Poems
The Review Those Nearer Clouds
As smooth as summer twilight’s unheard song,
Have some restraint, all ye who enter here...
Of course, in retrospect it does belong,
A balance to the highlights that appear:
That note of bitter almonds that begins
The sweet and steamy magic over ice…
Until that closing hint of nectar wins
A simple rating: At whatever price.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Db.59@live.com
Product Launch
Again! a face to launch a thousand ships…
Perhaps too awesome--so say the reviews:
At last perfection at one’s fingertips…
But useful? How are we defining “use”?
Though yes, I like my heart to skip a beat—
A 'grand slam', sure, but useful? Not as such…
So gorgeous, yes, but what's not quite as neat?
It's just a little...scalding, to the touch.
© 2021 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
This Old House
What lovely magic, right in front of me:
So light a touch! yet still remaining here...
Of course perhaps some curiosity
At those departed, those now drawing near—
The ones behind, what others yet to blow!
As from the first, that you would ever deign
To stay here, to enjoy remaining so:
A house of cards that mocks the hurricane.
© 2021 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
R.S.V.P.
Though next to me, somehow not quite as near...
Not so much distant as preoccupied--
As though some mystery, that she is here,
If never anything at all to hide:
A silent ease, as much as beauty may
Somehow remain quite effortless until
She turns as though with something now to say,
Now drawing close, if less familiar still…
Perhaps from somewhere past uncounted things
As though the silent deep beyond each star;
What movement but a rustling of wings,
What touch without a message from afar.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Db.59@live.com
The Inspiration
Da Vinci's subtle lady-with-a-smile,
Old 'Mona Lisa' captivates the eye:
What attributes of hers that so beguile?
What promise in those lips that made him try?
Some inner beauty that he couldn't rush,
Her glowing aspect coming into view...
Then say you'll be the subject of my brush--
What art awaits! a little painting, too.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
On Her Majesty's Secret...
Her eyes are like Fort Knox, with everyone asleep!
And yet a death-beam satellite, that chilly look of hers...
As though some super submarine that prowls in the deep,
The lovely wit, that gently-put aside that she prefers
A secret fancy fortress, high atop a snowy crest,
From which somehow she starts each day, and brings it to a close...
Her taste in art and fashion and in what else, heaven knows:
As though all earthly power, riches in a single chest!
You’d almost have to think we’ll need a few more double-o’s…
But any credit then is credit I would have to share--
As well as any moments...fraught with peril, that obtain--
I’ll try it on my own, of course, but when you see the flare
It means: Please wait an hour/need to deal with the pain
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Db.59@live.com
Those Nearer Clouds
Not in that massive thunderhead
Of wild updrafts now remade
Nor in the softer, later spread
Of sunset on a peak displayed
These, others billowed, soaring, may
Elicit comment at their might
And yet though near, more wondrous they
That hide creation, at your sight.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Db.59@live.com
Where Two Are Gathered
At a sudden stir increasing
Till the surge that, following,
Leads at last to its releasing,
To that blissful hollowing...
Drifting too, now, as we hallow
Saints above, upon that tide
Ebbing now—if worship shallow,
Something, yet, of sanctified.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
The Return
What is the rush? The avalanche will wait—
Each lightning strike of countless thousand volts,
That turns the night to day however late,
That from the earth to heaven sometimes bolts…
Those tremors—each, my darling!—as before,
If naturally a neighborly concern:
They will be there! like puppies at the door
When, shushing and embracing, we return.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Impact
To turn and have you suddenly around—
The quiet evening suddenly as torn
As by a sentinel, without a sound:
A war-trained sentry, with its larynx shorn
Now lunging, leaping as you’re passing by
Just finding something in that ancient tote…
What fury now in your contented sigh—
That sleepy smile, going for my throat.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
Relenter
You break my heart, as though some reason why…
You break my heart, as on a western plain,
Beneath the whispering Montana sky,
A wild horse is broken there to gain
More of a fate than merely passing by,
More of a fate than simply tumbleweed:
A larger role across that windswept stage
Too huge in merely running free to try...
A part without which little else, indeed!
That broken, spreads the legend of an age.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard to Francesca Neri
The Spirit of Inquiry
A force is 'multiplied' in several ways:
With block-and-tackle, levers or with gears...
So which is it? I wonder, as your gaze
Not quite as feather-light as it appears
Or rather some transformer? ‘stepping down’
The voltage you’re creating standing there:
A smile to illuminate a town!
Reduced—for now—somehow enough to bear.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Caput Mundi
As full of any insight as to cry
“I breathe! I breathe, as though by some design”
Nor much of drama, in the quiet eye
Of mortal struggle, with a will divine…
And so to say, as from some tenement,
Long buried now, as in a crypt at Rome—
Some gladiator’s, where a saint paid rent:
“I love you” as a whisper, and a poem.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The Lily of the Fields
Outside, the sparrows and the lily’s gild…
As here within, athough the place is filled,
A hush: as through a needle’s eye, they say—
The road, the one that started at a tomb
Where joy arose, now summoned forth in prayer...
Too oft, the shadows of a cloudy day!
But now, as lovely anthems fill the room,
They mark, for now, the end of what I pray:
To see you is to look above the gloom
And past the clouds, and find my heaven there.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Delinquent Spring
Her eyes are like delinquent spring
When all that stopped the taking-hold
Of what, despair? was anything
That made a virtue of the cold,
That came to terms with hope resigned
And thankfully! or so it seemed,
Until awakening to find
At last the world, as warm as dreamed…
Where joy and bitter marvel dwell,
And hope and hope returning are
What, late sometimes? One might as well
Condemn the earth; its only star.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
The Agent
She turns to leave, a momentary stir
Of window curtains, in the dawn's embrace...
As though a private gesture meant for her,
Whatever meaning there the only trace
Of some defeated threat, without much show
The only way to do what she must do:
Last night a horrid heat-wave ending so--
If this time with some thunder, lightning, too.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The Tide
By now, the moonlight dripping through the elm’s
Dark latticework, flows through our little camp…
As near beyond, the tide that overwhelms,
Or would, if distant starlight were as damp
As just an unexpected, joyous tear
That wells now in the cloisters of the tree:
Whatever hidden fountainhead more near;
Somehow above, a finer filigree.
After a scene near the end of Adam Hall’s The Peking Target, beside a shrouded helicopter on the fringes of a mountaintop South Korean monastery, the chapter entitled ‘Fireball’.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Not in that vaulting thunderhead
Of massive updrafts e’er remade,
Nor in the softer, later spread
Of sunset on a peak displayed:
These, others billowed, soaring may
Elicit comment at their might;
And yet though near, more wondrous they
That hide creation, at your sight.
© 2020 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Green Light
I never see the tower or the light
That signals we have clearance, or her hand
Upon the throttle now engaged despite
Each threat arising from a stubborn land,
The weight of which by now debatable...
As light as air, the pressure she’ll convey
Not long from now, until a gentle pull…
An easing, yes, and then we’ll be away.
A mighty reign! if two within,
One subject hers, at her command…
Whatever else that might have been—
The monarch of some distant land
Whose laws her comfort and her joy!
Somehow restored, apparently:
One look is all she need employ,
And lo!—the kingdom: her and me.
© 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Her Little Ways
Lightly at the world’s turning,
Warmly melting all resistance!
Necessarily, I’m learning
Posing at a little distance
In some Macy's door revolving--
Somehow photo-synthesizing
Flowers, hours dark resolving!
Splendidly, upon her rising.
© 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Her beauty: to what others bound? As though but on a gleaming skyline found Sometimes at dusk; upon a wall Within some gallery; the concert hall... Where else, alas, within this world? As now the mountain pasture’s breeze, unfurled, Undoes a lovely daffodil, Inside the gust, each remnant curled, As though demanding heaven, closer still. © 2019 Dave Blanchard...to Francesca Neri db.59@live.com Common Sense
Her pleas to knit our flag, these pleas abhor! Keep her away from midnight rides of yore, From British vessels laden with their tea, Nor near a General on that river shore, The crossing etched in Christmas history: No less a threat if one as plain to see— And hers must etch riposte to liberty! For in the opalescence of that gaze, Obedience at last no tyranny Nor free, what will remaining it betrays. © 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri db.59@live.com Within This Favor
What, cast these gems before the swine? Or save them for this ‘love’ of mine Now latched upon my hull of late-- This residue, somehow, of fate, Which yet must answer for its lapse! So goes it in her mind, perhaps As bounty to the thinnest dime. That she should care at all: sublime. © 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri That Easier Sight
Not so much as that momentary way Within the eyes, the sun sometimes remains Impressed—an after-image of the day, Now fading, lost within the stained-glass panes... Her countenance more easy to discern Once she is gone, a brighter residue, That after-image, now an afterburn, A smoldering, that has its own light, too. © 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri db.59@live.com Accommodation
Well-earned by humble deeds, our vaulting pride; Or with, instead, the simple modesty That two such quite enormous faiths provide: So does it seem, sometimes, as now, to be This near at hand. But let that hallowed throne, Its crowds, still from afar tonight suffice As we regroup, together and alone, Unfettered by the needs of paradise. © 2019 Dave Blanchard...to Francesca Neri Radiant
Her smile is like that unencumbered day, The one somehow beyond the soft appeal, The needful grasping of whoever may— The one beyond the turn of fortune’s wheel That day removed from do or disregard, Outside the hiding or where eagles dare, By rain or wind—by heat and cold unmarred; By slightest effort, somehow to compare. © 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri To All The Endless
No stumble-bum was I, nor slave to drink... No, mine had never been a starry gaze: Both sober sights to see and thoughts to think, Unblinded to the error of the ways Of wine and spirits, and the drunkard’s fate Yet on a single topic left to prate Am I, to all this endless prattle sunk! Just left to mumble, in some blurry state— The sight of you, that always leaves me drunk. © 2019 Dave Blanchard….to Francesca Neri db.59@live.com The Coupling
For now a rhythm, in the nearer sound… Both slow and sure, at last a moment’s peace; What thoughts or effort for the moment bound Until the moon, the winds grant their release Till somehow unrelated to desire, Upon some highest tide of the sublime, I look at you once more, and I expire— The inspiration, in a moment’s time.
