Ghostlight Serenade

When magic begins, the wolf is silent

muted by fears he cannot name
rough-edged patrol, the ridgeline ragged lope.
Stilled by splendid burning air, he joins the we
in wonder.

Million sparkle shrouded shadow display
calls down to all the fauna to marvel at
timeless and untimely light.

Rabbit bleak exploding yip, caribou undo.
While underwritten with despair, the beaver
holds his castle.

Liquid fire of plasma sheeting streaks into the void and
we huddle under blanket and shiver wondering. Cosmic
display underway.
You can hear the sound of stars exploding lonely miles away.
Holding water in mirrored jumble ripple
unholy is the fire and
the wood hold their breath.

We look North.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

An Analog To Understanding

Sometimes the horse refuses to obey,
wriggled into a worm-brained state by fatigue
and lousy grains fed after desultory brushing
he jumps about in mute ignorance of the bit.

Frustrating slice of independent life
he brings my knees to painful haunch incline
brilliant sideways glance of smirk tossing mane
great shouldered shudder jangles through my frame.

And so too thoughts refuse my bridle call
and tempest-tost the id, that sense of presence,
triumphant growth in affirmation's beck
remains upon the sled of state; confused.

Where are the paddock fencings holding safe
this wandering mind, black bess in fury flailing.
Where is the link-boy's hand to hold the bridle
tremendous forces rampant tucked in jailing.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Modern Love

You're coming over again.

Third time lucky I say, third time and it better be right.
Time watch waiting and nervous as I mark how clean
the place is, I really should have you over more often.

I know the stew is ready, it is easy food because I want
to look into your eyes instead of being busy host.
The ghostlight lava lamp burbles in the corner and I light
some incense while Vanessa Daou haunts the speakers.

Your outfit says it all. Silk scarves and faded jeans
say you want to relax and yet you want to impress. Soft
slick lips hint at that jar of gloss you've been saving.
I am impressed.

Dinner over we talk.

Talk.

Talk.

Talk.

And then when the first glimmer of fatigue reminds us
of slumber I kiss you...

And we know.

We know I can make great coffee... in the morning.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Lazy

Nothing doing Bro my friend, why dontja come and share,
This patch of ground that I hold down and spend an hour here?

Pick out the colors on the clothes of people passin’ by,
And weave with me a tapestry, we’ll join it to the sky.

The crunch of tires, sounds of day, now salt them in as well.
Pick up the crossing smells that drift and sew them parallel.

How sad for those who say I’m lazy, wasting half my day.
I work real hard at what I do, I work at how I play.

And when I’ve worked my days away and leave this mortal coil,
I’ll lie me down upon the ground and work at making soil.


~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Even E=instein Had Bad Hair Days

Being and nothingness, no conclusion.
Could the choices breed more confusion?
Hamletization no temptation, I think I’ll have a drink.

Professing no illusions, I slip into fantasies of profusion.
Intimacies not close enough for me.

Though energy enough for time, couples with mass and is frozen.
Nothing relative is chosen.

Crazy thoughts and conditions,
Eliminate other renditions.

Quirks of quarks cannot figure, randomness so pure.
Mighty questions of absolute,
Nothingness does not compute.

The park looks peaceful today.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Skill Set

Pitched quickly from my shovel the brown soil scatters
upon the pile in hopes of re-interment as deeply I set
the manly hole in line across the hillside. Here is the
pipeline set... one by two by ohgodhowmany?

Backgrown crick and groan... I stretch and find my
mind drawn further up the scale of days away in
multi-tasking splendor. Thank god I am not here.

Down goes the tool, up comes the soil and once
again I reach for more to crush and pull.

A skill-set this, when thinking fails me and the
many training vales fail me, I am here... digging
this ditch and pitching a lifetime earned upon
this continuous byre.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

To Margie, Who Doesn’t Really Give A Shit

What hurts is that I think of you after many empty times.
A bitter welling soaks fresh resentments into memories
of a contentment never relearned without you.

What hurts is that I cannot remember your face.
When passing in the tide of city urgency I doubt I’d
know you, though constantly I look.

