| Father and I |
| the wide turgid face of the great lake and land at my father's feet We wait for the storm to break, my pagan father and I, backs to shelter alone in the universe, my child-hand upon his rough arm. He is big, yet we're both small, waiting in that vast silence before a storm, watching in that green, prickly air for the wave pushing, sand blowing Summer Sky Bird Listening mute, big and small and small together, for the distant drum roll to pound pain across the flat surface of grey mother lake, for the first sizzling crack to pierce its prey, together. My pagan father and I, one, |
| Heart to heart, arm hair to arm hair, hand in hand then, only then, when the roar swept inexorably from shore to shore and the black walnut trees waved to her rhythm one two one two when the ravines widened for her swell and the beach sand stayed back crying. My father's eyes looked out to sea and mine at him as the sky grew steadily dark, child to father, Nostrils quavering with that lake smell, that fishy hunger causing head clearing smell of our watery mother. OH, Daniel before the storm, When music poured from the leaves, When the roar came, When the mighty mother heaved, When the last bird honked, When the green sky breathed. |
| The Empty Bottle |
| Behold the morning breaking from night wooed in thumb rubbed stratolight, Her, that scarlet tongued earthen tease milking the fading stars Behold the morning as a narrow snake slithering across the horizon. Call to its earless form? She cannot hear. Behold the morning as she glares evil, white eyed.. try and catch her with sword and pen? She hides around too black a bend! In some venomous cavity, out of reach, until she comes again, drips in on a creamy dawns, it's then she's hated the most. Behold her: cold, stark, cutting or rising in purple pain, a numb panting afterbirth of summer rain.. she makes you paw the ground like an angry bull, this "morning" this cadaverous concubine of our friend the Night. You're a lady of the nightmoon? You belong to the rushes and the trilling? You married the late summer warm winds? You make love to the mist and upturned leaves? |
| Behold the morning when the moon still holds when her fangs glow mad dog red over the heavens You're a lady of the night sky? Helpmeet to the Perseids fall, lonely mother to them all? Behold her now, as she takes you hostage, tries to cradle you in her moist hairy lap You're a lady of the night tunes? You need the birds of prey and cricket call, enchanted by their ebon pall? What is your ransom? If your flowers grew by moonshine you could pay her with their whitened kisses, glistening garland calls and gentle flowing whispers. Time would pass in bells and bowers, ringing in your languid lovers, and on the day would pass in gladness, on and on and on forever. But you are lost in daybreak, on and on and on in morning,, songs unspoken, spells unbroken, on and on and on forever |
| The Lady of the Lake |
| She comes swollen in the breath of midnight, comes on ivory pathways lit by fireflies over slightly wrinkled midwestern lakes. She rides over deserted croquet fields past wide,white porches facing musical bays as frogs call for mates under yellow moons of heavenly scented evenings in June. Her sighs on wings of cloud wisps flow and into the ears of yellow primrose blow sweet suggestions for the morrow, Ah, they perk and dance in wonderment She comes in silken gauze never strutting nor obscene,comes on fingers of a velvet dark's deep peace, until brown and faded as a fallen leaf she falls against the window of eternity |
| Autumn Sonata |
| Summer Sonata |
| It's October again, sheathed in gold, shattered in silence. Agho has followed me home down dusty roads and sparkled mornings, through leaf red passages of time to warmer days and applewine nights. She floods me in warm body feelings from some pastel printed storybook tucked in trunks of wistfulness, greets me with a needy look, and wrapped in flannel coverlet fells me with her tenderness. It's October again and she somehow calls with coos and purrs through leaf red passages of time to better days and applewine nights. |
| See the sunstream leave the window parted in the evening hush, creeping vine and climbing roses border downy verdant plush. quiet Summer blows the curtain softly Cricket sings the window spreading moss and climbing feather Gentle, gentle night bird enter Fly the heavens, circle starpath! Twine my hair and touch my singing.. Joy of spirit slowly sipping, kindness limp and twitter fading down to gardens rocked in borders cradled in the evening hush creeping vine and climbing roses border downy verdant plush quiet Summer blows the curtain softly Cricket sings the window |
| Spring Sonata |
| Now hail we spring whose gentle rain licks the earth and brings to life again mushroom, pond, field and flower season after season end. The fog in pillows of softest down melts from bland obscurity into laughing pronged and regal crowns settling the brown and rolling fields, ennobling the flocked and matted soil to Kingdoms of the Ground. Be it red light or blue, a sudden shining beacon in any hue springs forth as an army of the mist, and so with horns or yells or even a quiet woodland hiss, as diversionary troops tickling and running their joking misdirections hit or miss, A prince ready for the fog's magic kiss. |
