(c) Brandon K. Nobles – Necromancy

1
Ghosts in our poetry and prose
Are much like us –
And did not know
Where they came from
Where they’d go;
The Dream Machine – a factory
the Glass Castle – Memory
has scattered lanterns through this web
through which we commune with the dead;
that treasure chest –
that hallowed vault
The Grave of Yesterday is lost
To history – the Greatest Liar
is Gasoline;
and Time the fire.

That is the madness of our lives
To know that all will fall in time;
when this we know so much must go –
We lost our Paradise,
we know:
Green leaves are lovely,
yet the change
that transformation in the rain
Draws us in; it lets us know:
the scene is over;
though the show
Goes on –
as it must go.

Life though priceless has a cost;
as everyone must pay for all:
And strange it is to think
some may –
have such a dreadful debt to pay;
What’s true for one
is true for all;
Leaves are most lovely
as they fall.
For all we know there is no show
there is a closed door
nothing more;
although we somehow know:
We are performers in rehearsal
Desperate for a role.

The past expires in the fire
no King but Entropy,
and this Conductor in its Bluster
made Despair a crime;
And in our pain
to stave off change
we built an altar for our shame.
And the embers we remember,
Valentines, Thanksgiving dinner;
Snow-angels, snowmen,
that December.

What we think and what we dream,
is more than idol worshiping:
it pushes us and focuses
the lens through which we see;
Those golden moments once thought stolen,
with a pen may breathe;
And this lens so much depends
On what we wish to see;
and windowpanes that we have stained,
Have framed this fantasy.

As for this storm in which we’re born –
are pearls by blind watchmakers formed;
And this mirage must give us pause
to let us know that though we go;
through narrow bars immortal stars
Burst into life
each time we write;
This pen – this magic wand –
with proper spells may defy hell
this is a real seance.

We all know hope
If truth be told
Is our desire in a robe;
Yet to deny this lullaby
Is yet more painful still;
For our Fair queen
In love with grief
Denies love not to feel;
There is a reason hope is treason –
And faith must take the hill.

An overflowing wishing well
is proof enough that this is hell;
And in this scene grief is made King
the Queen forsakes the throne.
It may be brief;
it may be tragic,
There is magic in this madness:
a canvas picks up those left stranded –
And this voodoo – Necromancy:
gives rise to what is everlasting.
From the grave onto the page,
from ashes to the canvas –
With every line we defy time.
We are the Necromancers.

An opera, painting, or poem
Is life in a more lasting form;
With life being one brief season
Snow on the desert’s face –
Is the reason there is meaning
in a most cold quiet place;
This calls on us who have the touch,
To create and then replace –
What is fleeting with a beacon
That someone may trace –
Through tangled strings of history
back to that seat of grace.

All those moments
once thought stolen,
are safe within the maze;
Ariadne in her reverie,
gave all the keys away.
And in that second – resurrection!
Dawn is a reborn day:
The King of grief has been impeached:
The Queen delights in May.

Advertisement

(c) Brandon K. Nobles – The Glass Umbrella

I

We are the footprints by the Sea.
The waters come,
and waters leave.
Miss Sea, you see,
your children taken;
Children of the Sea forsaken.

See me see Miss Galilee.
Bring back what she took from me;
bring back what you swallowed whole.
The yawning, old,
and wide mouthed urn,
lolled on, but never turned,
her deaf ear,
to me,
to hear,
my confused shouts at her.

Without a word at all to say,
she waves at the night and day.
She rolls about within a dream,
the carousel goes by overhead;
to it she turns her mirrored head.
She simply looks to it, and all,
and we, like leaves,
around her fall.

The beach we leave our footprints on,
The waters come,
and then they’re gone.
We are but footprints by the Sea;
The waves come in,
and then we leave.
Miss Sea, you see,
your children taken.
Children of the Sea forsaken.

Ancient sea, Miss Galilee,
can you see yourself in me?
As I see myself in you,
glowing white, and tinged with blue.
Can’t you see what you have done?
The lolling sea saw none.

II

“I see,” I said, and that was that;
standing at the shore of black.
I hear my own words echo back.
In those waters,
I saw me;
another reflection in the sea.

This was after ten years passed:
I returned, sat in the grass,
thinking of all who walked that shore.
Never did I see her face,
a glass umbrella had replaced,
the girl whom I adored.
My love would walk the shore no more.