In Adam Hall’s The Mandarin Cypher, investigating the ‘death’ of an English rocket scientist and now expected to board a Chinese oil platform, the South China sea water filling around him in a submarine’s escape hatch,the agentnaturally monitors--expiration, inspiration--his breathing. © 2019 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Be TraistIn the black and spindrift whistle Of a gale’s wild grounding Proudly like the lavish thistle Higher on the hills surrounding, Or a tartan elsewhere falling, Stubborn subject to its duty As the Hebrides are calling: Delicate as this, her beauty.
Note: The title, the Scottish clan motto of my mother’s family.
© 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri PerseveranceThe earth? It took six days to end Creating—Rome, at least a day… Each separate part, the way they blend: An awesome job! and in this way What she’s inspired for display Should show some trying (even though She rhymes with everything) and so Let’s call it work: some effort, say. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri Adornment
What she can manage in another’s eyes… Without a single stocking or a tree! Nor any evidence she even tries; Within the house, of course, and constantly... Though elsewhere too: this meadow’s furthest reach, That even now the very day recalls— As though adorned with gold and silver each Somehow without a word, she decks the halls. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri Ninjutsu
Each ice cube in the tray’s a throwing star, A summer ‘perfect weapon’ sense of flair… That now reminds me of a door, ajar As silent, barely glinting in the air While somehow undisturbed, her state of Zen Now lifted almost off my feet, am I… Her eyes are like a pair of shuriken, With August the unwitting samurai.
(On the purchase at Ikea of its unique ice tray.) Note: Unwilling to submit to the ruling samurai of feudal Japan, some fled to the mountains, training eventually to become “stealers-in”: ninjas.
© 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri Fast-ActingYou are fast-acting aspirin: Whenever my complaints begin I look to you, my anodyne... As limbs with vision now entwine, What ache remains turns happily To mild hunger, now becomes More quiet, as your sight in me Now feeds each part, this even as it numbs. © 2018 Dave Blanchard...to Francesca Neri db.59@live.com The Fancy-Free
What lofty heights, alas! and now too high, Attend imagination’s sudden flame The very moment she goes walking by! However much a portion, hers, the blame Though proving useless, when she comes as near, Its distant scope, to bridge this grand abyss… As now she pauses; suddenly it’s here, Beyond all reach, an unimagined bliss. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri The Soft Light of An Isolated Room
You will not break me: with your every twist, If that’s your thought, you’ll need another plan And since I’ve proven able to resist, And told you countless times I’m not your man, The one you need to ‘work on’, you will find Within a mirror—there, the real key; I will not break, if that was on your mind… But do your best. You have my sympathy. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri Anything But That
Still sadly wanting, every other try At such a feast! demanding it of me— Somewhere, a word exists to satisfy This hunger that arises, suddenly… And yet what word encompasses desire When want is mostly dull and boxed away, What adjective: ‘as though a pleasant fire’ Now everywhere and always on display? A simple word, and lovely; surely brief, To better balance every lengthy kiss As they arise! words failing, in relief, Until no need for words…ubiquitous. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neridb.59@live.com A Moment’s Peace
Across the room, I paused to watch you read… As though the silence no reflection on What built this house besides that abject need To please the forebears, pacify their spawn Or all the silly parties, to each guest Attendant, even knowing you are there. Some great unknown, perhaps your scribe addressed; Had I that chance, then maybe I would care. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri On This New Arrangement
Oh, the time before her, splendid With the paucity of splendor... Scarce, its value as intended— Now that hastens to attend her: All the rainbows pushing, shoving! Tears of joy and symphonies… Still, for now, at least, the loving Memory I had, of these. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri The Same Sun
Now frowning at that same sun that she tamed, Her lazy gaze thus lifting from the east, The day behind, at last--another framed In herds of heat, a wave of wildebeest Small thanks for several of the same, procured! Ungrateful, yet again unsatisfied She turns now towards the dusk; a smaller herd, The restless lion, and her stubborn pride. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neridb.59@live.com Que Lastima
Poor thing! To have to bear your handicap, The saddest one of fortune’s bitter acts That with each other arrow, sling or trap At least some care and sympathy extracts! So needy, yours, the beauty that demands Some great remembrance, like a child left Alone—uncomforted by gentle hands; By utter lack of caring words, bereft… And yet who finds it in herself to bear And so, at least deserving of a nod... And for this evening anyway some care, For every sling, those gauntlets you have trod. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri And Yet Your Own
Such beauty! And that melancholy twinge That must arise—a glimpse of raptures far, So far removed! until a certain cringe, Recalling we’re all trapped here as we are… And yet that gaze, as though a soft caress Awakening, not rendering inert! So promising—how can it be? I guess To have you in my arms: it doesn’t hurt. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…..to FN There O’ertook In His Rouse
This draft, again!--my goblet’s sustenance... And yet if ghostly as in Elsinore Not wondered at upon these battlements, This visitor, for having been before Illuminated as those distant hours Until accustomed as the nightly slide Of moon through nearer heights—alike its powers Invulnerable, and even now inside. © 2018 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The Endless Call
Let the Trumpets Sound
Some Care, Anyway By Every Right
Ozymandias
The Prize With Which If One
The Entrepreneurs The Appearance The Brink’s Job Remedy THE COMPLAINT (ii.) Engagement In Memory of Joyce Craig-Lewis That For You Nor Price Too High But Grist For That Mill The Bargain Even How It Glints Iron
Curtain Con Il Ultimo Il Volo The Speculators The Pre-Apology That Lightning Bolt As In Each Moment The Carousel Whoever That Some Love Introduction to Woman: The Opening Lecture Below The Refrain Winner Take All And When As Bright Near Her Own Common Sense The Discovery
I Squali del Fiume It Looks Lovely (on
You) The Crevice Eletto The Ice Breaker Where Daylight... The Secret And Yet Already East
The Prison Each Brighter One As in Amber Though I Would Where Daylight (xxvii.--Within the
Blue) The Gift of the Magi This Havoc Wrought That Fade Amidst You In That Dress The Naivetè The Vortex
Then In That Light The Uncertainty Principle Then Richer If Such Steps The Sign at the Winter Inn Detenzione Accomplice Here and There The Return Across the Fall At Each Main Event The One or Two, Maybe The Only Choice That Power Ought to Fade Le Faux Pas The Prediction Where Daylight--Conclusion (xlviii.--The
Angel) Ventuno
The Players Parade Rest The Sea Glass The Undefeated If By a Westward Mountain On a Close Reach
As On Them, Of Beyond Canopy This Much of Heaven A Triumph, Resounding STS – 107: The Cliff What Fate Demanding Where Daylight--The Statue
The Director’s Pitch Forth One Spring The Visitation The Dreadnoughts
The Law of Conservation The Clearing Where Daylight (xxiv.-—The Academy for the Blind
(ii.)) Spring Forward Apres Le Debat Where Daylight (xvii.—The Nephew’s Lament)
The Drifters Tango (iii.-Flashpoint Zero) Tango (ii.--The Cloud)
Tango
Where Daylight (xv.--The Gleam of Nefertiti) Where Daylight (iii.) Primula
Where Daylight (xii--The Plain) Beyond the Storm
Fate, Away (September 5th) On Mt. Ranier (August 28th) Where Daylight (August 18th) The Inlet And Yes, To Honor (July 26th) The Perfect Storm (July 11th) And now a taunt, the challenger's, to you: Re-imagining Swept Away’s unforgettable Mariangela Melato And here is the FIRST poem...of mine, that
is...
Difficult, the endless call of duty,
The challenge that informs her day’s routine:
To somehow dull, somehow alloy that beauty…
A furrowed brow, to strike a certain mean?
Those gems and dresses stunned at her surmising,
Each trembling subject to a higher realm…
Perhaps today she’ll be less mesmerizing--
Poor thing! who cannot help but overwhelm.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
The fairest in the land, in every town,
Her beauty, still as much a sorry sign!
That random chance alone yet wears the crown,
Each curtsy, every bow, to see it mine…
Still, sadness is the path to growing wise,
And e'er the higher court of great appeal—
Its beneficence clearly in her eyes;
A place if lightly mocked, they do reveal.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Not dynamite—this is a lesser force;
It is the opposite, a gentle blast
And gladly too; in any case, of course
Whatever the effects, they do not last
And yet there is a certain trait they share:
A fifteen thousand feet-per-second bloom,
And so approaching, exercise some care
On finding out her beauty fills the room.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
At the end of Adam Hall’s The Kobra Manifesto, his agent, acting as negotiatorat a southeastern USAF base, brings a device, seemingly a walkie-talkie, back to the heavily-armed group he has been following. The group continues to hold hostage the daughter, now sick with malaria, of the American Secretary of Defense. As he informs them, to bring the discussionsto a prompter and perhaps more favorable conclusion, the device, at his earlier direction, has been set to go off in five minutes.
What message in that chilling prophecy?
As from some ancient almanac and strange,
Thought wrong by every right and destiny:
Some poorer moment subject to the change,
However brief within the greater scheme
Of things, within those minutes quite undone,
As in that interval a lesser gleam!
When somehow she does not eclipse the sun.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
More solitary than an orphan’s reach
That vigil, that the shifting peaks repel—
A site of none left even to beseech,
That only knew command before it fell...
A chill within his silence as it passed,
Both reverie and agony as well...
Long desiccated by the sandy seep
Within that shimmer, somehow left outside
Each lesser century that fills the deep
Oasis there, the one of human pride…
Perhaps to slake some greater thirst of man;
As such, ignored by local caravan.
He looked away, as at the sudden blast
Of windswept sand, as though more left to tell.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Coney Island
Lost in this lunacy that will not cease
In which you’re deaf, and cannot comprehend…
Or else your hearing, somehow my release—
That having heard, you fear the dream may end?
What measure of reality’s denial,
That leaving is a choice of mine to make!
Somehow to heaven destined, even while
I shout for joy, and helpless to awake.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neridb.59@live.com
And The Winner Is
Not secretly but by acclaim
To offer crown, the ballots cast:
A rose the gentle showers tame,
The summit’s gleam at twilight’s last,
Both sides of some dispute withdrawn,
The pathway to a highest note,
A birds’ duet across the dawn...
