Sandalwood Aftershave
You’re listening for a masculine chant
a familiar deep vibration, a tremor in your earth
a shoulder blade; the glow and hiss of peat, fragrant smoke in the grate
a skier carving a white slash in the snow above the glacier
a warm hand to gently massage Tea Tree Temptations
along the curve of your spine
erasing the tattoos in a new fresh neroli and grapeseed sweep of joy
misting your eyes into a tabula rasa of sweet open jasmine space
floating between the nebulae and the crackle of the logs
shooting prickles of shivery starbursts everywhere
Something dependable, like winter in the Rockies
shooting the rapids, laughing in the icy sun
a candlelit chuckle shared over a glass of Beaujolais
fingertip messages on the tablecloth bidding
swift urgent departures to other white billowy places
sandalwood aftershave and clean strong fingers
muted humor, quiet, wry and special
Someone to drink your wine from the grapes of your year’s harvest
savor your bouquet not as a connoisseur but as a true wild Bacchus
inhale your secret phrases, your crazy fragrances
and take you on his soaring white steed
to probe the furthest infinities
delve the shimmering glooms of the depths
ride the universe shouting at the stars.
The Final Victory
Writing unseen trails
morning skitters its fingernails
down the track of the peeling walls
hieroglyphics of recollection
snap on the clock-radio connection
which only hisses and crackles
quietly, its batteries running dry
as day three hundred and seventy-six
of an empty city sky
grazes the smog-free air
desolate and deserted as its predecessors
Somewhere in this empty gathering
of skyscrapers, lies a dusty clue
testifying to where it all began
fragments of a broken test-tube
that spread sticky fingers of death
across the city
across the fields
across the desert
across the seas
bringing choking retribution to vanquished
and victor alike
The clock hisses and stops
the final finger-pools of annihilation
spread and combine
as the membrane of history and achievement
shudders and dies
the brown sea of dust covers all
leaving no note, no explanation
to this Pyrrhic victory of self-hatred
save this one dusty fading clue
written in dust
“brethren, the day is come”
Giants
Giants leaving the footprints of their thoughts
walk over my mind
prize winners in the gentle art of persuasion
they rip up forests of doubts
pave roads through the jungle of confusion
billboard the way subliminaly
But I’m not afraid of them
these are benevolent Giants
they anticipate my every whim
tell me what’s good for me to eat
instruct me how to avoid cultural litter
and environmental unfriendly thoughts
flatten out my fears
Converted and convinced
I’ve joined them
become a member of the Giant protection society
write articles about democratic values
economic theory
ten day diets
happiness and the quantum theory
I’ve given up my old freewheeling days
joined the Giant fan club
it’s so much more pleasant
to amble along carved out pedestrian paths
than to climb forbidding hills
And you know what?
I only had one bad chopping down
beanstalk dream this month
That’s pretty good
for an ex-sceptic
Afternoon in the
Township
Wind the string tight
against the curving wood
ring after perfect ring
climbing from the strong pin
to just below the burnished shoulders
string taking me back there again
Grasp me tightly, paying
attention to the proper curl of
the fingers, the grip on the string
the deft confident throwing
and the quick snap back
to a Johannesburg playground
in a dusty township
bare black footprints in the earth
spinning me round, whirling grains of dust
aside in a miniature pirouette of colors
Flicking stones into a sandy circle
others watch him from the corners
of their hungry eyes
watch him pocket me
walk to the station
twenty sinewy years later
board the train where the tsotsies
roam the swaying corridors
scanning for tell-tale bulges
my heart bulging and pounding
inside my coat
The gaudy newspaper
reported twenty years and
one uneventful day later
at the foot of a side column
on page three,
the previous days tally
of murders, muggings
thefts and rape
there’s nothing personal
about this brother
it’s all in an afternoon’s work
this time they got a colored top
to take home for the kids
King of Jazz
Smiling he sits alone at the piano
cigarette burning in an ashtray
composing toothpaste blues
honky tonk sasparilla solos
cool clarinet cascades
Evening news snaps on
the tea lady clinks her cups