What hurts is that I miss you. When hours collect
in the small and dark of day I write words of re-union
conversations, dialogs of doubtful veracity which
open a window of wonder and pitiful yearnings.
These I hope never to use, but still I make them up.

What hurts is that you don’t seem to care.
The grown man doesn’t cry anymore,
Instead the belly eats of itself with a shoddy-built
hope that finds a refuge by my ribs. Anchored in
place with a glue of wistfulness, it clings mightily.
And still the letters have gone to empty silence.

What hurts is that you asked me to love you. My
last protector, the off-side stance, melted in trust.
Folded in tender arms I crumbled. Never did I fear
Eventual loss until betrayal was unveiled.

Now unto the last days...

The walls are down, the gates are breached, and the
Winds scatter the grain into the fields.

What hurts is that I still want you.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Silent Sing The Crows at Final Light

There stands a hill like many hills that stand in
shade and light. It stands with rows of grass and
stones recalling names of those who fought and
fell in wars whose independence fades in numbered
similarity.

A place of flesh which mortifies. A place where
few will come. A place of many endings where
stands a man remembering his past.

The old man sat so lonely upon a settled stump.
Crumbled on its edges it served as mute testimony
of what had stood before the cabins came and filled
the open fields. They grayed together, stump and man,
sharing of the summer shade and holding down the
corners of the world.

In the boy’s eye the hair which downy fell upon
his aged pate became a halo shining in the
speckled light the last surviving tree let down.
It was a shining which—even now—the boy
could never say was not an inner clarity shining forth.

A spotted hand pinched the beard which grew in
grizzled confusion upon his chin. A chin which
knew not of beards in years gone past before the
hand grew too enfeebled for the blade.

There was a sound, moist and subtle, which framed
the steaming stench which issued from his pipe.
A pipe which ancient teeth, yellowed but firm, held
in practiced clench.

The old man sought in the welcome of a smile to
bestow a blessing upon the boy, a child of children
once removed. Emboldened by the fond gentleness,
the boy climbed the ragged folds to a lap which held
him in quiet embrasure and spoke of safety.

These the man remembers. These he says are foremost
in a mind grown older with an adult wisdom both
spurious and proud. These are still what speaks in
admiration for what the generations passed down.
The man has soaked them into his growth.

The boy now grown sits by the stone which serves as
mute testimony of the man who stood before the stones
came and filled the field. The child now grown calls
to his own and mourns that part he never knew. The
absence leaves a hole wherein the demons of his night
come to taunt him.

Here/Now acceptance of farewell is voiced.
A silent finality chants what is written on the stone.
As peaceful grows the grass that knows the man;
Deep in weather-watch stand the stone.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

A repeat for those who missed this the first time

When The Child Was One

When the child was a child,
Traveler of the lifted sight.
Manner bold like danger wild,
Cast of God, blank shadow bright.

Taken, holding, gentle grasp,
Climb exploring, burgle look.
Reaching, helpless handful clasp,
Laughter builded, anger took.

Teaching love in needing trust.
Tangent seeking, singly vast.
Howl of raining; days of dust,
End of contract, grown too fast.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Dedicated to Thomas Lee and William Wallis

Sister Moon No Friend Of Mine

They call you Sister Moon but no family are you to me.
Cold and distant floating on an infinite sea you light the
night with silver light
but it never warms my heart.

Long ago I lay in the grass and wondered at fateful
evenings to come now I am happy just to be numb
and as I drive this country road
where no one else comes by.

Off go the headlamps, I drive by the silver light you let
down to wash the fields and quiet the eerie argentine
road is welded to my brain. Here on this dark yet
brilliant journey I wonder and wander along.

How many pilgrims, lost in their questions, float on
the tresses of silver let down Dark-hearted princess,
dressed in your nightgown, what will you say to those
others you've lit?
I know not the clear winter morning to come.

Can you be sister of our cool questings, journeys which
lead us to the ends of the world? Will we find the giant
who hurled you upon the fell canvas? Or will we see that
in your cold silver shining you are but a hunk of frozen
brilliance.