For her instead, they cast their vote...
And all the same, save whose the crown,
Perhaps restrained by modesty
Or just inclined to looking down:
Her vote—again!—for poetry.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Some sad and others in their denouement
Instead quite wretched--all too many, they,
In years before you I might look upon,
As when you’re gone, could turn some other way
For light: some that amused, indeed, a few;
Or just the upshot of a hungry mind...
Some great, perhaps, if not compared to you
The prize worth all the rest of it combined.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Within Your Plan
Your look, tonight: what is the source?
That tells the brave to run and hide,
Whatever arms laid down, denied,
But pulls the glutton in, perforce!
‘Draw near’ and ‘go’ in like degree
And thus transfixed where I began…
Both joy and awe within your plan—
My look? That you should come to me.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The Parole
To love you? Not at all a living hell,
Whatever wayward crimes that did precede:
For under-worlds with deprivation swell
And here am I without the slightest need
So restless, Hades! too, with fitful care;
For me instead a perfect calm’s prevailed,
Completely freed from going anywhere…
Once having seen you, and my heart impaled.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Her Example
If mostly in the prudence of the ways
With which she goes about each day’s routine;
A little in the humor she conveys
Belying any other thought unseen—
And ever in the sure and honest light
In which her work and pleasure reconciled!
A model of decorum, this despite
A beauty that impractical, and wild.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
That Bright Fault
Last night, it wasn’t you—I must confess
But somewhere else, an all-surrounding fault,
That guided me to sleep, with light caress
Until I was enchambered in its vault
For once the gentle whispers not your own,
The ones I sometimes count! with hope of more
Last night it was the sea, the stars alone;
The sands beneath us, nestled at their door.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesa Neri
Private Diana
Observe the hunter, steadily and slow
Approaching now, her prey yet unalarmed!
No sign tonight of dainty Cupid’s bow;
To catch this quarry, she is better-armed.
No arrows, here, as for some lesser heart
Incapable of rampage or unrest!
For her, instead, a tranquilizer dart--
And point-blank is the range she likes the best.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
As with the sun, with which if one could be,
So
often does it seem, here now with you;
What life before, in your
proximity
Well-lit indeed if lost to view,
Whatever other sights once mine.
Your fate, the
ages more you have to shine,
My own a smile; if in that moment blinded,
Since then by every dawn, their glow, reminded.
© 2017 David Blanchard……to Francesca
Neri
It seems we’re always trailing the demand
From far-away or from our neighborhood...
Although we run more shifts than we had planned,
And maybe more than OSHA thinks we should
But peddling our wares--well, it’s a dream!
So please remember, if there seems to be
Loud bells and whistles, constant soot and steam,
The non-stop 'hum': it’s cottage industry.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Where Daylight (xxiv.–La Belle Dame avec Merci)
As though in counter-point now to the gale,
Its shrieking settled to a softer moan,
He rose to leave--now turned, as though his tale
Demanding more. With effort in his tone,
Its substance lighter in the massive hall,
He spoke again, a torch now in his eyes:
Most lovely, and indifferent, too, of all
To love, save it should profit her, the guise?
Or yet if private, one of greater good--
A heart that anyone can see her wear…
Not gaudily, as all the world would;
Instead—where else? Her face. Look for it there.
Quite gaudily indeed, the breezes through
The door, now as it closed; the distant view.
© 2017 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
The Better Half
How one might claim! as though a mouse that roared,
This wordless bond,
without a bitter laugh:
A pauper who this palace can afford,
This place
in which you are the better half...
When heavens to the earth, or if the
earth
The font of light, then to the dark abyss
That lovely source, should
one compare the worth
Of yours, compared to anything in this.
© 2016
Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Through the shadowed grottoes, heaving
Pushed by
tides and lunacy
Only for a time relieving
Wild thirst’s hegemony
Til a lightly-laden swallow
From a distant journey nearing:
Myrtle-laden; now to follow
All the storm clouds disappearing...
Ebbing now, again gigantic
Come the swells, their embassy,
Reaching now
from some Atlantic
Ancient half-shell nursery.
© 2016 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The Competition
Sometimes at dusk her aspect incomplete,
A work in progress in that
western sky
‘Neath which the artists chosen to compete
Still loiter at the
image, with a sigh
The Birth of Venus and the Sistine done,
Each
drawing now from even deeper fonts—
However vague within the spreading
sun
Their subject, and another Renaissance.
© 2016 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Home Security
Though ‘change is good’, they say, I can’t deny
How safe I felt, from
every threat before!
Those endless waves of people passing by,
But kept at bay by every wall and door...
That, massive, could stand up
to any blast,
The combination to each fruitless spin—
A vault beyond all
reach: so here at last,
Of course you’ve thrown it open, from within.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Master of the
Universe
Where is my skateboard? now that there’s a need...
The ball-and-jacks,
with which I wish to play?
The spell you weave, it works too well indeed,
Now that I’m growing younger every day
What difference, even, mere
proximity?
‘Together’ or at times, instead, ‘far-flung’
It doesn’t really
mean that much to me…
Of course I’d choose less waiting, being young.
©2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Where Daylight (xxviii.—The Cloisters)
Upon the breeze, a descant there
At once bewrays these common things,
The songs, that is, those utterings
That would the lovely morning
share;
Now lifts them up, these robins’ songs…
As, stealing to the tower
bell,
It now reminds the noon as well
The cloisters: there, where it
belongs—
Where softly now the cloisters frame,
As if some distant mountain
brook
As e’er the murmured flow mistook,
As though a chant: it is her
name.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Where Daylight (xxxvii.—The Flaming Sword)
Our innocence at least this much contends:
We should be strong!--and
with a saddened smile,
Give ear to hearing how this somehow ends;
And
sentenced, then await the coming trial...
If quite ashamed, as at
that flaming sword!
In case some doubt remains of our reward…
But bravely
then and through the day despite
Each sovereign hour, until we re-unite.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
No
False Modesty
She doesn’t know: perhaps she cannot see.
That clueless tone—if I were
blind as well
And listened, would I deem it modesty
Or simply this: she
cannot even tell?
How wonderful, the flight of fancy found
Within
that face, for anyone who sees—
And yet, beyond a sigh! bereft of sound,
Or any prideful words, except for these.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to
Francesca Neri
Though years ago, the road’s not far:
Where
falling from an armored car,
Its back doors suddenly ajar,
A fortune,
freed: and there you are.
A bumpy road, that yester-year!
Much
smoother since, and still more dear
The same event, if just as clear:
Each
time I turn, when you are near.
Note: As luck would have it, Joey Coyle did not survive his windfall by very
much.
© 2016 David C. Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
You make the bad times better and the rain
That
falls more often than it should in life
Less dreary; less as troublesome, the
pain!
And less as overwhelming, any strife
You are the best, the
only remedy,
Whatever pain and suffering that waits,
And surely
for the greatest misery:
The kind each time that you’re away creates.
©2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
On Dr.
Phil
Whatever guilt of mine, if no offense
But ‘boring’ her sometimes, then
let it drop;
And let me argue here some innocence…
Now, wait—they
heard your side, already, stop:
She says—to quote—I am a
‘little boy’,
But all the world treats her like a ‘star’…
Just who am I,
you ask, to so annoy?
Well, who is she? if not my cookie jar.
Well, look at that! The audience agrees…
And what a great one! Thank
you one and all
Now off you go, and exit that way please.
I think they
plan to make up in the hall.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Not sadly as November bids farewell,
Its destined
trip too lengthy to allay,
Still less some frozen agony of hell,
The
warmth and joy returned with every day...
So for the sun: if something of
a drill,
At least no cold and never-ending blight,
The promise of her
every morning—still,
A chill, to need to leave her every night.
©
2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
To Which By Now
Her sigh is like a scent of early spring
Of flowers, in ascent along the
hills,
To which the buds do also blindly cling--
Those tastebuds of the
eye her vision fills
Nor fragrance that the April breeze or May’s
Can
take away, no more than meager verse
Could show how far aloft that fragrance
plays…
How deeply, how unlikely to disperse.
© 2016 Dave
Blanchard….to Francesca Neri
Each time a joy, to see you now arriving,
That
gentle sweep on top of which a crown;
What other fare on which I’d been
surviving
Now lost within the cascade of that gown
No pedestal except
of heaven’s doing,
Nor loss but what it was we could be starting…
But time
to go, at least this joy ensuing:
That lovely curve, the view of you
departing.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Alas, at home! where ladies ought to be
Where they should cook, and
finished cooking clean,
And then, one blushes, start a family…
Not be the
heart of such a final scene.
A first alarm--another two are raised
Without a mother now, this thanks to you
If bitter thanks! and let those
saints be praised
Already given over for the two;
So more the hero, are
you, lady? Then
Your heroism—let it nurture men.
To the first
female firefighter in Philadelphia, an eleven-year decorated veteran,
lost
in the line of duty.
© 2016 David C. Blanchard…to the Philadelphia
Fire Department
Perhaps these words, upon a battered page
Unearthed in years to come will help the case
Or simply this: the fact you
never age
Convinced it long ago to find its place…
It’s looming near,
the evening’s dinner date
But every thought to scold itself berates
The
notion that we’re somehow running late,
When time that waits for none for
you awaits.
©2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
More important than the eyes that glisten
Ages
after common sense would plea
Sue for peace to any that might listen;
But lost instead, another casualty...
Yet her gaze, that
no-man’s land of wonder
Trenches littered, long and rife with mold,
Of
little weight, what landscapes torn asunder—
What matters is her heart is
purely gold.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Cartolina
The view is awesome, and the weather’s fair
The people great—this is
the place to be!
And lots to do! although I mostly stare
For now, still
stunned at all the scenery…
You call it lazy, I would only claim
A
way to keep in touch with every friend--
For every time I look at you’s the
same:
I see you, and a postcard’s what I’d send.
© 2016 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Hibernal
Fallow at that wanton stretching
At the sound of autumn’s call,
Empty
by the later etching
Hung in dark November’s hall
Are the
blackboards, every field:
Bid farewell, and say adieu,
Gone until some
distant yield;
Now to dream, because of you.
