When light runs up the mountain
coyotes pass it coming down.
The last doves fly
and turn to stars; an eyelid closes
across the surface of the pond;
history has run its course
for the day.
…………………..Papers
that were signed are filed away
while those that weren’t
lie restless on a desk
awaiting further study
……………………………………….when clocks
display the time negotiations
resume over war,
displacement and pestilence,
when
………….a carp’s face
breaks still water, and a pen stroke
brings a nation to its knees.
Tag Archives: David Chorlton
Country Highway, by David Chorlton
I’m tired, the woman shouts
into her cell phone, she’s my sister
for God’s sake and I’m tired
of goin’ to court and all you want
to fuckin’ do is . . . while she pumps
a few more miles into the tank
of her car that looks
as tired as she does, setting out
along the country western highway
where four datura flowers
are open on a strip
left as earth when the asphalt was laid down,
and a vulture floats
above the broom-yellowed hills
spreading east and west, as she follows
portable homes and a van
displaying the wish to
Secure Our Borders Now. She
isn’t stopping at any checkpoints,
just tunes the radio to the old songs
that match the high elevation landscape
where distractions are few
and the lyrics go like this:
Something he said
left me wanting him dead,
so I just had to cut him down.
The Deserter, by David Chorlton
A lost soldier stops at a well
and listens to a stone
falling through the long shadow
to its dry bottom. The crackling
of rifle fire continues in the distance
but he cannot tell who is shooting
or who is dying. He takes the star
from his uniform and throws it
away into the trees
where it continues flying
in circles with its silver edges shining.
When he unbuckles his belt
it slithers off into the undergrowth,
and the passbook he pulls
from his pocket
takes off from his hand.
He lays down his gun and it disassembles itself.
He loosens his coat
and an owl flies out of its lining.
When the soldier lies down to sleep
nothing can wake him,
neither deer
nor the fox that licks the salt
from his brow
where dreams open their colored wings
around the fire in his brain.
The Executioner’s Breakfast, by David Chorlton
When the razor slides
along a leather strap
the wife knows it is time
to heat water for her husband’s coffee.
While he spits foam
after brushing his teeth
she halves the grapefruit
and slips a blade
between its sections.
She sets two eggs
to boil, listens to the clatter
of hangers falling in the closet
where he fumbles for a shirt,
and gives him the three minutes
he always takes to shine
his shoes before plugging in
the toaster and pushing the lever.
When he sits down
with after-shave scenting his cheeks
she bends for a kiss
and asks him if there is anything
he needs, if he has
any last wish before
he leaves her to wash the dishes.
..
David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. A recent collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. A new book, Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird, is out from Hoot ‘n Waddle, based in Phoenix.
Triumphal Return, by David Chorlton
The exiled dictators
stir their martinis
in the tropical shade
while they wait
for their time to come around again.
They open their mail
hoping for a signal
to put on their dark glasses
and return to the palace balconies
above the crowd
in their apartments with a view
across another country
they rehearse the speeches they will give
and accept the window’s applause.
Portly now
after years of inactivity
they plan to diet
for when their moment comes
and they stand before the people
promising a future like the past.
They will enjoy a long shower,
shave, pull a clean shirt from the closet,
brush their teeth, set their watches
and keep adjusting their ties
until the moment
the curtain is drawn
and they appear like nervous bridegrooms
when there is no turning back.
Their sources say
the day will be soon,
they need only have patience
and a maid
who does her job well. Everything depends
on her; the shoes must shine
like mirrors of death.
Tuned to Cicadas, by David Chorlton
Along the route we take to see
summer’s last cuckoo
a radio keeps company with the miles
of open country. There’s conflict
on the interstate, and arms
are being sold in all directions
even on the country road
that runs through hills made green
by August rains. The clouds today
are decoration, glowing at their edges
as they float without a care
that one country’s murderers
masquerade as a security force
and their trial has been staged to reassure
the people that they’re safe.
Ocotillo brush against
the sky, there’s a dip and a rise before
news of xenophobia
translated into yet
another language, and it makes us as sad
to hear it as glad somebody cares
enough to send reporters
to places that ceased
to be anyone’s home. Finally the trail
begins, away from traffic,
winding between mesquite
and Arizona sycamore
in dappled shade, vibrating
with the rattle from cicadas to a shrill
crescendo followed by
a sudden stop. There’s a woodpecker tap
in the quiet they leave
behind, and a towhee’s plaintive
note rising from
a rustle in the undergrowth. Not a sound
can reach here from the war games
being played while half
a continent from them the real thing
continues every day.
