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whirlwind visit pattering, spattering rain races mission-bent to earth, today, our trees seem not so much the old bluegum, and, with a tailwisp wag, it
Tia Azulay 10Oct88-11Feb07 |
{Sun 11 February 2007}
whirlwind visit
{Thu 8 February 2007}
Eye Storm
Eye Storm
Autumn thickens till the hanging days
Are changing past my window like a scream.
This winter thought too early paralyzes.
My aching eye gazes green — gold — gone.
The glazed day whips into strangeness
And lunar laughter rises, suddenly strong
As tears of light fade behind this skyline,
Mocking the blush on another hemisphere.
At last, rain churns across the glowing rim,
Tripping and falling on silver rooves,
Dappling darkness; moon glooms under cloud.
Under cover of cloud, night writhes,
Pierced by a star, and dies, weeping,
Into grass new-strewn with beauty quivering.
Tia Azulay May85-19Dec07
Copyright © 1985, 2007 Tia Azulay
{Thu 8 February 2007}
virgin confidence
virgin confidence
ah
friend
it must be like this
to make love
feeling the sharp compulsive angle
of my suffering
received, absorbed, into the tender cushion
of your acceptance
feeling your smile’s fertile caress
diffusing pain
delivering me
into
yes
Tia Azulay 28Jun90-08Feb07
Copyright © 1990, 2007 Tia Azulay
{Wed 7 February 2007}
OntheDeathof Saddam Hussein
On the Death of Saddam Hussein
– A Response to “Damn-Sad” by Ian Reed
– A Response to “Damn-Sad” by Ian Reed
When musing on the myriad ways to die
We often fail to challenge our own lie
That others’ deaths are distant from our own
And we’ll be graced with mercy we’ve not shown.
His death becomes not him, nor one of us.
It rather bursts the boil of poisoned pus
That festers in our mind beneath the sham
Of righteousness we keep up in our scam.
Pretending love and truth are ours to know
And teach and judge and finally bestow,
We claim a seat on heaven’s judgment bench
While seraphs recoil at our ghastly stench.
“Who sheds the blood of man,” the prophet said,
“By man his blood is always to be shed.”
But can you see an end of peace in this?
The prophet saw the worst of our abyss,
But did his words prescribe, or only show
The depths we’d sink to, blow for vengeful blow,
If pain and loss and fear remained our measure
Instead of hope in god-shaped humans’ treasure?
What purpose holds the prophet’s role or mine
If we can only speak, observe, enshrine
The status quo? This must not be our goal!
Transcend what was and is with “Will be whole!”
Tia Azulay 07Feb07
Copyright © 2007 Tia Azulay
{Mon 5 February 2007}
Coming to terms
Coming to terms
I miss him.
His otherwhereness is solid about me.
No longer raw,
I seem whole beyond tearing now, for him,
As I tore then.
But some days, musical days,
A sadness beyond tears hangs in, makes its own void in,
My breast:
I had dangerously given my heart as well,
When I thought I only loved him.
Tia Azulay Jun85-05Feb07
Copyright © 1985, 2007 Tia Azulay
For SDH
{Sat 27 January 2007}
Primeval Watercolour
Primeval Watercolour
Primaries pounce on the primitive page,
usurping space with bizarre pizzazz:
Opposing waves squall and break,
brim-brilliant crests crash, create a jazz
of chaos!
Interference drags a screaming thread of blue
across the careful splotches;
panicking through cooling pools of sulphur,
a purple pulse breathes whirls of fire,
willing them to swirl against the caking air,
to savage expectations, flay the fair
and even strokes of intent
with edges of the depths,
fan water into flame
with split-atomic spatterings
of aquamarine and shame
and shatterings
of line, design and reason—
Oh, Image, imagine
Imagination’s breathing:
Ruwach!
See a subsequent digital version of this poem here.
Tia Azulay Nov94–22Sep07
Copyright © 1994, 2007 Tia Azulay
s
{Mon 22 January 2007}
in the rosegarden
in the rosegarden
where will i go?
will i find home?
and if i wander without a home,
what will i give to the world?
i’m
drinking roses,
longing to be with longing,
not drawing back
from their deep white scent;
longing to let them pour
their wide, hurtful beauty
into me;
to stay, stay in swollen softness;
let the cupped hands of my mind
contain the full, firm, rounded,
layer-upon-layer-petalled
perfumed richness
that pours into my weeping.
open, open,
searching heart,
open wide your mouth:
tongue, taste of longing,
yes, yes, of longing;
drink deep;
scent sweet.
Tia Azulay 20Oct95–22Jan07
Copyright © 1995, 2007 Tia Azulay
{Tue 16 January 2007}
True Colours
True Colours
It startles me that you should be
So disappointed in my poem
That you’d even mail my home
To tell me that you don’t agree!
The kind of poetry I wrote
Is not the kind you’d like to see?
Oh fie! Oh my! Oh, dearie me!
A rising lump still gags my throat:
For failing you will make me blue,
Or green with envy; red with shame!
But soon I’m pale and wan again
—The proper shade for poets true.
Having no countenance but mine,
I can but try my lines to rhyme.
Tia Azulay 15Jun94–29Nov06
Copyright © 1994, 2007 Tia Azulay
{Tue 9 January 2007}
Relativity
Relativity at Injasuti
There,
I, corvine clutcher,
pluck at bits
of reflected sunlight;
grapple rainbow shards
that glitter and twist,
beckon and change;
always over…
there!
Here,
streams pour ceaselessly
and the blue skies extend
and the mountains continue
and night is simple,
here.
Dawn’s golden tongue licks over pearly teeth
to melt the half-sucked peppermint
in God’s blue and awesome jaw,
and we are small,
the mountains and I.
And the high orbs lock there, and linger
and challenge for the sky,
for an instant eternal,
but we are hurled on regardless,
the mountains and I.
Tia Azulay 2/3Aug88–09Jan07
Copyright © 1988, 2007 Tia Azulay
{Wed 29 November 2006}
Escalator
Escalator
Lonely in London,
people float upward above me,
headless dreamers
on an earthbound Jacob’s ladder.
Denying gravity,
their sheer mass hovers
undefiant,
static in my airspace.
Our chariot screams, heaving
in metallic anguish, straining
its indifferent load to the spewing
forth, the spattering
of conscious flesh
upon the unconscious pavements
of this ancient present.
Tia Azulay 19Nov90–29Nov06
Copyright © 1990, 2007 Tia Azulay