But nothing else, and nothing more;
no more of who I once adored.
No more to God could I implore,
or to the umbrella in her stead.
The face of the mourning sun turned
red;
the glass umbrella, from the sea,
rolled ashore and laughed at me.
Then I knew,
and saw it all,
inside the glass umbrella fall.
I saw myself again, alone,
forever by the Sea to roam.

On that day I watched her play,
with birds about the shore.
I heard her laugh and nothing more,
as the Sea,
came and took my love from me.
Buzzards circled overhead,
like nature’s garbage men.
I heard them call,
and heard her laugh,
and felt the kiss of Caiaphas.

III

A finch had washed up in her place,
from the well amid the waste—
who floundered by the Sea,
and then flew on.
The bird fluttered for a moment,
and was gone.

As beautiful as the Sea might be,
her own face she cannot see.
In my dreams, she comes to me,
and sees her picture on the wall.
By my family, and me,
a portrait of Miss Galilee.

As wondrous as she looks, at night,
shimmering with the silver light,
she looks sadder in the dawn.
When the sun shines in her face,
when daylight takes the nighttime’s place—
she yawns again, and sighs.
Children of the Sea walk home.
Deaf, Miss Galilee rolls on.

Earlier in my life, I went,
found a home which I could rent.
I called my child to say:
“Come see me, come see the sea;
we’ll have some lunch,
then get ice cream.
You have to come;
you have to see,
the face of lady Galilee.”

IV

A while we stood,
where lolled the waves,
under a sky where seagulls played;
for her, my world, for once, to see,
the lovely face of Galilee.
From the waters, walked ashore,
played a while,
bonne nuit, amore.
She splashed about the waves, my
child,
and then she splashed no more.

I remember she flew in.
We had some sandwiches, and then,
hand in hand walked with a grin.
She laughed the day away.
She wore a blue dress, made of lace,
and had a smile upon her face.
At night she walks my dreams this
way—
for when she splashed,
that faithful day—
the Sea took her away.
The waters took my living dream,
and left me here to stay.

The Sea looked into me, you see,
and saw what she could take from me;
my dreams could not just let it be.
And when it looked, at me, it saw,
the same thing when it looks at all.
How could she tell me what she sees?
The way she sees us all go ’round,
she often speaks without a sound.
She sees us dance,
and hears us call,
all at once,
but not at all.
The glass umbrella falls.

We are the footprints by the Sea;
the waters come,
and waters leave.
Miss Sea, you see,
your children taken;
Children of the Sea forsaken.

Alone

Alone, 1997

Indeed I’m mad, for I have seen,
not with my eyes, but in my dreams—
running alone under the sky,
with heaven above me flying by.

For who alone would scream in pain,
when he alone will scream in vain?
He alone in darkness sings,
denied those heavenly angel wings.

Along we walk in forests cold.
We laugh, we sing, and we grow old.

Until we find ourselves again,
where death and darkness we befriend.
Till peace we find in wayward song,
alone we’ll walk the road so long.

Alone as we walk it—on and on.

Until some day in falling rain,
alone at last without the pain.
Until we rest our worried heads,
warm and at home, alone in bed

Divisions

Divisions, 1996

In soft brown sand, by the beach,
out of which a hand did reach;
after all the winds of life had blown,
to me who walked the dusty shore,
another from the sea was thrown.

They all will fail, though, like the sun,
forever turning, forever dumb;
forever one plus two plus one.

One plus two perhaps, and three,
divide and add up destiny.
Until it’s simple—
one plus two,
with no more left for man to do.

Like the planets, rising stars,
set along with great God Mars.
They pass by; in time, are lost;
another zero for the cause.

Their voices trail off like a birds,
obscured by sounds which mourn;
the birds come back to sing, to laugh,
to sing and laugh while it still lasts.

The Ballerina

The Ballerina, 1995

Up in heaven, when it rained,
the angels cried, and then they sang!
In the corridors of night, hell fire, and,
the haze,
one after another flutter helpless in the maze.

Foul circles with the turning sun, depart!
Flesh torn from a barren field, the start!
Settling on a shifting Earth,
for some madman’s sad rebirth.

For some sweet child’s new arrival,
for some wise man—a disciple,
for some beggar—pennies saved,
for some philosopher—the maze!

Twirling like a ballerina, on a metal rod so cold,
slipping with the shifting quicksand,
as the clocks turn into mold!
On an axis, flowing—even,
listen to the angels singing!

Metal wrought in fires hot,
until some savior he begot!
Melting with the hands of gold,
would’st thou in heav’n stop the cold?

