The Poetry and Art of A. T. Buckley
Selections from:
Daily Bread
(From July - September, 2000, I wrote a poem a day...an experiment
and an attempt to silence the self-censor and suggest new portals of inquiry.)
7.14.00
Star Spangled Banner
Spangled, I come upon a world without
A map. Sparkled, striated and stripped,
Like stones in a river, I lie shallow and
Am flooded. Water logged and rough
Rocked, I flounder and roll about and right
Myself and examine my hands for direction.
But the lines are gone - even my life line.
And, for a moment, I freeze, wondering if
I am dead and if this is what waking up
Is like, but then the water blurs and slides
Between my fingers and I realize I was looking
Underwater and now I can see and isn’t that just
The kind of trick knife life likes to pull on you?
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7.18.00
Saltwater
The sea unfurls beneath me.
Curling up,
then hurling herself at the shore in wanton abandon.
Crossing the street without looking both ways.
She hits back and stores in her warehouse
(2000 leagues deep)
all the dirt and goods and even the sand -
which is why it seems
as if I’ve been crying (damn contacts),
only I’m not as that would be absurd.
(It’s far too beautiful tonight
and I’m far too young.)
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7.25.00
109 Killed in Jet Crash Near Paris
Headlines blare before my bleary eyes,
Barefoot and stumbling, I am struck with terror;
Chaos always follows a pattern of its own
And my two psychics trade licks over the wires:
I dreamt Sunday night that a Concorde crashed.
I told Ashne about it yesterday and she said not to worry -
that a supersonic Concorde had never crashed...
This from David, while Christopher with his characteristic
Beauty and unparalleled time followed 3 seconds later with this:
I walked in today determined to write a piece about the airbus a3xx,
which will be designed for 800+ passengers, fearing that when one goes
down it will be like the extinction of a town... then the Concorde...
And I am left with thoughts: uncrashed and mourning
Only for those I did not know; bereft only of experience
(As I am not a psychic) and feeling somehow guilty sitting here
In sun, my wet hair in braids, my dog by my side -
And charts left to draw and trips left to plan.
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7.28.00
Reason Without Rhyme
Salted and spoken, the rhymes lose their reason.
Hands curl loosely, falling (as all things do) to
The wayside - like overexposed film; even scents
Fade when exposed too long to the light (and the
Caprice and ceaseless ennui of the North wind.)
Because you can never go back. A prophet’s never
Welcome in his own backyard. And the sandbox is
Filled with the chaff of other people’s dreams.
(Which they broadcast via Karoke and serve up
On broad white plates with a catsup garnish.)
Pull up a chair, scrape over the leavings and sing
Along. It’s better than bitter and the verses are
Strong. A song of a sailor. A song of the South.
Go West young man. And where the hell was it
Gulliver went anyway? Further away than light can
Dance, or sound can imagine - as in quantum leaps,
Light brings to life wrinkles only imagined in Einstein’s
Wet dreams (and I lie awake, shivering and in a cold sweat,
It’s 3 a.m. and I've just missed my entrance cue: it like that?
I wonder). And Jupiter spins and coyotes sing and
The moon pales big, easy over my back fence (which
Needs repainting but the moon neither cares nor sees
As she is having contractions and everyone knows
How bitchy gestating women can be).
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7.29.00
Pressure Drop
Skinny, striving, like lonely hairs on a bald man’s pate,
Flying solo on the back of the wind (chiming up and over
The windmills that tilt no longer as the technician quit
Last Sunday claiming his talents did not include the
Invented repair of imaginary rents and he was going back
To MIT anyway which is what he should have done along),
Dancing through motes of light and uninhabited chambers
Of sound and air and sucking electrons through curling
Striped straws, moving molecules up, up and away, down
The hatch, the plane is landing and all that rot - it’s all
Movement, it’s all in motion (even my dog’s feet twitch
When she dreams). And pressure notwithstanding: air,
Barometer, gas, meter, maid, lung, iron - even free association
Owes its debt (a dilettante’s endowment) to a certain build
Up (much like a run away condominium) which drives up
The cost of everything (even toupees) and pressure aside,
There has to be a reason why gravity is still in fashion and
We haven’t simply evolved right out of all of the laws and
Rules and life as we know it. Pressure? Oh, drop it.
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7.24.00
By Halves: The Story of a Writer and a Runner
Where do all of your races take you?
You are the same two days ago as you were two years ago.
(And isn’t that almost as depressing as your
frayed, sagging apartment
and taped wires and creaky drawers
moaning under the weight of rejection slips?)
So you give me half-smiles and half-lies
and half-hearted attempts at seduction and
even your dog has only half a lip
which isn’t your fault, you tell me
but, then again (to hear you tell it),
nothing ever is.
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8.31.00
A Poem for My Unconceived Child
You came to me in my dreams last night;
I scooped you off the streets and into my arms.
Dark-eyed and wild, you were dashed against me
And I was changed as much as if you were a
Cataclysmic event (which I suppose was Love) and
Was amazed by it, made humble by it - as small as you.
Buoyed by its strength, empowered by its utter beauty,
I rescued you and made us into a home. You were my cause,
My poem, my life. Everything happened because of you
And Nothing happened because of you and both were
Imminently beautiful. Oh, I said (in my dream) this can’t be,
I’m not ready, I don’t want, I can’t be bothered -
The patterns of my life are far too set and lovely
In their singularity. But the wind of you (small, tattered
Monsoon with tiny red canvas shoes) had other ideas
And blew us about until the loveliest picture I’ve ever seen
Emerged - oh, yes, that old saw - pattern out of chaos. And,
All I can say, morning now, awake and sane, burning candles
At my desk and mulling over the negatives of a fading night,
Their images burned into my brain and seared against my chest,
Is that I’m not sure when you will arrive, or if you will
Even be of my womb, but - know this - you are wanted
Both now and whenever you decide to make your entrance.