© 2016 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Entwine
The way these autumn’s brambles cling
As though at winter drawing near,
So is the way in everything
Her constant presence must appear…
What neediness of hers is shown!
In all the ways she would entwine;
That is, each time that I’m alone…
So does she cling, to every thought of
mine.
Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Not ever really one to 'be impressed'
Instead,
impression’s what I’ve always made
As countless perfumed letters could
attest,
If most...well, rather dully, I’m afraid!
And yet I soldiered
onward to impress,
So often making headway, prized anew
Or simple dent to
herald more success!
Until now, crushed and pulverized by you.
©
2015 David C. Blanchard….to Francesca Neri
To hold you so! what would I not renounce
Upon
the earth...my country, all its rights?
Some far-off treasure, all my
own accounts;
The chance at last of any other sights?
And yet
should any call me ‘traitor’, know
If forced to choose, the culprit would be
sad—
Thus giving all away to hold you so…
And for how long? if that was
all he had.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
No, Not Another
Eros
What, here, and now? Your wish is my command
Nor simply for the
wishes lately done!
And yes, I have the subject well in hand—
But now
you ask for some comparison...
Shall I compare thee to a winter’s day?
It has its charms, made clear in such relief...
A settling for warmth
that, far away,
True passion turns away, to see as brief
What,
Eros—she, who never had a soul?
Who bound with common rope the nameless
dead!
Who nameless shall remain, should I extol
Who knows?…say, someone
radiant, instead
All right, all right—then like a winter night;
The dead of winter, when a guiding star
Has led one wise man to another
site,
In clouds as nearly kept.
Now, there you are.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Not just forever, as each naive infant’s
Prepared to try to learn at last to walk...
Nor in the setting sun’s
increasing brilliance
Nor even how it glints across each rock
Not
simply always as the cup arising
The trophy lifted, strike a lengthy claim;
‘Beyond this all’, I found myself surmising,
Somehow before I’d even
heard your name.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Oh dear but what a lovely day
To see
a—what, a curtain drawn…
Around one’s lovely getaway!
The dragnet and the
roadblocks on
All right, the goldfish, and his bowl...
Though no,
they didn’t see this car,
Those heroes in that last patrol
Who’ll
want to see you in a jar…
The dallying was not that smart,
Nor very
bright, this whole charade
Well, let’s not set ourselves apart
Some
anger at this slow parade
A U-turn soon, if not too late,
The
only chance of getting clear,
And skipping that which would await—
You
asked for it—remaining here.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Soffice, l'ottono nel cielo
Che si impregna con il
ultimo
Respiro di estate,
La pioggia comincia,
Come un gigante
Sacramento.
Spero--nello stesso modo
Posso solamente spero
Che
come semino,
cosi raccogliero.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard...to Francesca
Neri
(Note: At least once knowing some Spanish, I came across 'ottono'--that is,
brasswork--thinking it meant 'autumn'. My mistake!)
Rising somehow to the ceiling!
Rolling through
the corridor…
On the sofa, still appealing,
By the mantel; now the
floor
All these boxes almost crushing!
Lying in the darkened closet
Silk and all your footwear, rushing,
Feverish for some deposit
Right beside that vase of flowers…
Soon upon the soft duvet…
Up
against the wall, these hours—
So they toll, while you’re away.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Then tell me, overjoyed as you may be,
In little
things and larger satisfied,
Had I not won you quite as easily,
I ask of
you, would I have really tried?
You say no prize as precious could be
earned
That only luck or heaven could supply!
Well, since by luck, at
least, most likely spurned,
I have the answer. I’d have had to try.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Then tell me now…but know, that at its hearing
Your answer as some arrow proven true
Could bring an end (--and thus its
truth endearing,
To one at least once proving so to you!
To draw
more breath, as you had drawn that bow?
When of this breath the world
would be rid)…
But tell me, I would cry! for I must know
If you’re
displeased. And what it was I did.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
There is no magic in your gaze tonight
I am
afraid, no mystery to claim…
Nor has there ever really been! despite
Each
newer miracle that one could name
That yours has worked--and working is
the key;
As common as Times Square’s, or lightning’s source…
The
question: What gives yours its ‘mystery’?
The answer: mere electromotive
force.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Of mere inertia made, the lazy heart
So
satisfied to linger in one place!
The cottage of a paradise apart,
The
shadow of predictable embrace
And yet such rest is harder on the mind
That lives to soar, as in each moment when—
That is, those dreams
of moments, unconfined—
When somehow not on you, but free again.
Then
give those dreams their flight with this parole:
That had I seen you once,
but lost that sight—
The very destination of my soul!—
If gone, then yes:
they would have found their
flight. ©
2015 Dave Blanchard....to FN
How hard, if sweetly so, to summon each—
Each
lovely picture of my memory,
These other jewels I should not beseech,
Each different in her bright identity…
I see them now, a baker’s dozen,
more:
One smiling, one perplexed, and wondering too;
I'd almost run to
them, your tears ignore—
Nor any real choice, since each is you.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Though in sad grandeur, as at some slow dirge,
The pity at the rest of life, deprived!
They quicken at the sight, the
chilling surge
The one begun the moment you arrived.
Whoever that
some love of his professed
In days to come, in warmer tones than me,
Then
give him, give them each at least this test;
These goose-bumps now
arising—ask to see.
Note: In Italian, la pelle d'oca: a certain response, as at fear or
awe, to strong emotions.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
We’d first observe the plain anatomy:
A neck
bejeweled, hands and sometimes feet--
A certain...all-the-same-ness,
that we see,
Until we first converse with those we meet
Though rarely
vast distinction to be drawn—
No gleam inherent, or some extra sign…
No
wondrous glow, save hers; now, moving on,
The consequences of a little
wine…
© 2015 David C. Blanchard….to Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
Above this sea, an over-arching still—
The heat
that holds the clouds, that always will
Though now, below, a soft and fluid
breeze
In which they move, the sea anemones
More gracefully than
clouds that labor so,
Nor with a passing shade of those below
That,
slowly dancing by the empty beach,
Remain unseen, somehow more out of reach
That all the greatest ages cannot move,
The way to me you slowly
come to prove
That something more than mere mortality
Is near, within the
undulating sea.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Though something of a prospect from the first,
The
better prospect, clearly, to refrain
From letting it somehow become a thirst,
For thirst if left unquenched’s to die insane--
Desire that upon
itself must turn!
What ease and comfort, had we never met,
Some life
without you, free of such concern--
A greater life, if graver horror yet.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
What use remains now of the other four?
Their outing done before it first began—
Lame, slow or old: for each a real
chore,
Each finished far behind, an ‘also ran’…
With you, to
Sight, each winner’s circle's rose!
It holds the best of each within
its clutch—
A banquet...now a song of seeing, those…
A fragrance…now
indeed, a certain touch.
(And may the best horse—perhaps for the
Triple Crown!—win later today at the Belmont)
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to
Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
From dust, they say, each one of us
commencing—
Though yours, your dust was in this starry sky
Not long ago,
the nebula condensing
In storms from which a lightning bolt must shy
In brilliant tones if all the while cooling;
Now hard indeed, the effort to
discern
The others, when a single one is ruling…
And when as
near-consuming, in its burn.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Near to the heart the salve a mother’s song
Will
spread, by then in unheard lullaby
That choirs prolong;
Near to an infant
daybreak drawing nigh
The dreams that years recall;
Near to the morning
sun, an ancient arc;
And near to ours, this in its slower fall,
That which the sun now spreads—and at the dark,
Another star close by each
newer gem
Each moment laced in them
As in a frieze…
Til near a
certain beauty, each of these.
Note: the 'ancient arc', that, of course, of Icarus.
© 2015 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Her pleas to knit our flag, these pleas
abhor!
Keep her away from midnight rides of yore,
From British
vessels laden with their tea,
Nor near a General on that river shore,
The crossing etched in Christmas history:
No less a threat if one as
plain to see—
And hers must etch riposte to liberty
For in the opalescence
of that gaze,
Obedience at last no tyranny
Nor free, what will remaining
it betrays.
...with a respectful nod, of course, to Tom Paine’s original pamphlet of
the same name--
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
the exercise here, rather, an excuse to use the word
'opalescence'.
Where has she gone? Where is it that you hide?
Nor even knowing all I’ve done is look—
The one who should be at
my very side:
What shore, what distant shore or hidden nook?
Still,
let me try, no matter what’s opposed,
To find you somehow, this despite the
cost--
For--peek-a-boo--your eyes were only closed!
Alas,
but opened now? Now I am lost.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
In Camden sono
Certi
squali vicino a fiume,
Una baseball squadra
Di
recente battistrada...
E dove loro giocano
È molto strano:
È
pulito e ben tenuto, dove loro sono;
E anche secco completamente!
Abbiamo investigato, quella notte
Ritornando dalla mare.
Ma
piu tardi, lo sarebbe
Un fiume attraversabile?
Non
facilmente
Con quelli ostacoli pesante,
Se in la notte,
risplendente
I ostacoli girando
Attorno lentamente
Presso il
fiume,
Sempre volteggiando.
For CDN
© 2015 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
I can’t complain—no judge would set me free!
What court is there that would not see me swing?
For giving simple voice to
what I see
When justice would demand instead I sing…
And yet no
threat, since none will ever hear,
These lips of mine forever frozen tight
That could say 'Well, another color, dear'...
The rest is
silent…call it joy, tonight.
(Note: To swing--i.e., as in the old West, from the
gallows!)
©2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
What, crevice? or the summit’s stand...
Upon that
lofty summit where
Now falls away a tired stare
Which, gaining speed in
its descent,
Seeks harbor from the firmament:
Too great, the beauty close
at hand—
That holds me countless hours, too
Ensconced within this
fissure’s seam
To watch the slowly-ebbing steam
That represents my breath,
what’s left
To help enjoy my world’s cleft;
To call my own its bright,
unchanging view.
© 2015 David Blanchard………to Francesca
Neri
Remote, the slightest chance that here
Upon a planet quite as vast,
One path can come remotely near
Another
one...and yet at last
What youthful spirit cares or knows
Of distant
probability?