Would’st thou in heav’n stop the storm?
Would’st thou in heav’n take the form?
Would’st thou in heav’n stop the clocks?
End those wretched ticks and tocks!

Spinning, still consuming, erasing all the numbered hands—
steady running, steady sinking, drowning in the sinking sand!
But in our world it all turns grey:
twilight, in morning, and today.

Like pebbles rolling down a hill,
back up a man will carry, still—
like a lighthouse in the rain,
with destiny the ball and chain!

Like the simple songs of life,
in A minor, C, or D,
we twirl on a little stand, to some sad melody.
Yet there she stays, and dare she spin—
this way, that way, back again!

Until the day her music stops,
when silence locks the music box,
on me and he and her and you,
the sun itself will slumber too.

To rise above some distant peak,
over oceans calm, and deep,
we’ll roll in a sky of glass,
like ants crawling through the grass.
Oh, so much for us unknown,
if only light upon it shone.
If though only we could see,
and hear buzzing like a bee.

So sing with the angels—up above,
and down below;
our dreams are fleeting, as a doves,
looking upon the show.
Tracing through the grass, with mud stains upon our hands,
until to God we yell, until to God demand!

From your indifference, come out now!
Save our world or show us how!
Sit not upon your throne of gold,
alone as even clocks grow old!

Descend upon us, with thy hands!
Save us from these sinking sands!
Save us from these stormy seas!
Alas, you have me on my knees!

In your soft approach, illumination,
golden hue,
down upon us, look you not, for you’re dissolving too!
Struggling through eternity, as
all the numbers fall,
ticking, tocking, wildly flying;
vertigo upon the wall!

Back and forth with us all day,
tonight, tomorrow, and today;
with little thought of men and sin,
tomorrow she will spin again.

The Garden

The Garden, 1995

In a garden sad, she walks along,
sad as she might be;
with nothing but sad thoughts, alone—
before she ran into me.

I found her at the garden’s shore,
knelt over in the grass.
She said she’d like to walk some more,
and by me she went past.

Between tomatoes, cucumbers too,
which her linen fingers touch—
through flowers bright and gleaming blue,
to me she said this much:

“Beside me sit, for I can’t breathe.”
I knelt beside her, cold;
“Please stay with me; please do not leave.”
My hands around her hold.

“I’m going to die,” she said so sad.
Inside me something changed.
“Look with me to the sky, be glad,”
aloud I said, and plain.

In long nights alone I might recall,
her walking, slipping, falling, and,
waiting alone for someone to call,
just so she might understand.

In the dawn I walk beside her,
dodging insects in the dew;
together again events recur,
and we roll about so blue.

Rolling in that golden sand,
outside in the woods.
Still just trying to understand,
what isn’t understood.

With her small feet walking by,
my finger to her lips;
ourselves together may revive,
we touch our fingertips.

Together still inside the glass,
praying it won’t shatter;
together still the world floats past,
soon the glass won’t even matter.

The Hallway

The Hallway, 1994

Still the silver rain drops fall,
on their journey down from heaven.
While those around stand in the hall,
a silver clock is striking seven.

And time, end all, will make us even,
our eyes and ears to dust;
in each dream and in each seam,
to this end we’re pushed.

Into powder—then like smoke, away,
as tears for those beyond the grave;
melting too like ancient clay—
a fire in the woodshed burns the same.

What’s behind the sword & fire?
Straight from the womb to fall;
burnt phantom figures on life’s pyre;
as we pass through the hall.

Pull up those hands, and down, again,
inside not touched by lightning, thunder,
remake what’s holy, erase our sin,
undo the human blunder!

Yet the world around us rolls, and like,
we’re one bubble in the sea;
to go away when death invites,
we fall like autumn’s leaves.

Could we supersede this,
and get off the wheel at last?
And see a lighthouse in the sky,
before we by it go by?

Life and death, both end, it’s said;
we all walk the hall.
Singing, dancing, eating bread,
hearing the master call.

Mirror, Mirror

Mirror, mirror, on the wall—
do you even see at all?
What behind the mirror spies?
Are we looking at our eyes?

What thin shroud has us deluded?
By what God are we occluded?
For some great mystery to solve,
before like sand in glass dissolve?

Like real meshing into naught,
no where and nothing, time forgot.
Here and there a mirrored breeze,
reflecting empty silken seas.

Empty silken seas of sand,
meshing time together, and,
real and nothing pass away;
day by day, it seems to say.