She could be anywhere, the high limbs
or eye level, no longer calling now
the breeding season passed
and her work
is all preparing for migration. The body
is slender, the underbelly elegant,
and the tail won’t be mistaken
for any other bird’s. Another wave
of sound breaks from the cicadas, and it takes
only seconds for the years
to part and let the memory through
of seeing one the first time.
Then a long shape glides
in and out of sunlight, and takes hold
of the world by a slim branch
on an ash tree. And the cicadas send
another wave through the warm afternoon
of stained glass singing,
the kind of loud that’s peaceful.
..
David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and often reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. A recent collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant. A new book, Reading T. S. Eliot to a Bird, is out from Hoot ‘n Waddle, based in Phoenix.
California Surreal, by David Chorlton
Magritte is in the air today.
A doorstep is a bedroom
and the pavement serves
as a parlor for so many
that no one walking by
notices how thin
their occupants have become.
A massive rock is floating
above the city and threatens
to fall at any time
but is held aloft by prayer
and hallucinogens. On the trains
that howl deep under ground
are acrobats performing
for the passengers who sit,
each with a moon
just over their heads. They turn
some cartwheels and move on
without anyone acknowledging
their virtuosity. Meanwhile,
back at street level
a dancer holds a radio close
to his chest and turns a sudden
pirouette to the chorus
in a blues song in lantern light
much like that reflecting
in the water in a scene so lonely
it could only happen
in a surrealist’s mind. A rose
fills a room there, and men
in dark coats rain down
from a clear sky. All presented so
matter-of-factly as to pass
without comment, much like
the way one is expected here to walk
lightly while sleepers float
on smoke and dreams.
..
David Chorlton is a transplanted European, who has lived in Phoenix since 1978. His poems have appeared in many publications online and in print, and reflect his affection for the natural world, as well as occasional bewilderment at aspects of human behavior. His newest collection of poems is Bird on a Wire from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press published Shatter the Bell in my Ear, his translations of poems by Austrian poet Christine Lavant.
New Morning, by David Chorlton
Sunrise, early summer: mute
clouds in the east edged
with fire, while the still full
moon hangs cool above
the mountain to the west.
The forecast is for
a hundred degrees by
the afternoon, but now
the back yard wildlife
is coming out from hiding
to nibble at the edge
of early shadows as they cross
the freshly watered grass.
Sunlight through the window blinds
rubs against the wall.
Morning news has not yet risen
from that dark horizon
beyond which the meetings
are held to circumvent democracy,
and where nobody distinguishes
politics from entertainment.
Sunday Matinee, by David Chorlton
The lady was a reckless rider
in the light rail car,
standing up to shake her hips
with the beer in her plastic cup
washing up the sides and threatening
to spill over upon
those of us just minding
our own businesses, which she
appropriated for herself
and campaigned for an end
to being miserable: an apt
description for how it felt
to be in her intoxicated shadow
while the smoothly running
wheels carried us along
our route to baseball
or ballet.
……………….The program
was all Balanchine, with its
angular grace and depictions
of sin and redemption, the struggle
to be human, and a jealous
woman’s vanity
leading to a fine finale with
her erstwhile suitor lying dead
to a knife wound in the chest.
Meanwhile, outdoors
………………………………..the temperature
was rising, and a certain
melancholy overflowed
the bars whose doors were open
and upon whose television screens
the final inning was in play. Some city
pigeons pecked for scraps
and the long streets
led to uncertain horizons.
On days like this
………………………it is impossible
to define the soul, thinking perhaps
it is the white moth
flying in the scene before
the curtain falls, or the part of us
that cares for what is lost
when a civilization turns into
technology; the part that wants
to scream like a chainsaw
when it sees what it has done.
Or is the soul
………………..the hand that holds
the knife? That tightens its grip
on the handle, bracing
to fight against loss. A fingerprint
upon its victim’s
final breath.
