Turning the Questions ‘Round in My Head

I—

For Bill I turned a question
Into the only kind of answer
That resonates for me:

The song played backwards
Down the corridor of my life

Seeks no formal justification
From the traditionalists…

Let me have an empty hall,
Two ears, maybe four -
And once in a while
A caesura to measure the line
Against closure.

II—

From the Stranded Naturalist

One more swirl
Toward imagination
From the hand, the mind
Gone east…

I watch from the shore:
A nautilus cut in half
By desire.

III—

He saw the twist coming
in the turn,
Tilted his head
to make sense
of what he made;

What I had to say
As he said----
in the quiet day
I turned into silence.

IV—

Another Hidden Libretto

I had an exhortation in the place of closure,
A revival spiraling, before the snake,
A wistfulness instead of composure
A rhythm before hollow breath,
Caesura before silence…

Hit or miss: how it is
For all of us on this star dust
Revolving about our star…
Decay and energy: our coming and going.

I have heard the music of the spheres
Every day of my endurance…
But I blinked, not once … a million times.

I am still listening.

I listen to the animal wind, the frost,
The diamond growing beneath my soil.

They come together in the song.
The song and the question I forgot.

We read it once, dear brother Bill,
On the sleeve of an Angel
Before you went into the hill.

Vividly, Mozart and Leontine Price,
Or the morning aria, before I was awake,
You said: are you already awake?

It is all a matter of knowing
When you are awake, I heard Erasmus say.
Though young Tom More was making puzzle out of
pieces,
Words out of diagrams: you still
Can’t get there from here.

Mere memory takes you out to sea.

V –

Asylum

I’ve sought the wall, to turn
Astounded in the intimate ashes:
The window retreated --
The soul shakes to rid itself of itself

While tomorrow is held off for a year --
With tin soldiers buried in the backyard
You touch my hand --
Watch shadows grow dense.

I reach into the heart of water
But where can I go
To take the shine from my forehead?
I’m counting the days
Until yesterday fades.

VI –

Keeping out the Past, drawing words into Questions

Gone through all the motions of early spring
While he kept out sunlight with thought,
Kept out sound with the wall of his own voice
In his head in the moment of a cool breeze from an open door—

The day went its way from achievement to accomplishment,
To steady endurance, holding mood and mode,
Holding out against time in the hollow café music,
Coffee machine grunting against empty-handed afternoon,

Our boy, breathes a shallow silent breathe against silence
Listening to the mice in his elbow conspire his fate
Physicality gaining the day with so many lost songs,
Alto questions, broken tins, gathering glances in the rush of voices,

Displaced days, a display of modern passion for its moment,
For these aching postures pushing back against the page,
Mincing words as the house blackens sun’s death.


VII –

This power surge
Whirling across the page
Its own image now
Giving up the message
He made it from
Dips
To the edge of the picture space
To lace itself
Into the Self of his Question
To turn back on its breath
To question
The question.

Fini

I saw the sun
Shine through
Your question

And I woke
To your
Twistings.

Peter Sherburn-Zimmer for Bill Mercer throughout May 2010

There are some good lines here, Peter. Reading the piece as a whole, I believe it gains momentum as it approaches part VII. Nicely done.


Les

Thanks, Les. This is a series of responses to two 'deconstructed question marks' my friend, the poet, musician and calligrapher, Bill Mercer asked me [and three other poets] to illustrate with poems for his "Questions Series."

Peter