And so, in spring, the flower grows,
Now blossoms, too,
that she will see.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
Good Lord, a face! as on the Bering
Sea—
Her love—whatever swells, however somewhat tossed,
A dripping ship
advances steadily
Its trailing passage draped in spindrift frost…
A
newborn swaddled so, the trailing path,
The shattered chunks and shards now
far astern,
Now bobbing free of winter’s leaden wrath
Until some
far-off, warmer month’s return.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
(Epilogue--The Goddess)
That ancient look! the one who turns away,
As if
reproving what she lingers near…
Unmoving guard, seems even more today
A
lady, turned away to hide a tear
Now pouting at some equal. For our guard,
Who even now must serve the better view
However great her beauty, still as hard,
The ancient price of worship
she once knew.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Within that lovely triune sight
Of thou, thyself
and thee
Tis said somehow no longer quite
Am I myself to me…
It may be
so, but not a peep,
That one of us should be
This much improved; so e’er
to keep
This to ourselves, are we.
© 2015 Dave Blanchard…to
Francesca Neri
If in another country we had met,
Would I have
wondered as I looked away
To contemplate those borders of regret
Where
many journey, wishing not to stay,
What caravans of yours? that might
obtain
Or temperament extending, too, for days...
With other baggage in
an endless train;
Or what of mine might bear an angel’s gaze!
And yet
already rather east it would
Have been of Eden—so what else but try?
And
thankful, too, for every single good
To bear—for all the wonder in your eye.
© 2015 David C. Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Beautiful Springtime
Do not say even sometimes I am ‘bored’
Whenever I might seem to be at rest,
For when it’s me you find you’re
looking toward,
There is a different word that I’d suggest--
The word I’d
use is board, nor silly pun:
For there's a callousness in seeing you,
The knife-edge of that sight, when I’m the one
Each time so neatly, that you
break in two.
‘Beautiful
Springtime’: Wing Chun, the only kung fu system
originated by a woman, a
Shaolin nun.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
What deprivation at that sudden loss!
When I
must close my eyes to fall asleep—
Now in some dungeon, left to turn and
toss,
Bereft now of the vision I would keep…
And yet as though a
dream, the sight of you—
Your radiance so nearly some mistake
That
drifting off seems nearly coming to…
What torture, sleep!--still, let me
never wake.
© 2014 David C. Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
The first was automatic, something new;
The
second more by choice, and not as fast;
The third and fourth: the product of
the two
And each one even greater than the last
And time! so often
slow, a prisoner
In chains, instead with silken wings did fly
As though
each one a dream that did occur—
Each smile of mine, as you went walking by.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
What fragrant splash, a scent of distant pine,
Of distant time outside the honeyed glow
Preserving these, perhaps by more
design
Than other treasures were quite long ago,
Preserving these:
each phrase this deftly curved;
Those eyes of yours, that glisten in their
deep--
Nor ever clear, which are the more preserved
These words by
them, or they, that these will keep.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to
Francesca Neri
db.59@live.com
O stun me if you must—permission granted
And
never mind to ask to paralyze,
Though I would sometimes opt for just
enchanted
Instead of always caught up in this vise...
And yet you
call it laziness and sigh…
I ask you: must you be so quick to judge?
Some
chores to do? And yet you wonder why
When I see you, I cannot even budge.
2014 David C. Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
To say ‘She is alike’, this is
untrue…
Compared with what?—that giant shaft and bright
That bides its
time within the hidden blue,
At last to part the clouds with brilliant light?
And yet for all of that as to the sea
The simple rain, that brilliant
light to her...
Alike? She is instead its cause to be,
And even more,
whatever lovelier.
For Julia Maldonado Flores: and get well soon!
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
O keep each lock that cushions you
Reclining so,
that lovely wave!
No price, however well you’d do,
And pay no
mind what others gave…
Preserve it, thereby sparing me--
Who’d likely
sell his soul to find
A cushion made as perfectly—
And freely, too, with
you in mind.
In admiration of O. Henry’s brief tale, in which two
exchange gifts,
for which no immediate use left remaining
© 2014
Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
What, this again? You do not speak;
But turn
once more to hypnotize—
And let them now such havoc wreak
That slay the
slain, those lips and eyes…
Where else but in the Lord, my trust:
What good, whatever else gone by…
Through feast and famine, boom or bust,
No doubts—now you, and knowing why.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to
Francesca Neri
A shower, sometimes, or a single flight—
Each
pretty too; that is to say, if seen
And too if seen, more distant now the
light
That fades amid the midnight serpentine,
Those constellations
that each shooting star
Repulse, unmoved at all, for drawing near…
The way
that any thoughts besides her are
Undone, if brightly, in that atmosphere.
© 2014 David C. Blanchard…….to Francesca Neri
Yours truly, they’d have found him on the floor
The ceiling fan still circling last rites--
What he had seen, no sign of
anymore...
What foul play?--to guide the azure knights
Assigned. At
last, some verdict would arrive
To chase the outline, and the yellow tape…
And life returned, perhaps in time to thrive
And somewhere, his
expression still agape.
Note: In some small tribute to J. Wambaugh’s
The Blue Knight, “azure knights”,
i.e., police officers investigating
the scene of the crime.
Also: ‘outline’ for chalk outline, and ‘agape’, of
course, for open-mouthed awe.
‘Yours truly’ is a colloquialism for the
first person, namely, the author.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca
Neri
How could you see, or even hope to guess,
The
bustle intervening constantly,
The time you call your own becoming less,
Converted to some other energy
How could you, in the bright routines
you grace,
That keep a frantic world occupied
How would you know a
moment of that face,
The still, the perfect peace that you provide.
© 2014 David C. Blanchard...to Francesca Neri
It’s there again, that helpless pull I feel—
A
drawing inward towards you I’d resist!
Some tumult yet those precious lips
conceal,
That now degrade my orbit, lately kissed
Beyond that
beauty, that has no beyond—
That draws me now, immovable, I move
Now into
some new dazzling demi-monde…
It must be that new fragrance! I approve.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard...to Francesca Neri
Abrupt within the fragrant stir
Of daylight
breaking on the glade—
Though stately, too, since it is her,
As now
another one displayed—
Two limbs unfold…and now a third;
A fourth to
come, if not as soon:
What could it mean, each finally stirred?
But in
that light, already noon.
©
2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
How insubstantial here the intersection
Of
time’s long boulevard with empty space,
That dead-end street; what glimmer
of perfection
Illusion only. Caught in its embrace,
The theory goes,
our ever-shifting view;
Nor ever in one place, or place to go…
Then let
me never near this state of you!
Nor in your arms, to find the theory so.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The house-cat feral, and the fallow fields,
The
irrigating clouds that may appear;
What tuna, what the far-off ocean yields,
Instead of certain cans you used to hear
Three meals, shelter, and
the clockwork shower:
Or all of nature, should the tending
stop—
Then richer yet to dine at any hour;
And never watered, then how
sweet, each drop.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
And
for Mooch, a visitor fed--and, on March 2, 2013,
the mother of six: Milo,
Brownie, Fluffy, Crystal, Bamboo and Graze;
named by two young ladies and in
new homes since.
How lovely, then, to see her go!
What regencies of
grace aside,
On errands hence, as e’er below
New order in that every
stride;
And if each step although profound
Might otherwise cause some
reply
As merely 'here upon the ground',
Each one she lifted must
deny
Must cry ‘unjust’, uplifted so!
Although no real need to cry:
As
much as here they may astound,
Still, hers—well, they have seen her fly.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
No symbol of a public house, that place
Whose
opening gave charter to the town;
And crowded generations that erase
Each winter night, the darkness bearing down:
Your beauty in its
mesmerizing scope,
As though forbidden, in its vaulting height!
Looks
down upon me now, as though designed
The badge of all unwelcome--and yet
hope…
There in the gleam upon that face,
Hope nearer now, on such a
night,
That in these wings, I will my shelter find.
© 2014 Dave
Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
Once more around and dawn is running late
Again, if
yet a glow, a certain song
Outside the windows seems to indicate
Perhaps
the splendid moment won’t be long.
Perhaps it has arrived; I wouldn’t
know.
Perhaps: for after all, what could resist
The sun arising? but this
greater glow
From all the starlight you have not dismissed.
©
2014 Dave Blanchard…..to Francesca Neri
Believe all that you see, and half you hear--
This much you may have heard, and half-believed,
Uncertain as the rest
of us, I fear:
What benefit in being half-deceived?
And so what
I may say should stay unsaid,
Since you would find one-half of it untrue!
And yet for you, no words enough—instead
I pray thee, put them
here, that they will do.
© 2014 David Blanchard……to Francesca
Neri
Far away, the charts uncertain
Past the marshes
deep and wide,
To the sight of that great curtain
That the dizzy peaks
provide--
Parting then to territories
Rich and splendid, to a sea,
Where, beyond, the real glories
Each--and here! and next to me.
©
2014 Dave Blanchard…..to Carmen Delia
What is the rush? The avalanche will wait,
Each sudden stroke of half a million volts
That turns the sky to day however
late,
That from the earth to heaven sometimes bolts…
These
tremors--each, I promise--as before,
If naturally a neighborly
concern:
They will be there! like puppies at the door
When, shushing and
embracing, we return.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard..to Francesca
Neri
What bells are those? and those what ages rung
That rise and fall with time’s hegemony
In disarray to far horizons flung,
Returning now; what ages yet to be...
What time that telescopes
across the fall,
The ruins and the dust itself at last
Of great empires,
of anything at all
Since I first saw you, in that moment past.
© 2014 David C. Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
Unequal, really, this by any measure
Nor level, any
field thus in play--
Whatever contest simply at her pleasure
Who deigns,
from time to time, to feign dismay
As though some challenge found in any
foe:
The sky, the seas! that labor to contest
Those heights where, far
above what's left below,
A smile, as she turns away the rest.
© 2014 David C. Blanchard…...to Francesca
Neri
So here we are, again on stage to see
If ringers
(yes) can make illusion dance:
You in the deck, the queen of hearts;
and me
That fellow in the crowd who drew the glance…
Two strangers,
clearly, so we shall remain
For now, indeed, the full run of the show
And
always smiling! never to explain
This deck is stacked, for those who
didn’t know.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Ah! you again and so begins the drain
To
who-knows-where of all my native wit,
That plummets from the dull to the
inane
As this may prove before the end of it!