The Living Laboratory, by David Chorlton
The cats glow
when electric charges
flow into them,
the monkeys do not know
why they have been chosen
to be held inside a vice
that tightens when they breathe,
and a rabbit is the sore chemicals create
as they drip through a parting
in its fur. A rat
is a monosyllable in a jungle
of medical language,
a pincushion for science,
and trained to stand on the point
of a needle
to prove how small a life
can become when there is no crime
for which the punishment
is administered.
Poetry Waking, by David Chorlton
Its early: four o’clock. Too dark
for logic. The alphabet is scattered
across the floor
and the day’s arguments
have yet to begin, but the mind
is already sorting what matters
from what does not.
……………………………Loose ends
are connecting. A train
arrives from a long ago year;
a bird seen far from its range
becomes a portent of extinction;
Russia has returned to its iron
roots; all the teacups
in the kitchen fill
…………………………..with storms
and every toy gun
kills in dreams. Soon, the televisions
will wake up and start to shout
but this is poetry’s time
to purr in a world of lions.
..
David Chorlton was born in Austria, grew up in Manchester, England, and lived for several years in Vienna before moving to Phoenix in 1978. Arizona’s landscapes and wildlife have become increasingly important to him and a significant part of his poetry. Meanwhile, he retains an appetite for reading Eugenio Montale, W. S. Merwin, Tomas Tranströmer and many other, often less celebrated, poets.
Prayersmoke by David Chorlton
The marshal stood facing
his adversary, feet set firm
in the main street’s dust
as the two men dared
each other to draw first,
at which moment
several children ran, oblivious
to the standoff,
laughing between them
and suddenly a shot
was fired, then another
in response
until the guns were empty
and some of the children
lay on the ground. This
prompted both
shooters to bow
their heads a moment,
joining briefly
in prayer, then
reloading, determined
never to back down.
Morning Air by David Chorlton
Pollution rests softly
on the city’s outskirts
where desert shades
into mountains
brushed onto the horizon
by early sun.
The view ahead
is almost oriental,
so subtly do the blues
recede from each range
to the next, until
rock becomes sky,
and the sky
keeps on rising
like breath with wings.
..
David Chorlton, a longtime resident of Phoenix after spending his first thirty years in Manchester and Vienna before moving to the New World. His newest published book is BIRD ON A WIRE from Presa Press, and The Bitter Oleander Press recently published SHATTER THE BELL IN MY EAR, his translations of poems by the Austrian, Christine Lavant.
A Tuesday by David Chorlton
The internet provider has,
once again, failed
to provide this morning
while a softening of the darkness
behind Four Peaks promised
that the sun would rise.
The television news was,
as usual, lacking optimism
with a train whose maiden journey
ended buckled on
a bridge with traffic stalled beneath it
in a row of angry headlights.
When the topic changed
to the Tax Bill, No Signal
floated on a screen turned
black. The goldfinches arrived
on time, just as the desert
turned rose where it climbs
up the side of the mountain close by.
The radio efficiently reported
on missiles far away and
roads blocked close to home
while the bedroom window
framed a hummingbird drinking
from a leaf and the light
still wet from Sunday’s rain.
Tarkovsky’s Cuckoo by David Chorlton
Stalker
A question mark has risen
in place of the sun.
Wearing woolen hats against eternity
three men set out to penetrate
the Zone, where a cuckoo breaks
the silence among leaves rusting
at their edges.
A tunnel runs
through the Earth’s mind
where it remembers the time before
when the land was beautiful.
Two notes
repeat. Rain pocks
a puddle glazed with poison rainbows.
Repeat. And a wolf’s call
churns in each man’s stomach
as he staggers deeper
into fog. Back in each
of their own weathered rooms
is a clock on the wall
that opens its doors
to let a bird on a spring
out every hour, with a mechanical
proclamation that
it has survived.
Last Act by David Chorlton
Dancer in the Dark
It’s just a made up story, something
like an opera, this tragic
sequence of events beginning
with the immigrant mother
saving every greenback dollar she can
to pay for her son’s operation
while the world she’s in
is fading. But even blind she sees
in her imagination
how she can dance and everyone
around her breaks
into song for as long
as the illusion lasts. Then she’s robbed,
and high drama ensues
at the end of which her landlord,
who couldn’t stop his wife from spending
more money than he made,
is a dead policeman on the ground.
Who’d believe the woman
that he came at her with his gun
and all she wanted
was her money back? So, she
who found her way home by following
the railway tracks is lost beyond hope,
though not beyond music.