A rock rotating outside on the cosmos forever reflecting a
brilliance but stolen from mother's golden glow.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

In The Mall Of My Dreaming

In my dream I am swimming,

the foul water of indoor pool, Koi pond
of botanical gardens
eldritch and sullied.

Within the water are the bodies of
the dead. My dead
floating under the surface and hampering
my stroke as I
strive for the other shore

The island

held in sight and yet so dark and lonely
lost

My Valhalla un-illumined

Building rising on the shore which folds
like cardboard boxes in the rain holds no
window to reflect back
the actor who is me.

Stroke, stroke, stroke
bumping over the bodies,
climbing over the bodies,
trying to not touch the bodies.

My dead are in my way.

I will get there I will crawl over
these fallen ones
I will,
I will.


~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

The Winds Of Santa Ana

Running through my mind like a child with no shoes,
The strong-scented breeze ruffles the curtains of perception
And lets me know that all will never be lost.

As long as hope resides in my chest, I will strive.
Eventually to get there and then to discover that
it was always here.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Holy Crossroads Blues

In the space of a lifetime
When the moment unfurls
I can hide in the distance of you eyes.
But the sweet understanding
rains down on my brow
and the metallic measure of your sighs.
You pull on my insides
with precision and fire
sad whipping the saddest of smiles,
so full is the daytime
that folds into night.
I crave to be a victim of your wiles.


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Death Stalks Us In The Courtyard

Death stalks us in the courtyard.
Padded stealth commits
itself to vigil. Hidden
by dieffenbachia camouflage,
observing
the unsuspecting prey.

Perched upon a sun-warmed rock,
she waits for us to take our turn at
the watering hole (tea set).

This secret world hides the fantastic mind
of feline hunting manners,
gracious her living and perilous her
stay.

So grateful that she lets us live here.

These tiger stripes hide a belly filled
with felled antelope (fancy feast)
as she waits for the moment to
strike.

Twitch in traitor tail gives the game away.

Vicious attack wins victory against helpless
victim (right shoe).

In sunlit satisfaction she waits, licking.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Absinthe Makes The Heart Grow Fonder

The rift of hearts in tankard's blessing dowsed,
complete the jist of tourist books I've browsed.
I've traveled many miles not for to find, myself I lose,
but to find the copper bar with shelves of foreign booze.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Waiting For Monk

Two tappings on the keyboard awaken me
from the slumber of my hard-fought day.

Gracefully the piano glistens as The Monk
enlightens us with his magic.

Painful beauty.

Is it the vodka which fires my need to crawl
inside the music or something more?

Wishing I was born black is no answer,
I am a whale on this shore.

Silences fill the moments between the notes
and become the grounds for the notes themselves.
Stretched like canvas on frames twanged from
a firmament of tones, they meet our anticipation
and spellbind.

In resolve I determine that I am making the melody
as it unfolds before me, never mind the vinyl
set before my birth.

Cool imaginings deserve this regret,
I will never create this beauty.

Go man. Go.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

So Sweet They Call This Paradise, A Villanelle

So Sweet They Call This Paradise
(California by any other name)


So sweet they call this paradise,
And were this really just a game,
It would be fair to advertise.

Set forth with expert laid advice,
As from lectern we proclaim,
How fairly won and worth the price.

This vista-pregnant paradise,
Virgo intacta we would claim.
Gentle husbanding would suffice.

In truth a stained and jaded slice,
Of crusted tart in fullest shame,
Is all that’s left of paradise.

From those who once possessed the prize,
Was stolen this with force and flame,
Dismantled lives with holy guise.

And now with stone laid down in size,
To muffle-drown this land’s exclaim,
We celebrate the compromise.

And verdant sward called paradise
In hidden glory waits reclaim,
There patient cradled in her cries,
Is fervent hope of fair assize.

~Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner~

Ever Present Presence Proud

The sad ineffable now betrays me.

Like yoke to the oxen it channels my thoughts
into pathways of the ill-defined past.

I surrender to the brook-voiced murmurings that
fall outside my blindered sight and yet
sell to me the ghosts of my

childhood dread.

I surrender to that which tickles my thoughts
and stages dramas I could wish to
be cast with heroes.