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9.02.00
Wait, a Moment
A small still moment
Taps at my door and
Begs admittance. And
An audience. He perches
On my earlobe and breathily
Explains about overdue
Books and laundry lists
And the great false pretense
Of a busy life. I’ve re-
Scheduled one time too many,
He gently explains: the muse
Is loosing patience and
I’m loosing ground.
I ask him to stay.
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9.06.00
The Web
What is it that connects us then
Just as suddenly disconnects us:
Mercurial quicksilver (and me with
My alchemist’s license suspended
These three years)?
It's as if a spider had spun its web
Across my doorway - a moment
Is all it takes and then you’re forever
Disconnecting strands and disentangling
Strings, and why is life so sticky anyway?
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9.14.00
Beautiful Girls
Beautiful words like beautiful girls are often times
Simply that. But being beautiful is a lot of fun (I’m
Speaking, of course, as a girl, but I’m sure the newly
Appointed delegate on Words would agree (educated
At Oxford and Cambridge with a Far East symposium
Under his belt for parity, balance and proper understanding
Of all that’s Rumi). Beauty pageants, are barbaric,
And a beautiful orchid wins over any winsome face I’ve
Ever seen (petals don’t wrinkle, they merely fade which
Is far more poetic - which is why everyone collects them,
And no one collects girls anymore, it went out of fashion
Right along with cigars and Hef - with a brief Bond-like
Resurgence: which has, of course, been buried again along
With Cigar Bars). And beauty is as beauty does (admit it,
Your mother was right), and it’s all skin deep anyway
(Despite the amazing claims of lime peel wrinkle creams).
And what I’ve learned along the way is that sometimes
Being silly and laughing uproariously at oneself and one’s
Vain attempts at sartorial greatness (and perfect hair),
Is far more important than being beautiful.
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9.18.00
Carbon Dating
We aren’t carbon copies of one another
And being with you isn’t exactly reassuring
In the way that looking in the mirror to check
One’s teeth or hair is somehow vaguely familiar,
And what you are to me can’t be traced or dissected
Or carbon dated back to any specific name, date,
Era, event…you’re mythical. And I haven’t even
Begun to analyze what it is you do to me. I’m
Sure it’s illegal in most countries, or probably
Should be, and certainly if I were Muslim, I’d
Be stoned. So cover me in roses, paint my windows
Black, give me your lips and breathe me back to life.
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9.22.00
Hitch Hiker
The wind is out of breath
And pauses for a moment atop
The mountains, carried
By momentum - for just a moment
(But long enough to annoy the sun
Who hides, surly behind the clouds).
The blue tumbles beneath
The treetops and birds
Seize upon the silence
And flag it with their song.
And I am still and wondering
And a traveler at heart.
Feeling Middle-aged in the Middle of the Night
When I wake from dreams
at three or four in the morning,
and sleep won’t come again –
Was it you I was dreaming about?
there is not so much
one face I miss
or one name I say –
Missing its feeling on my tongue...
it’s more of an awareness
of something gone;
a hole sleep cannot fill –
The way you used to fill me...
an empty dull ache
for boys that turned to me,
young and ripe in the moonlight –
Your hair was almost silver...
or days spent in sleepy sun
and words that made me sing.
And when I dream –
You used to tell me yours...
it’s more of a memory
that used to breathe inside of me.
As young and vital as I was –
You always said my hands were like a child’s...
as unambiguous and unhurried as young lovers at dusk...
I felt where I feel no more,
and that is what I miss, and that is all.
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Dream Christine
Sitting in your green chair,
your eyes blankly wild
and hair disheveled,
you tell me randomly
spilled out pieces of information like:
this is not your house.
You are trapped in a shell.
I can see your face
in your eyes,
trying to tell me something;
your mouth parted in an O -
frantic to remember your dreams.
You used to tell me things,
things I remember in the middle of the night
when your death seems nearest.
Sometimes, awakened by dreams,
I go back and stand by your bed
and listen for your breathing.
I do not know what I would do
if one night I did not hear it.
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Shiver
Mugs of beer warming in our
chilled hands, we huddled on the
terrace and watched the darkened
sea below - unleavened, save the
occasional salt of a streaking star.
And, pretending we were twelve
and at camp, we told ghost stories
and spoke of shivers and spirits
and old lovers and broken lamps
and broken dreams and broken homes.
And all I could think
was that this was a sort of home.
Just sitting there.
With you rubbing my bare feet
and warming my frozen hands,
as the stars shivered above us
and the sea shouted beneath.
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Alice in Wasteland
Guttered graveyards littered bright,
Cemented with the sparkled soil of revolution:
They sit with mist; they sit with means
And the occasional unlit cigarette.
She is blonde, he is blind.
And well on his way to being bald.
They lick at their drinks like cats at cream,
And look up only and always when empty.
With rings on her fingers and bells across town,
Her fingers pause in midpoint before loosing themselves in her hair.
She gazes across the wasteland
And looks through the empty glass.
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A Sign from Icarus
Letting my finger linger
Lightly on the tiny indentations
Of the feather in my palm,
I am entranced.
Standing as I was when
It fell from the sky,
Drifting, angling slyly
Side to side.
Alighting spontaneously
Upon my wondering outstretched arm.