Night by night it seems to shine,
a mystery of the sublime—
beauty in a forest thick,
watching clocks go tick tock tick.
Tick tock tick it talks away,
day after night after day.
Tick by tick into the night,
betraying night to thick sunlight.

Betraying dark, and shadow too,
as the nighttime tends to do.
As newborn light at day will flow,
intriguing us so we may know.

So we might see something so grand,
in every figure, every land;
in each word another says,
still woven by those silken threads.

Silken threads beyond our sight,
beyond daytime, morning light.
Beyond nighttime, twilight too;
what is there left for man to do?

With nothing else for us to see,
no ultimate truth or destiny,
no hate or love or anything,
left to sit alone and sing.

Of our self and songs of old,
in the summer, and in cold.
In a field that shines like glass,
where there we drift into the past.

Mirror, mirror, in the sky,
watching us crawl, and under die;
watching us dance and sing and laugh,
still away fading into past.

As we walk into the now,
into the new, and seeing how.
Back into the darkness peering,
in front of dark shapes, watching, leering.

Into the direction of the new—
with man, alas! Something to do!
Somewhere to go, something to see.
One plus two and two plus thee,
tantamount to destiny.

Tantamount to life itself—
laugh and sing, live, die, or else!
Or else you fritter in the sun,
two minus one minus two plus one!

Goodbye Earth

Goodbye Earth, 1994

Goodbye Earth,
goodbye dreams,
goodbye pretty things I’ve seen.

Goodbye family,
goodbye friends,
goodbye to leaves that drift in wind.

Goodbye love,
goodbye hate,
goodbye those who forever wait.

Goodbye me,
goodbye skies,
goodbye to the endless why’s.

Goodbye Earth,
goodbye time,
goodbye little life of mine.

Hello Earth

Hello Earth, 1994

Hello Earth,
hello eyes,
hello pale blue mid-day skies.

Hello people,
their hello smiles,
hello those lost in life’s aisles.

Hello daytime,
hello night,
hello sunshine mother of life.

Hello laughter,
hello tears,
hello to the endless years.
Hello beauty,
hello sound,
hello beautiful merry-go-‘round.

The Clocks

The Clocks, 1992

Crickets chirp in blades of grass.
The clocks! The clocks!
They tick too fast.
The birds sing happy morning songs.
Today is always all but gone.

Brittle like a crumpled flower,
held by childhood hands—
holding onto every hour,
the hourglass, and it’s sand.

Catch this moment, fading fast:
tightly grip it in your clasp,
dare deadly terrors reach you last;
let it not from in thy grasp.
Clouds! They billow up above,
our Sun too soon to go away;
softly singing like the doves,
she sleeps all night, and works all day.

The clocks! The clocks!
They tick; they tock.
They tick and tock,
and will not stop!

As time goes by,
they all tick faster;
through hope and love,
and then disaster.
Through happiness and pain,
and through all the falling rain.
Will it always stay the same?

Poem – the Death of Dawn, 18 November 2015

BRANDON K. NOBLES,
THE DEATH OF DAWN

I

In my dreams, sometimes it seems,
I do not wish to wake.
For in those dreams, I get to see
a lovely long gone face.

When smiling Dawn lay on the lawn
she saw a star strewn sky.
And in the sky stray fireflies,
flicker then dim before they die.

Before the Dawn had died alone,
the sun rose every day.
Before I found her body drowned
Life was our playground played.

II

In my dreams sometimes it seems
that I cannot escape:
the image of a drowning girl—
her hair in tangled knotted curls,
that blank and lifeless face.

We walked through the woods into
a clearing by the stream;
in her eyes the clouds went by
it felt just like a dream.

Before miss Dawn had died alone,
I saw her every day.
Before she fell into the well
we laughed the days away.

III

In my dreams sometimes I’ve seen
a narrow corridor.
Of all the pictures on the wall
my friend miss Dawn’s I often saw
at the end a padlocked door.

Taken young and far too soon
she died under a paper moon
and the sun refused to shine.
The mourners in a silent row
stood by her coffin heads hung low
the guests marched in a line.
Of all the eyes that passed her by
none of them were mine.

Before she drowned without a sound,
Merry went our lives around,
Her angels in the snow.
I see her passing by me laughing,
Before she died, to go,
Her gentle grin, my gentle friend,
These words will never know.

IV

In my nightmares, when I scream,
I wake to find a dying dream—
a signal now long gone.
Alone we walked once through the woods,
found a stream and by it stood,
In our secret place alone.
We held hands and often laughed,
As clouds above us by us passed,
we watched the water run.
We sat on the dew-soaked grass
the water was a looking glass
for echoes of the sun.