There by a whirlpool of neglected wrath
I sway and threaten to fall in.

Perhaps a path of righteous fire, burned clean by
bargained temperament’s recasting,
will open a laddered escape
to heaven.

There placing a mercy, called forth and portioned
meagerly upon a character less than
sorrowful but still in fear
of generational rebuke.

My legacy, hastily viewed but in patience wrung, is
pressed into my heart until I find myself
uncomfortable in my breathing.

The blood-pulse tattoo beat drums a dirge and shows, in
powerful song, a breath that rattles its way to
the inevitable end.

Yet still I crave the present.

Too soon the coda.
Too soon the last of this earth.

Not shortened could I wish this battle-timed measure.
No rushing will succeed. Rather tortoise-tread becomes
the pace that wins.

In the freedom of my wishes it’s to the light I reach.

Why not more steps that beat more fervent now than ever?
Why not extend the trail?

Lay on!

For when I’m done, forever waits for me.


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Translation

Pearls don't know of their preciousness.
Cast detritus, worried grit in rounded
suppuration they winkle darkly in dank fleshy
lips which calmly wait the diver's clutch.

In tidal pool of missing intercessions I
gathered my nets of broken conversation.

Perilously close to grave intent
I mirrored a world made violent by nightmare
movie previews and fraternal knifings.

But I digress.

The pearl of the oyster calmly awaits its
declaration. The ugly duckling wishing for
oblivion could not
crash more unexpectedly, blinking, into light.

Squonk!

Regard me no more, I am the oyster

and the pearl awaits your delving.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

In the Empire Of Night

In The Empire of Night: A Triptych in Verse


I

Wind cracks the ivory canvas sails as
The moon’s full cold flowing light freezes
My eyes and slides in brilliant pallor down
The triangled cloth. There suspended against
This colander sky the fabric glistens as I
Heave the wheel to hold the course. I stand
The lonely midnight watch and let the hypnotic
Whisper of the sheets beguile me.

Wing-spread, we run before the wind as
Gracefully the following sea lifts our stern,
Glowing with the effervescent blue of our
Wake. I feel the song of the wires humming
In my fingers as I bend to test the buckles.
Bright gee the thrum of the wire, leading me
To wonder at the tuning of our craft.

What chords do we sound in our quicksilver
Flight? Do leviathan creatures sing back in
Aquatic harmony? Is it the song of the our
Sailing which leads the dolphin to dance upon
Our prow and linger in the drone of the bow
Wave? The counterpoint makes the fugue.


II

This is the downhill run. The trade wind blows
A steady course and firms our bucking ride.
Seemingly the world is aslant and we slip down
This forever slope. Landless is the horizon,
Limitless the sea. I reach upward to touch the
Brilliant sky and am enchanted by the tales told
In the stellar sea above. Illumined by their
Stories, I read the portent of the milky runes.

If every journey’s voyage were so sweet, how
Common the sailor. If every journey’s voyage
So simple, no steamship would sail. Here the
Pace of our passage shifts the celerity in me
To a kinder steadiness. Dangling my fingers in
Passing--I test my strength upon the movement
Pushing, a monster’s hand invisible to my eyes.

I stretch myself wide to accept it. Taken in
All, it lessens me. Like a grain of sand in the
Desert, I look upwards as one of a multitude and
Sense the futility of human strife. My balloon
Heart swells, bursting my chest. Too strained
Is the lightness within this dreaming span.



III

In cage of bones, my brain strains to understand.
Grasping at smoke, I force what cannot be
Known to fit my rooted lore. The wisdom of the
Boat outpaces my insight’s poverty. I am the
Dispossessed, fleeing forward towards a future I
Cannot hold. Under this boundlessness I shiver.
This nocturnal kingdom marks its boundaries
Upon my soul. Saddening its sovereign ruler.

Naked within the enormity of the sky, I seek shelter.
Infiniteness is a power which sickens; too strong
Is the physic here employed. I seek delivery from
The purity I feel now. I am a god here and I see
That mortal man was not meant to hold this orb and
Wield this scepter’s care. Pass my brow with this
Crowning, I must take the abdicator’s evasion.