| Winter Sonata |
| The evening is when time channels your mind and the wind moves as if all night is a tunnel. You waken to the sweeping low, receded by an early dark.. Winter's rasping whisper begs you, raps upon your door. The Man from the North claims you again. He's sailed on the storm to take you to him for a time. Blood warm, too warm, The night is yours alone. He lays his body on yours, hands cold upon your breast, he pulls you to him roughly, and never lets you rest, yet, you love him still and desire him always. Like the storm, he stays but a while. You long for the burning wood, the lamps turned gold and slow, the silhouette of mountain and tree etched on the silvery snow, and the soft bed on the teardrop side of very long ago. |
| Ostpreussen |
| I held you last night, hid you safe in moon shadow though you saw me not through the firefight, and today, as you marched into the mouth of hell, on which you fell. I was that ant upon your boot as you breathed your last, and when they dragged you to the side, I held you fast. You were never alone on that rock hard wind raw plain, never cold under saber sharp skies, nor drenched by metal rain... We lay together in the end, you and I, lost in the charging of a thousand currents merging, lost in the preludes that ordained our ills, lost in the trumpets and the flags, the gurgles and the stench, lost in the tolling bells, our innocence. |
| The Road Downeast |
| The road to Maine's not that far.. I've been down that road before, rode in on the eastern sun one time, got to Portland by dawn, felt the morning shake and shiver, saw the populace yawn and quiver, and feeling I had a sermon to deliver, rode on, on down the great gashing teeth of coast until I hit the village of my knighthood, and there I stayed like a lily in a pod, and singing I sank my feet in sod, bringing forth, eventually, the children of myself and my jagged god, We all then swayed with upturned arms, petal stepping, graced by charm... The road to Maine's not too far, I've been down that road before, rode out on the evening tide one time, got to Hades by dawn |
| On the gnarly Breast of Burken by the lime and tollow tange, Gemothe and Filtra Spectra brought forth their ying and yang. To word it very simply and dispensing with the glibly, Gemothe and Filtra Spectra set forth their wooing nimbly. "By Yaw!" yipped Gemothe slowly. "Tor du!" purred Filtra fast, as he opened up her ribly and she shorn her yallow blass. Their cot was wawwed by mothlight, their hearts as one did bleat, then Gemothe and Filtra Spectra rose slowly to their feet. "T'was good for thee?" chirped Spectra "Supurb!" sweet Gemothe blushed. In the yingly, yangly yallow down by the lemon thrush. "Tooo hooo!" they sang together. "Um Chawng!" and "Oomg all spent!" Said Gemothe and Filtra Spectra, when their wooing was all went. |
| Twinging und Ferborle |
| The Thirteenth Fairy |
| I missed the handshakes and party platters, the fake laughs and slide show, the old friends and guest book and small, civilized drinks and whiffs of fabric-softened occasional suits. I sat in my room, alone, except for my fickle friend Vodka, sat there in the grey, surrounded by black umbrellas, watching the solemn bearers and listening to the Dance Macabre while the wizened preacher droned, Dust to dust Ashes to ashes. as you sank, sprinkled by the sod. No nouveau levity here. I held a tear-stained note written in a child's hand. Don't ever die! I ordered you, my brother. You laughed at it, laughed for half a century or more. You sent it back to me one day not too long ago. It was my first concept of this event. And you were my first memory of life. while the wizened preacher drones and you sank, sprinkled by the sod |
| the unbarked mail the unthrown ball a long lost cookie the empty bowls the unbegged lunch the words of comfort left unsaid the ratty toys the balls of hair the jingling collar none are there no tail thumping no silly jumping no more sits or stays or downs no more 'be a good boy' frowns no more silky ears to rub no more too-long nails to clip no more walkies to the garden all too dear to be forgotten no more "you can do it, boy" no more tears upon your chest no more fear within your eyes just a hard won final rest |
| My Dog, Henry |
| Selections from: The Poetical Works of Sieglinde Schaitberger |
copyright ©
| Ben |
| I saw a spring when I was young where there was only death not joy, nor budding fresh, but pain on every robin's song and tears upon each tulip's breath Death. Not faith, nor grace of step on tiny cobbles of delight, but fright so laming me by desolation I barely bore the burden of fragrant air or curtains quaking on a sunny sill or sudden bursts of daffodil Scratched by anything that spoke of love, I mourned gray as a dove ground on the millstone of sadness in this spring of lamentation for one who'd die too young and the first rain dropped on open wounds and the peeping frogs wept as you fell to ashes before my eyes, broken and bent in the bloom of youth, my relentless vigil in vain |