This much
dumb-struck, the only choice is dumb;
My brain opposed, yet does your beauty
win
Again! if being near you I become
A little brighter than I’ve ever
been.
© 2014 David Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
The power of your beauty ought to fade
At least in
me, each atom in its path--
As in these Calvins, stone-washed, color’s
made
To fade away, within an acid bath...
Poor soul! regard their
sad effect on him,
They should have said, those eyes so frightful
blue!
And yet no chance that it will ever dim,
That fabric only
deeper now, with you.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
I’m sorry; you had something on your mind—
My manners I’d do better to
recall
Than, seeing you, to leave the world behind
With one remaining,
talking to the wall...
Forgive me; you had something more to say
My
mind was elsewhere; far away, indeed
With waterfalls and cloud banks on
display
But it will wait. I’m sorry: please proceed.
© 2014 Dave
Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
My dearest one…I almost would implore
The lissome
graces on that cloudy hill,
Wherein a glade you called your home before
That claimed you once, that surely claims you still--
To ask them if you
might as suddenly
Return to them as once you did arrive
Until this
playoff game is through--you’ll see:
The chores can wait a little; we’ll
survive.
© 2014 David Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
O creatures! with far more to be than proud,
It goes beyond the rudiments allowed
To celebrate or falling short, to
seethe…
This beauty that you blindly seek escapes
Occasion to survive
it while you breathe—
Nor colors blurred; nor many different shapes;
But
rather beauty in a single form,
As in a large and still-expanding
storm...
And now the silence of that stormy eye.
Whatever
further measured in a sigh,
She now arose, above the calmer sky,
To join
the clouds, another passerby.
The End, WHERE DAYLIGHT.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri;
...and to Anna and
Isabelle, mes belles grand-mères.
Twenty One
--A
Translation
The sky is full
The church of the night
Where ever I might try to
sift,
Everything is star-light
Yes, lazy, plenty
But not even with
my 20-20
In the faint pull
Of their drift
Can I account the sight
But there is no need,
Because of you
I am freed
To stop with
the first,
The one brightest in view
In all the grand height.
©2014 Dave Blanchard….to Francesca Neri
Il cielo è pieno,
La chiesa della notte;
Dovunque che vedo,
Tutto è stelle
Pigro o altrimenti,
Con il mio
venti-venti,
Nella foschia,
Alla deriva,
Non posso contare.
Ma non ho bisogno,
A causa di Lei:
Tu sei la prima,
Un duomo
In
quel mare.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard… .to Francesca Neri
The Forest Tiffany
She lied, who let me have her for a bride,
To say it never happened.
Call it pride
That I recount the dream, the other side--
The milk and
honey beauty I had known,
A cold allowance plumbed; if long since flown,
An over-flowing, first. As overgrown,
As dazzling, that forest's
Tiffany
That held us in a recent reverie
Wherein the sight as clearly as
would be
As if right now beheld, the naked she...
Though with some
doubt displayed, but hers alone--
Upon her back, a lifted hand to guide
As
oft before, though pointing now beyond
The fragile place of our remaining
bond
That vanished as it happened, though I'd tried.
--to SJB.
(c) Dave Blanchard 2010
The snow now falls outside, the frozen tears
Of all the endless others
made to gaze
Upon two sets--as one the other nears--
Of lips, upon this
dreariest of days…
Weep not, my love; they will go out and play
Upon
and all around the frozen white;
Too busy though, too busy anyway
Alas!
those two, who caused the wintry sight.
© 2014 David Blanchard….to
Francesca Neri
Not once, not once! the march is ever made
Except of course the ranks
now mis-aligned…
The sergeant sighs, as more attention paid,
The words
polite, respectful and refined
So does the march of progress usually go!
From good-old-days to longing backwards glance:
Two forwards steps, one
backwards; even so,
At least in her is beauty’s full advance.
In memory of Sgt. William Shanahan, United States Army
© 2014 David Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
Where else but by the waves that go,
A sea whose gleam to rainfall
turns
As bright things sometimes come to woe;
This other pulse that often
churns
The clouds are passing, as the breeze
Prevails on the endless
blue,
As on each endless morning, these
That hold a passing sail, too
If you must ever go, agree
That someday as those vapors climb
Before returning to the sea,
Recall the gleam was ours, this time.
(Published in The Sandpaper, October ’13)
© 2014 Dave
Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
The wide screen and the still-intriguing score:
This much reclined, or rather nearly prone,
I hear a melody of some new
chore
Escape a mouth too distant from my own,
Here prostrate in your
presence as before
And so the game is on, but I concede;
As ever
sadly forfeit to those eyes…
Nor waiting have you any cause to plead:
As
they insist, then lady, I will rise.
© 2014 Dave Blanchard…….to
Francesca Neri
If by a westward mountain lake beguiling
You feel a gently sudden rush of
air,
It is a sign, the sign of one who’s smiling,
If far removed, to
think that you are there...
And yet escaped, a sign more accidental
Than joyous ones, no puzzle to discern--
Not very much, a sigh! of
instrumental
In anything at all, but I will learn.
And when another
instrument’s appealing
If by that lake or elsewhere as you may--
A rising
sun’s, or better sign of feeling,
That is the instrument I’ve learned to
play.
To L. and C.
© Dave Blanchard 2012
The needs of others: food for thought;
But rise
and shine, for what we need
Perhaps in doing as we ought…
A lifelong
rule, that golden seed
Through which each bloom at last displayed.
For noble hearts, the play’s the thing
As in a reaching sail, stayed,
As
birds around her, on the wing.
Fair stars at birth at last aligned--
As at the west’s horizon, fair,
The way tomorrow’s will remind
As she of
playgrounds, everywhere.
© David Blanchard 2014......to Francesca
Neri
The Chain
As by the shimmer of the rolling light
The earth centrifugal and yet
restrained,
So at her own, the purposes of flight
Are made to flee. And
though the orbit chained
What else but bright, as lovely as the blue
Through which the light will roll, if at its sweep
At last, this cobalt that
the stars pursue,
Its well-spring hidden, in the endless
deep.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…to Francesca Neri
Held hostage in the sea of autumn’s splash,
The
deeper pull of its retreating tides,
I linger now, as on them glimmers flash
Of snow and ice beyond, of March’s ides.
So do these seasons start
again anew,
Each plodding step; it cannot slip away,
That heavy fate and
one unransomed too--
When elsewhere, you! on such a lovely day.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…..to Francesca Neri
No guests your ladyship may deign enable--
Upon the
dais, with some favorite dish,
The canvas of a banquet hall and table
Encanopied in gold--could claim a wish
More realized than I, who still
awaiting
The invitation, find in every crumb:
Each glimpse of you, a lady
celebrating
The sharing, and the happy fate of some.
--in appreciation of Ivanhoe, by Sir Walter
Scott
© 2013 Dave Blanchard….to Francesca Neri
Though I should die of joy at the exchange
To learn of your return,
that you are well;
When I may pray whoever did arrange
This much of
heaven, hardly freed from hell--
That they remain attending to the one,
The one aglow in beauty at their side…
Then let me in the coming task
abide--
Your journey finished, and my thanks begun.
© 2013
Dave Blanchard………..to Francesca Neri
What single spark of summer lunacy!
That leaves
the last horizons now aglow--
It seems, indeed, more of a victory
Than
fell to those besieging Jericho
...to see your face, the lunacy began
Your face, that moonlit dream the break of dawn
Would not let slip to
humor any man,
If little humor, once the lines were drawn
My
walls have finished trying to impede,
What’s left of them but mantle for the
sun
That in your standard shines as I concede—
And happily, in knowing I
have won.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…....to Francesca Neri
Beyond The Pale
The styling and the posing left behind,
Left far behind, upon this
morning trail--
Or so I thought, yet now surprised to find
My luck, at
least today, beyond the pale
For now another poser comes to view
Parading what was borrowed from your eye,
A simple shade of light and
shallow blue
That in its greatest depths now fills the sky
© 2013 Dave
Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
In Memory, the Space Shuttle
Columbia
You said if you'd been born in space,
Then
you'd have tried to reach this place
Now paused to keep a later
rendezvous…
The first one scrubbed--a wash, across the blue.
What
moment you were satisfied?
Twelve kids with heroes but denied
Their
promise, turn their heads to see
Your face again, if naturally--
You'd
promised you'd return; you'd never lied
Though lift-off compromised
your plan
The worst-case calculus began
When you were young;
Your doubts you grew to hide.
You knew the risks, of going slow
You
knew the odds--the odds you would not find
A greater meaning than you leave
behind
Near certain--if the sum of what we know
Is now increased,
however far below
Of what you called the heavens, in each line
You
brightly wrote, and writing there, refine.
For Rick, William,
Laurel and Ilam; David, Kalpana and Michael.
Note: Ten years ago,
like millions of others, I woke up to see nothing but
live video of the
traces, lingering, in the bright, now-empty skies above Texas.
David C. Blanchard © 2003
The
Night Sky
Here in an arid night whose roots now bend
To choke whatever light yet
makes it green,
I find myself less anxious to pretend
I had not heard
it, or had never seen
What of it? So another one before me—
A nothing
ever; just another stair
You walked upon in coming to adore me
Nor in his
absence, I, beyond compare:
And yet the others, let them burn as
cinders
Upon what sky of yours dwarf stars may burn,
While in my own no
supernova hinders
The far-flung crystal,
At the world’s turn.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
Again, some eagle, lifting from this peak--
My
guest departing, crimson, now, its beak...
Earth, air and water;
water, air and earth.
These were the only ones, as I recall;
And so the
question, from my very birth
But human nature's--what would top them
all?
Well, now there is a fourth, to crown the rest,
If stolen from
the gods, each now ablaze--
Their fury leaving me still more impressed
With what I'm here for now: your merest gaze.
(c) 2013 David
Blanchard.....to Francesca Neri
Were I to want you, then what else must wane?
What else, that is,
would have to disappear
Within that landslide--what small breath remain
That you, so far away, could even hear
What I—now quite undone—had tried
to say?