Standing in the cathedral of eternity, I grasp the
Measure of my limited self. I am but a man, my
Course takes me forward. I find in my breathing
That which I would keep. Immortality must wait
Its turn. Within this world I will learn to be an
Ordinary man; an emperor without a realm.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Dogtown Blues

Swelter, shelter, smelter, helter-skelter.
I must protest this acid heat.
Stifling me like the extra blanket I don't need.
Sweat my only companion.

I burn, inside and out.

Please explain how I ended up here.
What animal karmic overload caused
me to end up beached like a whale
lost and dry?

Here in this ghetto of failure and
unhappiness. I can feel the pain
of the day I got on the bus coming
here.

The market down the street, drooping
awnings melting in the heat, limp
vegetables dying in the stalls outside,
has a line outside as people line up to
buy their life-line ice bags. A bag of
ice or two to make it through the night.

I slump on the stoop, waiting for whatever.
This stoop is home base. As long as I can
sit here I am safe. Here I and my fellow
inmates wait for the end to come.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Regrets Are Cheaply Won

I washed my hands with bad intent
and climbed the stairs. Full knowing
the mix of lust and anxiety which fill
stomached truth and the waiting magic tale.

Pace the floor and parcel the flame
of long nights burning in lonely reverie.
Help induced by liquid amber fire
Dripped down into my heart, unmixed.

How I wish for that to make my days again
both filled and feared the partnered man.
We both know I cannot even though I can.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

To A Love I've Never Met

They say that absence is to love what a wind is to fire;
It snuffs the candle, weak and frail, easily misplaced and
quenched ~ but to the bonfire, it is whip to the racing
horse as it urges greater speed upon a headlong chase.

My heart is a forest aflame, feeding on the hurricane
growing from where you are not.

Too long I have laid myself down alone. Too many
moonlight silences have not been shared with your hand
in mine. Pity, like hot shame, cuts a path of liquid fire
down my cheeks as I beg for you at the altar of a god unmoved.

The shadow play of distant star coming through a veil of
night reminds me of what I do not have. A slow-match
smoldering is in my chest, I yearn for the knowledge of you.

There is a somewhere that you walk. A place where rocks,
living in the ground, support your stride confidently. A pleasant
breeze lifts the hem of that dress I have never seen. The patterns
of the weave are mystery to me and yet I know it does exist.
Flowing and bright, hiding all that it reveals, it lets me feast upon
an ankle turning outward as you tread upon that unknown land.

Why do you hide? My love is like a bower set upon a height and
then forgotten, dusty and faded it needs but soft encouragement
to renew itself and welcome the betrothed.

Can it be that we will never meet? Oh wicked fate, spare me this!

Let me know the gentle look which welcomes morning bustle
when dreams dissolve. Let me answer yes to that which words
cannot equate. Let me lie my soul beside you, like a bottle
waiting to be filled with the silver water of your smile.

Hurry, I wait upon the old hill, silently, patiently. Yet I weaken.

Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner

Wood Box Waiting

Hard upon the heart in somber-suited splendor,
We stand the vigil’s end and nod a signal
To the charcoal-felted hand.
Whisper-gloved, it throws the muted switch that
Runs the hidden-rollered table toward the
Waiting furnace.

Present context ridicules our rules of proper
Conduct. A clown-like impulse, shackled to my
Silence, imagines a jump upon the bier to
Trumpet a Jazz-beat dirge to
Life Triumphant.

Instead we watch in silence as the immolation
Song rings in good and graceful pose.

She always liked a good ceremony.

Grey-molting eyes, fonder in remembrance than
Fact, well a spring-like flow. Echoes
Course in a silent memory hallway, empty
For once. Moisture in effect cancels our pretence.

There is no everlasting rest.

We choke a foggy final view as our inner eyes
Paint a contemplative scene
Of incandescent flesh reduced
To elemental earth.

Ashes to ashes.

Denser than I thought. The urn presses me down
As I cradle her against my chest.

No longer restless - She comes home again.


Stuart Andrew Marshall Tanner