We’re watching injustice
turn into an art form, with the closing
scene bearing down upon us
like a train, as the execution chamber
becomes a theater
in which the hangman’s only doing his job
and he’s not paid to pass judgment,
just to pull the lever
that springs the trap door open
and leaves the body swinging
back and forth before
the curtains close
as they do at every final scene.
The Creation by David Chorlton
Everything looks clear enough
in the text selected for the oratorio
where the beginning seemed to be spontaneous
with darkness on the face of the waters
and all it took
was to say what came next:
………………………..light,
a firmament, some storms, and with a hand’s
demanding wave dry land. After the appearance
of grass, the situation became
more complex
…………….as a food chain
had to be established. After Heaven,
a lyre, some angels and harps,
eventually the earthworms,
crept in long dimension
while the heavy beasts like thunder
trod the ground above them.
There was always more:
………………………the ibex
balancing on a shadow’s
edge; Birds-of-Paradise
with feathers that blossom; wolves
whose voices polish the stars.
…………………………………And a vein of copper
glowing at the center of the world,
inaccessible to all
but the most destructive of gods.
All Night by David Chorlton
The mountain shifts on its bed
between street lights and the stars:
another day down
to a bark from across the wash
and a lamp whose insomniac glow
keeps a tree awake until dawn.
Final Scenes by David Chorlton
The way the villain spins,
one boot heel spitting dust and the other
already on a trajectory
toward the afterlife, as he drinks
a final gulp of sky
and pays for his transgressions is
delightful entertainment, as surely
as the speed impresses
of the draw and shot that brings him down.
Even the blast
that takes a staggering ne’er-do-well
when he’s three-quarters dead
with one bullet left
is a pleasant distraction. And the body
falling from a horse in a splash of blood
cannot fail to please
when the rider deserved all he got and more.
It’s as much a pleasure
to see the ice across a man’s eyes
as he spreads his fingers in anticipation
with his palm an inch
from his holster as it is to watch the long
black coat another wears
billow in the silent breeze that portends
his demise. There goes
the survivor, walking down Main Street on the day’s
final sunbeam, and there
lie the bodies, and here comes the music
to accompany the credits,
and we’re back
in the world where gunshots
never come with reassurance
and the script doesn’t say who to aim for.
Sunday Night at the London Palladium by David Chorlton
He meant nothing by it
when he leaned forward in his chair,
shot a finger toward
the television set and blurted
He’s Jewish
prompting the response
How do you know?
to which the answer was always
You can tell by looking at him
followed by an innocent
How?
and the ensuing explanation that
You can just tell – it’s obvious
leading to the further question
What does it matter?
begging a logical reply
as the performer took a bow
while the audience applauded
It doesn’t bloody matter, I’m just
saying he’s a Jew
I’m not saying it matters
and we tried to enjoy the next song
despite the following claim that
Most of ‘em are Jews on there
an eventuality that hadn’t
occurred to us
although when it was pointed out
it seemed possible
whether or not it mattered
as long as the performance lived
up to expectations
and with dinner cleared away
we were settled down as usual on Sunday
except for his uneasy
shifting that preceded
They make you sick
and our asking
although by now we knew what to expect
Who?
with the same answer every week
The bloody Jews
even as Bruce Forsyth smiled
his way to introduce the next act
while an outburst brewed
at the appearance of
Another Jew You can’t
get away from them
but he could sing and even dance
So what?
and as if it had been rehearsed all week
So nothing I’m only telling you
with a heavy emphasis on the first syllable
of telling
he’s a bloody Jew, they all are on there,
you can see it, it’s obvious
when you look at ‘em
you can see they’re Jewish
which observation brought
a flush of rose to his face
before he settled back to watch
the final credits roll
at the end of what
had been a most enjoyable entertainment
despite the constant
pointing out that
They’re all the same the Jews
and always made the point
before going to bed
that he really meant nothing by saying it.
..
David Chorlton was born in Austria and grew up in Manchester, England. He later lived in Vienna and moved, with his wife, to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1978. Living in Arizona has made him ever more appreciative of the natural world, while a certain bewilderment at local politics lives on too. His poems have appeared in many print and online publications, as well as individual collections, the most recent of which is “Bird on a Wire” from Presa Press.
http://www.davidchorlton.mysite.com/
I am not a silent poet 