What else but fate demanding then its trade:
My wanting you at
all could be the day
Your own desire, at last, must start to fade.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…………to Francesca Neri
O false beauty! that can never fade...
As beauty
should, to find its place
As though much attention paid,
Could ever be,
beyond this face--
Yours, frozen, freezing…
These lines, fast glint
that stopped the blade
That chiseled them, to find some air
Hold silent
now our own parade;
Must hold the next still waiting there
As you
must do—
As you, for some small reason,
Are made to.
© 2013
David Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
Your beauty makes the others sigh
But I don’t care--a movie star?
Those looks, you ought to be
Those looks that catch the roving eye
And
then go running free
Like Jerry Rice, or Google’s car--
The
prototype-with-bugs...
We could meet for drinks, or tea
Whatever, kisses,
hugs
A movie star? Of course you are:
So angel--act for me.
©2013 David Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
You were a lovely chord, I think, at first
Held lovingly until the
melody
Burst forth one spring, as spring itself will burst
And soon with
soaring verse, and lovingly
As near a hymn as God would do--
As high
each final note as ever soared,
And now indeed a soaring anthem, you...
And so an overture to me--
A hint, that is, of what you move me toward.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…………..to Francesca Neri
My heart is calm; and yet at fever-pitch
My mind, to look at you
and wonder so:
What message from an angel could enrich
One’s life that
also deals such a blow?
You are a visitor, from far beyond,
Yet
heavy-laden are your words, and few:
That we must part, the sun now having
dawned—
The morning rush! and Eden lost, anew.
© 2013 David
Blanchard………to FN
Now slowly passing by in winter gray,
The clouds maintain their cold and
steady way
Like dreadnoughts, on this sea of arctic air.
I catch my
breath now, on the sea-bed where
The nettles all around remind
To walk,
and look above, is walking blind.
Yet somewhere there, so we are told,
Our angels wait. And so, sometimes, we try,
So far below, for all
the cold,
To break that heavy ice beneath the sky—
As had a child; and
massive prows, of old—
…at least to offer up a silent ‘hi’.
©
2013 David Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
The Commission
What heavy tax upon my eyes and soul...
Each time I look at you
assessed a toll,
So much the beauty, and the wonder, so--
Until the
greater cost, when you must go.
What high commission that collects each
sum!
Above the fray, as though a touch divine…
And likely just, each
portion coming from
This wealth beyond imagining that’s mine.
© 2013 David Blanchard......to Francesca
Neri
I’m not as old now, lately, thanks to you
As typhoons in a roiled
latitude…
Or in the surge that cracks the frozen shore
Of Iceland, or the
tortured slopes before
That goddess of poor attitude,
Mt Pele, in her
pouring rage, is through...
You come to bid each clock I see rewind,
You
hold off time’s advance, where others fail;
Each slightest touch transformed
somehow beyond
The measure of a man, of all mankind.
Somewhere the costs,
what newer age has dawned:
A soft and fearsome thing, what they regale.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…………..to FN
As dense the brush that hindered these,
Each silent stride among the
trees,
So was the impact of that cloud
That somehow fewer still
allowed
That somehow raised a single care
Ascending to the promised
view,
The fog, descendant of the blue
Now lifting--there a meadow,
you,
The clearing in this mountain air,
And in these trees; the singing,
too.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard………to FN
The sun retreating now again, she raised
Her face, as if some longer term
arranged;
I stopped beside her, paused, and now I gazed
Above as well;
now also felt short-changed,
Less so, perhaps.
“She was my closest
friend”
My guide began, a gleam still in her hair
Despite the clouds.
“Sometimes she would pretend
For me, she could not see, yet didn’t
care!…
Though often clumsy…what she didn’t know”—
Now in her voice a
softer shade of mirth—
“Was I could also see her though,
As I
have said, I have been blind since birth…
Nor said I, ever once, a word for
fear
She’d think me mad...”
At this, a sudden show
Of sunlight
“…or that it might disappear”
© 2013 Dave Blanchard………to
FN
Nor even as a dream, the hour lost...
I looked below, and past the
boulevard
To see the winter sunshine now advanced
Beyond the void, and
coming down as hard
As had the rain, competing with the sleet
The night
before…
Still gazing out, I chanced
To see a building’s doorway by the
street
Wide open at this early Sunday hour—
Invitingly, if somehow
with that power…
As, smiling now, I realized the door
Was only
something’s shadow, nothing more;
Some promise of the distant shade in
store.
(Note: Time, every spring and fall, is 'moved' by one hour;
thus, the
reminder: ‘Spring forward, fall back’)
© 2013 Dave
Blanchard…………..to FN
What truce that for a final peace accord,
Beyond quite understanding,
passes yet!
As though this silence in the guns restored
Must leave
somehow your own more firmly set...
And yet so like freshfallen snow and
quite
Remote upon on a windless mountain, mum
In your impassive gaze, not
so severe
As merely of some kingdom-not-to-come,
I find at least the
one already here;
Of paradise, at least accorded some.
©
2013 Dave Blanchard……..to FN
She is the sea and mine the simple footprints
Left in the sands her
waves obliterate
An unexpected reason for existence,
If reason now my
latest still await...
Now lost within a world of indifference
Like
heaven’s to the Danish monarch’s fate
Awakened from that orchard to
repentance,
And yet too swiftly, finding it too late—
Nor rest again, nor
sleep perchance to dream
Of lovely new illusions; nor as sad
To dream of
those, as real as they seem,
As I to dream tonight of what I had…
© 2013 Dave Blanchard………to FN
You crash sometimes, and lap across my chest--
The spindrift
follows, cries among its reach;
A final one: the seagulls now at rest,
For
now at least. Two creatures on the beach
Re-oriented, drifting to a
course
Where those now so in thrall must ever go:
To watch the blazing
chariot--the horse
That, far away, has such an undertow.
© 2013
Dave Blanchard…….to FN
Where Daylight (xxiii.—The Academy for the Blind (1))
“She had in school no friendship more than mine,
Who taught her how
to run, and then to fly!…”
She paused, now looking up as for a sign
Of
comfort; then the sun broke out as I
Continued on the terrace. If quite
blind,
She heard me, so, and so herself resumed,
A rustle now, of what
she had in mind—
As on her face, the lovely answer loomed.
“I only meant,
into a pile of leaves!
No better cure for anyone
Who for the waves of
summer sadly grieves...”
I stopped. “Well, they can keep the summer sun!”
I answered her, my heart now in my throat,
The breeze now less a helpful
antidote…
© 2013 Dave Blanchard……to Francesca Neri
This part is simple, this I learned at one:
To crawl,
just not beneath the desert sun.
Although come on no doubt
some others did
And kudos to them, too: the sunshine rules
And what was it
keep going Something cools,
That leaves at peace, no,
pace, a pace to keep…
Yes water, this remembered thing, in pools
Some near mirage, and shortly drinking deep
You have no time the thing
is going to blow
So this just carpet, me, not yet a kid...
And
hanging on, the only way to go.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…………to
FN
Near the conclusion of Adam Hall’s thriller,
The Tango Briefing,
the agent has thought to assemble a makeshift timer, in
the hope
of sparing his own life while completing his assignment.
In the spirit of what tennis champion Arthur Ashe once asserted—‘Start where
you are, use what you have…’—the agent utilizes a teak statuette as a
tempting perch for the vulture he has managed to seize and throw into
the
now-closed cockpit of the wreck. Although fatigued, now with
the statuette
placed, at rest, just above the device’s detonator, he must
get away as
quickly as possible, one concern residual radiation from
the upcoming
explosion.
'Flashpoint Zero' is an insurance designation for dangerous
cargo.
Ten lines, okay, let’s start--the muse is up:
'Her
eyes are like an ever-brimming cup'
And so forth. Now another one, the same:
Her eyes, again: 'an ever-lasting flame',
Et cetera...it seems to be ‘Her
Eyes’,
The cargo in this…distant section, here
Right here at hand, oh
God…
the bluest
skies
Where mocking birds-of- paradise appear
As all the others sing
the world joy
Except for you: the one they would destroy,
No, no,
ten lines her everlasting sneer,
Those eyes well, twelve
GET OUT your sole employ…
© 2013 Dave Blanchard…..to FN,
and the family of Adam Hall
Note: In The Tango Briefing, halfway through, the agent begins
an
inventory-- a shortwave radio report, to his director-- of the two dozen
or
more gas cylinders--most intact, one or two proving less so--
that are
stored in the downed plane he, after three attempts to eliminate him
and a
midnight parachute drop well wide of the mark, into a featureless desert,
has finally located.
The location is being pursued desperately by
several organizations at this point.
The bodies of the two pilots are
outside in the dunes, three days ago
apparently having tried to run from a
crash landing; though not getting far,
their last expression blind terror,
something not to be expected from pilots.
As with all the
author's, the chapter title is a single word; here,
Frenzy.
How do you weigh it, but to say the wait
May yet
provide relief for other eyes?
Or measure irony at such a fate
Constructed
from such dwindling supplies
The sky is full of her by now, alone
As
you remain, with little of supply...
...though with a target,
yes--you are a drone
That crawled the earth; now turning to the sky.
How do you weigh it, what you cannot lift?
Though in a moment may
forever hold,
The flame that feeds the desert, here--a gift
You need,
yes, now return, a million-fold.
In memory of the writer Adam Hall,
& after his The Tango Briefing.
In the book, the agent finds himself at the end of a Saharan
assignment
to locate certain evidence (the contents--nerve gas--of a downed
private freighter)
inimical to national interests. He has agreed by radio,
now, to obliterate
the evidence, though knowing this will require his
activating a small,
fission-based device without the use of its damaged
timer; that is to say,
by hand.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard……….to
FN
In This Way
What does it mean to think I’d never lose you,
If lesser loss and
more than once so far,
In stories meant no more than to amuse you,
Is
yet the record of a certain star?
That though it governs still, now feels
chilly,
For now another, with a brighter law...
Although its ways may
prove a little hilly;
As ever, fighting sometimes to a draw--
At least,
whatever lesson taken from it
May grant the way to meet what’s next in
store.
What does it mean, then? if I take for granted
That someday on a
peak a flag implanted--
If you, your smile of that cloudy summit,
Would
look at me, this way, a little more.