When the night came then we saw
a star above us shoot and fall,
“Make a wish,” she said.
“You’re all I need to be, you see,
you take my wish instead.”
“I don’t know what to say, or do,
instead I’ll make the wish for you.
I hope you have a happy life.
I hope you sleep well every night,
And joyful wake by morning light.”

Before the day when sad, I prayed,
Don’t let her leave this world.
Let her stay, live, laugh, and play.
Let live my flower girl,
To me she gleamed, like gold it seemed,
Until she faded from our world.

V

I don’t dream as once I did,
When I was still that naive kid,
Those candy colored clowns,
Now I see a vacant face,
Where once a smile was in its place,
And painted upside down.

Now they stand beside a fire,
sick and hungry, ‘lone and tired,
Wringing frostbit hands.
No place to sleep they lay and weep
In antique caravans.
It was gray as though that day,
the sun refused to show.
Figures passed like static glass,
In a muted dull gray glow.

Before the empty alleyways,
That gallery of dying days,
We held hands as we passed.
Smiling people lined the streets
And they all raised their hands to greet,
Us children nod and laugh.

VI

These days when I try to sleep,
I feel that water on my feet,
From that young body drowned.
I pull the covers from my bed,
Try to talk but shout instead,
A pill might calm me down.

Every day she was away,
I knelt beside my bed to pray,
That my words might her death delay.
I only wished for one more night–
That she might see the moon shine bright.
She did not live, I’m sad to say,
And never saw another day.
After she fell into the night,
Between the worlds and out of sight,
I turned and silent walked away.

Before I left that laden floor,
I walked through narrow corridors,
The same scene in every room.
Machines and tubes like lungs were used,
Where the sick lay dying soon.
They weakly lay, three times a day,
When they all were fed,
And there they lay ‘til they became,
another of the dead.

VII

In a daydream, by a grave,
I watched her there as dead she laid,
in a coffin ivory bright.
When she went into ground,
I had to speak, sad faces round—
Her grave with jasmines white.
Since Dawn was a friend of mine,
I wrote her eulogy;
And to me, soliloquies,
are tears that somehow rhyme.

“Dawn my dear, though you can’t hear,
You meant the world to me.
Your fondness for the springtime leaves,
That languid smile without reprieve,
If only you could somehow see.
I think of you and every hour,
And now you are another flower,
Of the field that laid its head—
Back onto the garden, where
Once it lay in bed.

Before I left I took a step,
And paused before her gave;
I could not speak but yet I wept,
I had nothing to say.
When I obliged I turned my eyes,
To meet her pale white face,
I took the rose and left her posed,
with a lotus in her place.
Before she walked the narrow hall
Her tearful face these ink-drops fall,
I heard:
The sound of a mocking bird.

VIII

The manic dream of that day gone,
I stay awake, all night, all day,
going mad when I’m alone.
In a nightmare of the day
where multicolored faces play,
I could not see her face;
And in the prism of the day,
The multicolored facets play,
I could not speak at all.
When read her will I sat there froze,
her pictures lined in narrow rows,
In the end she said it all.

In her will she left me but,
A plush panda cotton stuffed,
in her absence was alone.
The stitching frayed, so often played,
since her death left on its own.
A bear once soaked in joyful tears,
Had came apart through all the years.
The toy had found its long lost home.
When it was mine I found her note,
in her languid cursive wrote:

“Brandon, you know, I loved you so,
You’ve always been my friend.
From the day we met, until the end,
If you’re getting this note now,
I have died someway, somehow;
I won’t see you in God’s world again.”

IX

I first saw her in the sand,
Where castles made by her own hand,
by waves were left for dead.
This is but my castle,
For you, the light, the dawn,
Tragically you’ll never read
The labored saddened song.
And where you are, the worst of all,
You cannot hear me for you call.

After the hope has died inside,
The bone wall confines of my mind,
There grows a golden rose.
The light of which often reminds,
Of that tragic scene when I rewind,
That frozen moment long ago.
It follows me into my dreams,
And unravels at the seams,
When she sang that song I know.
Often that long dead voice is heard,
Again as sang by mocking birds.

Then it’s over, there it goes,
Down into the memory hole,
Where a dead rose withered blows.
It’s beauty—the beholder knows—
at the end of season goes,
and listless all the words that fall,
just static scribbled on a wall.