THE SOUND
OF LONELINESS
For
The androgynous poet Sappho,
whose legend for me became real
the winter of 2012 AD
Published by
Marianne Press
11230 Rivel , France
ÓPamela Preston 2013
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Other titles published by
Marianne Press:
Trilogy:
Into the Goddesslands,
a
memoir, 1993-2001
Book I, 200 pp
Book
II, 200 pp
Book III, 120 pp
La Chanson de Pamé La Calmette,
an epic poem, 100 pp, 2002
Peasants
and Poets,
a
mythic novel, 360 pp, 2007
Gospel of the Cells,
poem
and prose, 100 pp, 2009
Pâmoison,
a satiric novella, 130pp, 2011
All editions are printed, hand
sewn and bound exclusively by Marianne Press.
Aye, Sappho
Your verse could be
a holy twitter:
Where are you
in our century?
I moved from south to north
There
suburban blares
of traffic
weed busters
blowers
mowers
Here
I tune my ears
to pounding surf
Joy comes
in the simplest tasks:
discarding trash
catching
a dream
(4)
(4)
Fright flees in the face
of what is right
This face/your face
smiles
dissolving fear
(5)
(5)
Terror moved
Into that southern cottage
broke the white picket fence
spit on foreign mountains
I knew loneliness
(6)
(6)
Aye, Sappho
How can I
be
who I am
in 2012?
(7)
(7)
A few on my road
asked me to sing
I opened my pages
my mouth
my heart
Surprised
they cried
You are a real poet
I closed my book
Why?
(8)
9/28 Agèd
Mother (1)
Your skin
like rice paper
falls in fragile folds
from your arm
I watch your bones
carry your skin
as you walk
carefully on dead feet
numbed by age
(9)
(9)
You live
In a place
of old ones
With them you hold
your memories at bay:
wild silent screams
forced down
Collective wisdom unheard
(10)
(10)
I ask
Where are you
but lost
in the dream of death
(11)
(11)
I ask
Who are you
when the words
you speak to me
request that I behave
as someone I am not
Still
I wait for kindness
that may
or may not come
(12)
(12)
9/29 Agèd mother (2)
Kindness did not come
Instead projectiles
garnished with guilt
heavy hit to the heart
My heart
I sorrowed
That after all these years
no change
Deranged, forgotten child
buried in the undergrowth
of withered weeds
9/30 Agèd mother (3)
It came
like a washing
first light:
I am sorry
10/1 Friend (1)
I sweat sickness
A fever in my mind
you hurt me
You stole my power
but it was I
who left my
Self
wide open
to your theft
When will I learn
not everyone
is fearless and forthcoming
The tide pulls
far back
leaving wastes
of wet sand
strewn with seaweed
Close in:
reflections
of a solitary gull
I stare forever
into tidal pools
finding temporary mirrors
and a sand crab
that died
a natural death
Sky over sea
Holds winds behind
clouds
sailing through
blue yellow light
10/5 Friend (2)
We hurt each other
Fear can strain to lies
This is not what
we really want
I learn
I can love you
That will be enough
At last
I have a room of my own
On my bed:
the poets
They remind me
who I am
Some day
when the tide pulls in
tightening the shore
swallowing rocks and kelp
your name
will be written
on what is left
10/6
Aye, Sappho
Can you fathom
this technology
this destruction?
Can I fathom
your soul
sweeping down
upon us
from antiquity?
The tides:
stronger than this
The moon knows all
10/08
Sappho, you said:
Strange to say
those who I treated
well are those who do
me the most wrong now
Christine, you said:
Je vis avec mes rêves
et mes envies
This house became
a projection festival
Possessed
by the needs of others
I learned
how to make a moat
10/8
Even though
some may wipe their feet
on your soul
some may not know you exist
some may obliterate you
I know you
That is enough
You may not know
where to go
Restore yourself
then you will know
10/19 Aging
Aunt (1)
She heard a chorus
of 10,000 men
in the alley
on the rooftops
singing gospel
Singing hallelujah
Deaf
she put cotton in her ears
blocking out the truth
she knew:
the singing was
within her
A translucent angel
Fluttered nearby
The two of them
looked like twins
Her gaunt body
Did not worry me
nor her shouting demands
The louder her voice
the harder I listened
Great artist that she was
dissolved before my eyes
her skin wrapped bones
loosely
Where had her flesh gone?
