(Or Mr. Hughes in the Church of the Mounted Saint )

                                                                      

                                               i

 

Tumbled on the shelf above my piano

There are several faded dolls

                                                               All made by my mother

                                                               In what used to be the present

                                Though one in particular

Shadowed

And looking down on the dust-oily remains of sheet music laces

                                                                                              …of course now

My perception bears the yoke of poised finger position

Chords and rhythms

                               Proclamations of painted pressed wood shavings

Reminding me that all things twist as they go back

(But the truth doesn’t always go with the throw pillows)

Like inflated canaries soaked in fruited wine

Feathered sangria

While in those harmonies that don’t balance

The branch becomes lumber

The lumber becomes shelf

Surreally essential

Absurdly serene

Gesündheit

 

ii

 

Originally this doll had a dress that was bright red and summer yellow

The bonnet was bluish white, the shoes

I forget what color

…I guess green

And there were flowers on the little apron

We know our world through reflection

Crinkles where there was splashing

An apple left over from a broken diet                                           

So easily darkened

The no-color tone of cheap wood

Where only a carpenter can breathe it back in life

Too many ultraviolet rays breaking down

The chemical bonds of the chromophores of the mind

Purple becomes yellow and is followed by red

Each one letters in a word

...and yet more

Because even shadows reflect light

                (Though of a different definition)

Pouncing as the angels did on the thoughts of man

But Simon has no Sophia here

There are too many balconies for accomplices

He stands alone before the ash heap

Where the straps hide the essence

Like those crocheted plant holders

                               So universal in the last years of my youth

They were mostly white

Osiris, Orpheus, Yeshua

                No place for fricatives in the theology of salvation

Soft vowels and sonorous consonants only, please

And no more than the hint of decay

Amidst those echoing hymns written in rainy valleys

And sung beneath a solar deity that hides in smoke

Because Simon has no Sophia

He stands alone before the ash heap here

And the knots hide the essence

And gravity cuts through the weight

And the wallpaper is truly our only redemption

From the measuring

                                               His and mine

This incessant nipping and patching

And the resentment of the angels is obvious

 

                                                             iii

                                                                                                      

Diminished by our observations

Marie Antoinette’s final words

“Perdonez moi” to her executioner are nothing

We form the knife and direct it

She trod on his toes

So the loaf waits

Compared to her invitation to confection

Proverbial long before she was misquoted

In the mist of translation

                                                               (See Rousseau)

Confessions to a round lump

A poor man’s bread

More of the hearth than of Manna

Ironically put to infectious chords

As much the heresy of Pelagius as the Baptist bard

And then a voice comes back on the phone

“I’m sorry, Mr. Rosenkrantz isn’t picking up. Would you like me to try Mr. Guildenstern?”

“No, that’s ok.” I say and hang up

...but as I do

Saint Illtud flashes in front of my knowledge of Mr Hughes

And the dimensions in which I think fly out of how they fit into the grouping