UNDER THE DOG STAR

Under the dog star, weary, wilted,
watching dark’s descent compress
all things to a lonesome distant barking
and a jittery sleeplessness—

I try TV for company
knowing I won’t find it there
but needing noise and light
against the stupifying humid air—

ah, perfect! Verdi’s Requiem
enters the room: air-stabbing bows
of violins, the maestro’s frantic waves
and all the choral mouths agape with O’s—

it is the final movement, the Libera Me:
“Deliver me from everlasting death…”
it screams, wails, rushes to a supreme hush
of sorrow’s softening under the breath—

and in the silence afterward, deliverance
from dark, and grief.  Hair of the dog, what
power this sad music has, to liberate
when other helps are absent and the need is great.
.
.
UNDER THE DOG STAR

BETWEEN COMMERCIALS

A winter draught
plays on the spine,
shiver music
finely cuts
a path into the hair,
the air becomes
an old disease of mind.
Time for
a long walk, large
confessions to the trees,
advice from the trapped
echoes in abandoned shells.
Time for
something pure…
that will not sell,
for emptiness to call upon
a greater emptiness
for cure.
.
.
BETWEEN COMMERCIALS

(originally posted September 2012)

UNDER THE DOG STAR

Under the dog star, weary, wilted,
watching dark’s descent compress
all things to a lonesome distant barking
and a jittery sleeplessness—

I try TV for company
knowing I won’t find it there
but needing noise and light
against the stupifying humid air—

ah, perfect! Verdi’s Requiem
enters the room: air-stabbing bows
of violins, the maestro’s frantic waves
and all the choral mouths agape with O’s—

it is the final movement, the Libera Me:
“Deliver me from everlasting death…”
it screams, wails, rushes to a supreme hush
of sorrow’s softening under the breath—

and in the silence afterward, deliverance
from dark, and grief.  Hair of the dog, what
power this sad music has, to liberate
when other helps are absent and the need is great.

.

.UNDER THE DOG STAR

.
Originally posted August 2014