Winter Poems | December 27, 2021
In The Antique Shop
What could I give you?
Wandering aisles of antiques,
Fingering silver trays and tchotchkes
On a rainy day last week
I was perching on divans, peering into landscape paintings,
Trying to see you there
In the Mont Saint-Michel souvenir snowglobe,
Where the tide has risen up high above the steeple at last–
I would not give you a snowglobe
But what if I could give you Mont Saint-Michel?
Just to have a nice place to watch the tide roll in
Imagine the two of us:
Hermit monks in search of solitude,
Climbing the rock, trying to get closer to God.
There I could fill your halls with any number of things:
Fine china, antique clocks, brass candelabras…
You might like a Persian rug on the floor to warm your feet,
Or a soft armchair for reading by the fire–
I begin the hunt: from the bazaars of Morocco
To the trading posts of Singapore.
Where merchants hawk their wares:
Ornate porcelain, exotic spices, gypsy potions…
But I remember you smiling in your simple monk’s robes,
And I find nothing beautiful enough there
I return empty handed
To wander the castle’s hollow corridors
Day and night
Listen–
To the sound of my footsteps
And the sound of the tide
And the way the empty castle sounds like a shell–
The air swirling through its vaults, singing the song of the sea,
Which ebbs and flows
As if the ancient stone walls are breathing.
Is this what I could give you?
by Jade Oates
Antique Clouds
If the clouds scoot overhead and collect themselves into
the small pieces of an antique shop,
If the priceless souvenirs, pushed by an inner wind
could remind one of the way home,
the way to the sea could be held in your breast pocket.
Bicycling through the frozen night I could see the clouds,
orange from the streetlights and close enough to catch.
Standing on my bicycle, swiping to grasp an antique cloud
like a bear swiping butterflies
then stuffing my hands into my pockets like a tired man,
then to try again.
The clouds are hanging that low, pushed by an inner wind and laughing at my attempts.
by Alex Light
Utopian Reveries Ruining Christmas Dinner
Passing around the yorkshire pudding,
A freeze in the procession–
I am cold and faraway
turned to stone in my dinner chair
I wander to the fire place
but I am not there
Nor on the porch stepping out
for a breath of fresh air
Hardly can I see myself
in those huge clouds alight with sunset
I am No Place again–
snowy, milk white, and full with the feeling
of the Nothing that is here
Yes, I can tell you tales of distant wonders
but when I finally sit down with you
We will wonder where I’ve gone
by Jade Oates
Feeling Flame
Pursuit of silence, of a nourishing milk
the science of which cannot explain
what will then arise, and rise and rise–
who is this person capable of such robust feelings?
Who would rather spend Christmas alone
than with loved ones, because the most loved one
has found a new feeling in the silence.
Too intimate and immediate to meet its explanation
in the philosophies of eastern meditation,
there’s a touch of the profane
in this felt flame that could never get permission–
which, in asking for it, would be diminished.
While I’m deliberating, dissociating from the
orgasmic and torturous body,
it goes on beating.
Hands are occasionally jerking back from the red-hot molds
I’m with my aura filling,
helping it flow into form.
by Alex Light