among dreams and lotus blossoms.

Would that I could take these sapphires
Imitating starlight, mere twinkling reflections
And trade them for almond-shaped burning coals.
Or unfold rosebuds, or create new rainbows,
Would you then offer me the diamond
Hidden in the grotto of that chapel
High on the cliff of sea-lashed rocks?

Would that you would champion me—
My prize the feather of a dove.
Holding it aloft in my sight,
The feather would begin to burn
As simple as a sacred flame.
It would transform me and I would turn
Into an empress in a coronet of love.

Would that we could dwell
Beyond the cool and silvered moon?
Partners traversing the Milky Way.
King of hours, Queen of day.
Traveling the arc of time to stay
Like the lights that danced in time for us.
We, in eternal song: I the lyric; you the tune.

We would be caught forever in the feather’s vane,
Changing as the season, a single burnished golden flame.

love poem poem lyrical

August132010

ANYWHERE AT ALL

A HAIKU JOURNEY

Bus horns, cars blast past
Small trees, tall fences quiet
A city, New York?

                         Wet crape myrtle blooms
                         Crimped lace through the back window
                         Serene orient

                                                             Gray silk afternoons
                                                              Parisian cats slink in shadows
                                                              Impressions linger.

The Arch testifies
History lives in cool walls
Roman holidays.

                           Postcards from the Nile
                            Cat goddess Bastet suggests
                             Sultry mystery.

                                                            Oven sent fragrance
                                                            Winter baked sweet with warmth
                                                            Viennese delights.

               Dappled giraffe waits
               On the coffee table plain
               African retreat.

                                      Bauhaus, forties sounds.
                                      Daylight outlines nouveau curves
                                      Filters time through slats.

                                                                        Measured by spoonfuls
                                                                        These days we dwell in Dallas
                                                                         Worlds swirl in daydreams.

August72010

From the Sky

You were a star
Dropped into a child
You were a joy that became a jewel
You were a drop of truth in a desert of doubt
You were ideas in a research and development drought
You were not polarized
By politics, ambition, religion
You were hewn from the tree of reason.
In your eyes we saw visions
Of what you would do, of what we could be.

You were a star
You burned too hot
You left a black hole in our hearts.

July312010

ENTERTAINING WOMAN

For Rita

Holding it all together

She dreams peace and survival,

Sheltered there by dappled second story leaves.

She sings hope and hears the stories in every key.

And through all the pictures and the music live

The trees and dogs and cats and all the lost souls

Who aren’t sure if they can make it without her.

She reaches for them all as if from her

Fingers she can spin safety nets.

Some believe and find soft landings there.

Doubters, more dense, fall …

They break her a little every time

Yet she knows there’s glue in the music

And she keeps it handy.

July182010

Leadbelly Blues

LEADBELLY BLUES

Found him on the corner of Bourbon and Royal
He was a great big black Texas boozer
I knew he had a place for me to spoil.

We traveled everywhere ‘round these parts
Me waitin’ on the back cold stones
Him playin’ that flat box and tearin’ out hearts.

He called me Tatters. He left barbecue on the bones,
And let me slop the beer up after we left the joints’.
We slept in flophouses and he wrote hundreds of songs.

Once we went all the way to see a Dallas man
Took us most near a week ridin’ them slow freight trains—
Hitched in from Ft. Worth and walked over hot bricks and sand.

He was worn out from the travel and he needed a job
Stoppin’ on that city street called Ellum
He talked to someone but they called him a slob.

He took up fightin’ then and knocked that man to the ground.
I was runnin’ full out when I caught him up, down
‘bout two blocks.
A sassy woman said, “C’mon I’ll give you some if ya come around.”

We was mellow when the evenin’ came and rain started to fall
Lickin’ his hand I was tryin’ to tell him it’d all be fine,
When a blind man that everybody knew wandered into the hall.

Blind Lemon, Blind Lemon sing us that old blues again!
Sing it with this big bad blues man come here from Nah‘leans.
Leadbelly, this be Blind Lemon—finest livin’ black blues man.

I heard them two rounders holler, and strum into the night
Singin’ out their souls; makin’ music with great might.
Never will forget in all my wandrin’ years
Down in Deep Ellum— such joy and sadness in my ears.

4PM

AUBADE FOR ANNA

You sing a morning song of winter sunshine
While dancing a silver line of melody
Turning faces of joy as warm as sunrise
You bring smiles to everyone you see.

Form and style shaped lessons for the ages and
Awakes in you a simple style of purity
You grace an innocence we learn in stages
Understood in degrees of clarity.

Hungry for the day long learning
Eager for the feel of things unseen
Needing knowledge and giving understanding
To all you find who want or need.

You skate the crystal songs of eloquence;
You catch the universal treasures found in rhapsody.

4PM

INHERITANCE

No one bothered when my father died.
I found out and it bothered me
I yearned for promises I believed.

My mother learned through a friend.
She needed to know, that person said,
It had been several years he’d been dead.

A Christmas tree needle once dropped in his eye
On one of the three times he deigned to see me.
At both his father’s funeral and my wedding, he

Blamed me for his imperfect vision,
Criticized me for my imperfections;
Assured me of his love with a promise of

Graduated pearls, never delivered.

© Gay Reiser Cannon - All Rights Reserved

July162010

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Bryn Terfel - The Rose

(12 plays)

8PM

FOR US

Chalice by Gay R. Cannon

When clouds play counter
To sky, then tree-leaves
And shadows magnify
Our torn down dreams.
We unravel our imagination
Into thin-strung transparencies;
We test our mind’s intentions
Through bitter interwoven schemes.

We search the vast containment
For the roots of seem, and find
The threads extend past all connection
To the real; beyond the light.
In the spectrum of new reason
Filled with intuitive desire
We grasp the diamond ransom
From the sacred cup of insight.

In battles of internal conflict
Or fighting dragons breeding doubt,
We extend past our dimensions
To challenge foes inside and out.
We impose order on our being
Creating hope where none had been,
We feel the essence of our knowing,
And touch the self we hold within.

© Gay Reiser Cannon All Rights Reserved

July112010