Through her skeleton
whistled a wind
I had never heard
Her shouts were
all that was left
I knew
When her black eyes
glared at me
all the anger
of that helpless place
that she loved me the most
I cannot talk to her
right now
through her broken curtain
I can talk to her
through this:
her beauty
like a new veil
shimmers
10/20
I returned under blue skies
and a high tide
The fog rolled in
That night: thunder
Rain showered the sands
till dawn
10/21 Agèd Mother (4)
This time she stepped
gently down the hall
The colors of her blouse
black and red
A white scarf swayed
in her gait
Her smile: content
I was with her
Really with her
Bullies
break boundaries
leave me raging
I say: watch out
Still
the sea
is strong enough
10/25 Agèd Aunt (2)
I am here to tell you
anger passed
like lightening from our lips
Her thunder words
dementia
clapped shut my mouth
Demons in their last stand
Surrender
Her illness
a furious wind
whipped in a new front
Stillness
promised warmth
from her everlasting soul
Something gasps
for breath
within her wracked body
I know who she is
I do not worry
This end is madness
Its vortex can only drive you
to a new beginning
I do not worry
Confusion of mind
is only mind
I do not worry
I knew you
when you were whole
I loved you
I know you
as you disintegrate
I love you more
The moment has come
to go forth
I light a candle for the poet
at night’s lowest tide
The moon is half mast
stars drench the sea
and you anguish
in the belly of the whale
10/29
They call this the biggest storm
Sappho, sing to us
of catastrophic storms
before satellites
10/30
I caught a dream:
Garden bed
Mustard seed
Take root!
11/5
For the first time
I was cold
Primal fear
Winter survival
Gray skies swallow the sea
Gray floats on bare branches
Gray drains to damp chill
Gray suffocates
Winter looms
Bones shiver
The cold
has entered me
Light sinks
into the sea
at four pm
November
12/9 Shadow
Sister
Archetypal icefall into
this body
this soul
this morning
My shadow
my sister
The child’s anger
is mine
storming backward
in time
The obeisance of rhyme
meant nothing
I wanted to flee
to something
To summer
Dispel
Orual’s ruse
with space
with grace
The sea today:
cobalt
lapping the pebbled shore
Inside
gales devalue me
I wrestle
sleepless in winter’s shadows
Great light
casts a greater shadow
unknowingly
upon me
refusing solitude
Sappho, you muse over
blooming clover
star-strewn waters
Tortoise-shell harp in hand
hair violet plaited
you strum under
an ancient sun
Who is my sister, then?
The one who bargains
for my life
or
the one who sings
You are not forgotten
12/10
I find the rock cellar
aglow
Triassic stones
aglow
This stone
has your face
impressed upon it
That stone
sounds
of loneliness
12/14 Mother
Drawn to beauty
you teach me
that a long life
can bud
into flowers of innocence
I allow you
to show me
fear has no room
in acceptance
I rest on your couch
and listen to your stories
of worlds long past
while the naked trees
of winter
bloom
before the elder
You teach me
there is only one moment
and life is young
I only claim
these days with you
as our own
For now
we breathe easily
All Mothers
bless us now
12/20
I must not condemn
my weakness
Would God?
12/23
Once I opened the door
She saw not her daughter
but her mother
And I knew something called
her from beyond the curtain
12/25
This day a thaw
of snow and ice
Onto the shore
waves ebbed and flowed
A bottle rolled
from surf to sand
into my hand
Within it papyrus
A fragment
2013 Goodbyes
Fear crescendos
Take the ride
on the gust
drifting white
to the shed
Shed
The wind
wild with change
shakes attachments
From the tree
naked
trembling:
goodbye
before hello
I leave you:
ghosts of childhood
lurking in a winter house
You will play your tricks
long after I am gone
Fear ceases
facing the goodbye
to all I have loved here
to the sound I have heard here
Mother
you are in me now
There has been
erosion to what was
Make way
for what will be
The sea
has known all along:
this winter
these storms
your face/our face
A warmer sun
will dry salt tears
from this face
facing
departure
3/2013
I, Sappho
hear the loneliness
re sound
to here
You can only be
in the cacophony
of your century:
un sound
If you see the three
lilacs in their hair
barefoot running
through the field of dreams
If you hear
all the centuries
sound
If you smell
the salt
of the earth
If you taste
the salt
of the sea
If you touch
the hem
of the shore
If you behold
the fragment
in the bottle
You may forget but
Let me tell you
this: someone in
some future time
will think of us
Sappho
Fragment #60
