Happy Poetry Month!
Hear five of my audio poems, added as of April 18:
- Honoring William Shakespeare
- Celebrating the end of winter
- Marveling at the will to live
- Recalling music to my ears
- Honoring Earth Day
Read a poem about my brother, Ed, and see his artwork on my site under the Sketchy menu:
On Seeing My Brother, Ed, the Brave
by Reggie Morrisey, August 5, 2009
The tribes will gather
at Sycamore Canyon.
Elders from the north and east,
braves from the south,
the councils from the valleys.
To set the tents
and sit by the fire,
To circle brave Ed,
to name his spirits,
the bobcat, owl and hawk.
To walk west
to the ocean’s edge,
reflecting peace.
I, Dove,
speak of passage,
of life’s ever flowing stream,
of the Brave
who breathes music,
whose hands
conceive of new things
under the sun.
Who casts light visions,
who crafts moccasins
for the tiniest feet of the tribe,
so they can walk with him.
I, Dove,
speak of my spirit brother, Ed,
who, like the bobcat, delves so deep,
some dare not follow.
Who, like the wise owl,
hoots to the dragonfly and the whale.
Who, like the hawk, trails the curve
of the Earth and is not afraid.
A band of beads
circle his wide-brimmed hat.
All who meet him
grasp his panda bear kacinas,
native dolls of chenille stems,
his panda bear wayas for peace.
The stars will gather
over Sycamore Canyon
and south at Malibu.
The mist may blanket
all things known.
Would that you could see him, too.
Read a poem about nature:
Rising – Cedar Key
by Reggie Morrisey, 2009
Cedar Key is the coast of nature.
Yes, nature prevails.
The tide rolls out where mullets fly
and oysters rise in a
field of puffy bar.
A full-moon spring-tide takes
more than a foot of water down.
They say it takes an elephant gun
to down a braying air boat as it thunders by.
Even black mangroves spring up here.
Like olive trees with their green berets.
Like Rosewood blacks who fled
the redneck terror of the Roaring Twenties.
Cedar Key plays home to migrant snowbirds.
Some in condos – with binoculars.
Some high stepping through stressed bars.
They dare not eat the oysters
for the poison rising up
inside the earthen shells.
To live and die by spring tides.
Slowly, the bar fades
and beds are made
as water rises.
Slowly, the church bell tolls,
warn as the creaky dock
where big boats wait their day.
As hogs rev their motors
outside Annie’s Café,
soon to cruise,
we ready our canoes.
Read a poem about Venice:
Venice - An Older Woman’s Story
by Reggie Morrisey, 2003
A mermaid climbs the sea wall,
dabbing lagoon perfume.
Venus descends to bask in her beauty.
The light above Venice is her crown.
As doves coo evensong and
swell in San Marco’s square,
the sky in the cap of the cathedral
is a scroll of her golden hair.
We see the ghostly fleet of the Doge
returned with its spoils of war,
four Byzantine horses
pinned by this duomo’s door.
The music of Vivaldi
springs in her narrow streets.
Like his orchestra of orphan girls,
cloistered behind a screen,
Venice is mysterious,
more beautiful, sight unseen.
We approach the glass blower’s gate
and hear her bridge of sighs
in the uproar of the furnace and
imagined, sad goodbyes.
Gondola, accelerato and traghetto
vie for a place on her Grand Canal.
A female city cloaked in romance history,
swoons for the tenor’s passionate woe.
Yet steps back from relentless waves
lapping at her toe.
Piazza, arcade, fetching
human voices.
Nary a humming motorcar.
Frowning women fling open windows,
her silent police, her vigilant spies.
They could sound the alarm,
could bid us to hide.
From Attila the Hun to
the cannons of Napoleon.
The Lombard invasion,
the fall of Milan.
From the fourth Crusade
to Pope Hadrian,
Venice whirled back
from the battles of man.
Once abandoned the buoys.
Hid channel markers.
Her maze of shoals impassable.
Venice the obscure, impenetrable.
We sip espresso at a bustling café.
Taste a feast from the sea
when our night arrives.
Drift in sleep as church bells peal
and Casanovas lie.
Dream of powdered wig, silk gown and veil.
Of a peacock mask for the Carnavale.
Of a woman who has survived.
* * *
The Esteemed Bill S., an April Birthday Boy