birds chatter to each other
rustle to their nests
a dog barks in the distance
but he, alone in his house of deafness
hears nothing but the music of his mind
Caught in the wonder of the mood
he hears her voice again
sees her flying skirts
the seventy-eight girl
spinning between bass man and guitar
both hands holding the mike like a lover
she throws a throaty hello to the crowd
Now he is dancing with her again
crouched over keyboard, his fingers
thrust softly into the sound, the blues drift out
linking him, her and the crowd
in a dusky cloud of notes and cigarette smoke
Then the number ends
the crowd shouts for more
but he only hears the ghost of the seventy-eight girl
standing beside him
smelling of raspberry and wild fruit
spelling the notes into his pencil
onto the sheet, bar by blue bar
The cigarette burns itself out
the melody sits completed on the stand
smiles back at him
the seventy-eight girl wheels him back to bed
tucks him in, between the blankets
kisses his dark brow
turns off the light
and King of Jazz
slips smiling into paper dreams
The Translator
Her mother had warned her
to beware of men with hair on their faces
hiding themselves in the undergrowth
’if they’re not honest enough to show their skin’
she had said, ‘they’re probably up to no good’
She had also been suspicious of Orientals
mangoes had never been her favorite fruit
she considered their bouquet of sweetness ‘foreign’
not to be trusted
preferring patriotic apples and pears
who looked you straight in the eye
smiled in a familiar accent
That’s why it was so difficult to understand
why the girl had a fascination for slanted eyes
for verse scented with jasmine
thoughts that were deft brushstrokes
on misty rice paper
exquisitely beautiful they beckoned to her
from horizons she longed to make her own
She spent years learning their language
their history, their traditions
she found them a compelling mix
of the heroic, the delicate, the stoic
she busied herself in translations
of jade and bamboo Tang dynasty poetry
She labored through her yellowing years
to be faithful to the originals
disclose their ginger nuggets of beauty
in her mother’s tongue
whose facile wagging
she had long since
gently laid to rest
She never married
never left her childhood neighborhood
not even to visit the land of her passion
she requested to be buried beside her mother
in her will bequeathed her savings
to a home for abandoned dogs
left behind her seven books of translations
and a single unfinished original manuscript
Written in mandarin
it was a long poem
that began with the words
’if it would please your most excellent majesty
here is a key to unlock the golden door’
it was never published
but her translations stood the test of time
and brighten bookshelves from Beijing
to New York with their shimmering delicate glow
To Hold the Notes
There was a time
when the notes slept, hibernating,
breathing thumbed parchment,
quiet as cathedrals locked up for the night
while around parish hearths
stout voices sang their pious words
Then came wax cylinders
wound tightly as bobbins
and squashy shellac blobs
that pressed out and dried the notes to brittle patties
where winding roads and bumpy paths
guide scratchy thorns along their quavering circuits
Scant revolutions later notes hiss over speeding decks
in and out of skimpy see-through dresses
while jockeys whirl them back and forth
like dolls at a barnyard square dance
and singles stand around waiting to join the jig
Still fading, the notes, collapsing further
sought refuge in wires, shiny ribbons, skin thin wafers
that held hieroglyphics of their shrinking glory
while packets of ones and zeros
carried them from ear to busy ear
Amidst this impersonal mechanical going on
we set our feet upon the northern road
that leads between the towering peaks and rushing streams
where bird song, rosy apples, fields of cyclamen
and shady cypresses walked beside us down the peaceful ways
And in the valley, beneath the spreading oaks
a classroom beckoned, just a wooden shack
but from its open windows came forth such a blessed sound
that we, compelled by its beauty approached
There seated on simple wooden chairs four youngsters sat
at cello, viola and two violins
and as we watched them play and pause
and play again and annotate and then again
our hearts began to sing with them
and as we smiled and listened on
we knew the notes had found their home
© 2004 Johnmichael Simon
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