To FN………………….(c) 2013 Dave
Blanchard
She is the spring, the flooding of the Nile
At which
the Sphinx is heard in giving thanks...
Until, to see her dripping form,
awhile,
Made silent--or the gold upon the banks
The maiden light that
glides upon the Rhine,
Fair April, stirring August from his rest
As if
had Antony looked past the queen
The jewel of the Nile, to the west
That
western shore, the realm of the divine
To find an older name for the
affair
So in the shade around her passage seen
The gleam of Nefertiti,
stirring there.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard......to FN
(February
5th)
What beauty that could send words so awry
Did cry, of course, for
more…though I had been
From Corso d’alba to the lakes of May
Where
looms in ancient guard, til then,
Each somber pass, against what few who
try,
Whose peaks now on the summer heavens play--
These were my
splendors all, if once again
The protests of each somber lass whom I
Would more recall…
Yet what he had to say
Of beauty—of this creature,
and her power—
Dispelled what passing notions held before…
For my
repast, at least a happy hour
A bargain, and the likely rate to pay
Within a tavern’s walls, for hearing more.
© 2013 Dave Blanchard………to FN
Deep-set in the emplacement where they wait,
Her eyes take in each
miniature below;
Two hundred yards of void above the strait,
Her view
commands the only way to go...
The one remaining passage we can
use
To put destroyers through, and with some luck
Make sure our troops
survive--and yet the news…
And now a plan, the only one that stuck.
A
thrown-together thing, of course; as such
Not quite the most imposing of all
time—
And now a storm…already out of touch.
I guess we’ll see if they can
make the climb.
(In memory of Primula Niven, and
the actress Gia Scala.)
On The Guns of Navarone, by
Alistair MacLean
© 2012 Dave
Blanchard………to FN
The Compass Point
So is the evening sun—and to the eye
So often near! or only distant as
the west
Where drowsily it says goodbye
To endless day and all the rest…
The very same applies to what it leaves:
The air it cleaved, if somehow
being cleft,
Still furnishes our nearest needs--this as it grieves,
In
disappearing, too, for being left;
So hers, as with a compass point, or sun
or air
A lovely thing, if more than each
The native of a land forever
there,
Though somehow near yet nearly, somehow, out of reach.
©
2012 Dave Blanchard…….to FN
Where Daylight (iv.—The Tavern)
...Now even stranger, what he had to say:
"The question’s one of
resonance—the way
A note is held…so as a singer may,
Her beauty
shattered glass and so without
The burden any vanity would raise
As Caesar
legions, humble and devout,
With time, deprived of little but that gaze,
She grew in gracious steps, with every page
Revealing more that perfect
modesty
A ballerina leaves upon the stage…"
He paused, now staring
past. I turned to look--
Whatever pages true, the mystery
For now
remaining in his story-book.
© Dave Blanchard 2012……..To FN
Again
It burns my eyes, this even as it cools
The rest of me, your long and lonely
gaze...
A thousand miles long, though I am here,
Least likely or the
luckiest of fools.
It stings, your beauty, goading me, I fear
Again to
rally, and the banner raise,
To let whatever treaties might, protest
The
coming storm this gaze does not arrest...
That even now reveals a single
tear—
Nor my imagination as you turn
Your look—like that—upon me, so to
burn
My eyes a little less, now less as cool
The rest to even gold, or
golden rule.
© Dave Blanchard 2012.......to FN
What plea it might have held, the note, in vain,
He closed his eyes a
moment, and resumed:
"My boy!" He paused, now calling on the doomed
She
is the solstice and my past, that plain
In southern England where the painted
left
Their slabs of wretched midnight to absorb
Whatever little heat the
graying orb
Of winter dawn could offer as a gift,
A gift a monument
should not contain…
His past? I asked at last. He looked at me
As
through a glass. “He was the toast of all
For wit and valor, and the
courtesy
He showed in each; each waiting liberty
He never took--that is,
before the fall…”
© 2012 Dave Blanchard………To FN
As ours upon a certain star of screen,
So is your gaze, a little, on each
soul…
Although of course, whatever passing scene,
Of others mindful, with
more self-control:
Not blurting out objections, as a rule,
If often
thinking “Don’t go through that door”
“No, no!” “What are you waiting for,
you fool?!”
Til at the finish, having hoped for more
Than simply seeing
free will made again
Some pleasure-seeking storm of fleeing pain,
The way a proper critic might explain—
As any star, beyond the
hurricane.
© 10/29/12 (during Sandy) Dave Blanchard………to FN
Where Daylight--The Transit of Venus (October 10th)
As when a clue of dawn disturbs the star light
So was her coming, and
her path across
The winter skies, slow as a bride’s, as pure white,
Now
diamond-like within a veiled gloss—
If slow, as though reflective of the
insight
Her distant mother offered at the loss…
While there behind each
step of hers as though
On shortened leash, a sight itself endearing
That
he of all ! Poor Jupiter in tow—
Til as with dawn, the heralded appearing
With Venus turned, and showers of confetti,
The waiting weighed, as for a
bride the same:
That having seen, and conquered all already,
The endless
wait enough, at last she came.
(c) 2012 Dave Blanchard………to FN
Quiet! (September 30th)
What is the best comparison—
Mother Earth or Aphrodite?
For one who hushes endless song
At dawn, for love of the Almighty
Pining so for her attention…
Til suddenly there comes along
A lovely
soloist's redemption,
Sweetly, softly, courtesy
Of simply
this: her merest mention.
(c) 2012 Dave Blanchard........to FN
Where Daylight (viii.) (September
24th)
What uproar at the antiquated door
Now venturing outside to make its
stand,
To be extinguished in the breezes or
If too late now for that, then
merely fanned…
He looked at me again. "I had a note
The wretched boy had
sent, late June, it was…
Elated, I had thought, yet now he wrote:"
Now
is the summertime, I know, because
She is the solstice: and her every
gaze
The very sun now strives to designate
The lesser or the greater of
its rays—
If still in vain, somehow to recreate…
© 2012 Dave
Blanchard…….To FN
Well, If They Insist...(September
18th)
When thus the grace by angels wrought,
The lovely day that you were
born,
The point of epic battles fought
Of what of heaven should adorn
This heaven of a wilderness:
More than deserved, or somehow less?
In you,
the answer: clearly more
And so I’ll take the choice in stride—
I may have
failed, some, before…
Still, this much fuss must one abide.
© 2012
Dave Blanchard…….To FN
To The Heroes of the Twin Towers (September
10th)
There is a place the angels missed,
Too fragile for the worst of this
This middle land where hearts will break
Or be consumed, or just subsist
Or all at once, depending on the day;
Let those unhearted who would take
The measure of our rage and pain
Remember, though, that hearts are not in
vain--
There were three hundred, many more
Whose fate or choice it was to
stay
Until the very towers spent
And this a mending heart cannot
ignore--
Let angels weep, and stay away
There is a place these others
went
Most caring and most hard of heart
Who damn the devil; and this, only
they.
(c)2001 Dave Blanchard...and to all responders
What
chance the sea--if you were she, the bitch--
Whose wild scorn still greater
craft than these
Destroys, and yet fatigued, to punish so,
Could ever
punish you, if there your ease?
Whose beauty yet some epic warnin
g which
Might warn
off further interlopers swept
By summer tides, or merely fate, away,
With
heaving vows, and promises unkept…
The heave of waves, it tires; the
tempest’s blow:
With you instead, whatever chance you’d stay,
What chance
the sea would ever let you go?
(c) 2012 Dave Blanchard........to
FN
Our
own are petty, yet un-ended still,
Reducing each our prospects though they
may
But yours—whose blame lay elsewhere, after all,
At least yours
finished in a grand display:
It’s lower, now, at Valley Forge, the flag…
A
lower lighthouse on that wind-swept hill
That holds a reef, the bane of
lesser names—
A giant archway; hazard, as it frames
The day renamed for
one it would recall…
And lovely, too, if now the granite sags
A little at
the story of your fall.
In memory of Nick Hall, NPS Ranger
©
2012 Dave Blanchard
Where daylight ends its lonely
march,
The trace, still, of a beauty mark
Within the flawless meadow's
sweep:
A cottage, where the range's heights--
By some design, a castle
keep--
Above the empty timbers arch,
Thus guarding the abandoned dark.
However long that gloom within,
Her merest look had torn it so,
The
remnants scattered. She had been
Delayed by storm, some years ago.
(c)Dave Blanchard 2012......To FN
Swept Back (August 10th)
These rhapsodies, at which the others wonder—
Those smaller joys,
their new estate divining,
Raised now above, although forever under
This
newer realm, which, if but underlining,
Would lend their all...
As ever
yours; for you, as ever, pining.
And so as though the rescue now
erased
Nor ever sadly glimpsed, atop the ridge!
Upon the sandy beach,
this message traced--
That is, this writing on a happy wall:
A friendly
note, upon the empty fridge.
© Dave Blanchard 2012....to FN
Not So Enchanted (August 4th)
These tricks-of-light of yours they seem to play,
Your eyes, are better tried upon the air
Which, though it comes to town to have
its way--
The sirens warning of its drawing near--
As though a two-year
old! to lay it bare,
Still whispers at its leaving, I am here
Though if she’d deign, that lady, she whose eyes
Restore the light to its
intended glow--
If she might one day simply come to try
She’d calm the
air, its reach immobilize!
And left not so enchanted, now, as I
As simply
clear, no better place to go.
(c) Dave Blanchard 2012.......To FN
In Maine, within the evergreens the sea
Has draped
across her beauty and her chill,
Those woolen scarves, the silken
tapestry,
There is a lovely plunging neckline still,
If one alas! by now
so far away.
Wherein the even throb of time and tide;
Whose inlet
ebb-and-flows confuse the day
As epic bluffs beneath the fabric ride...
To
be inside. I think of you as her;
The coming of that flood, above my head
My birthing; and my executioner
That hour later, when the tide has
fled--
Inconstance…Oh! still hoping that I may
Draw nearer to her
neck, that plunging line
Whose perigee the sea--a hidden bay,
Whose wind
and currents more today than mine.
(c)Dave Blanchard 2012...to
FN
She serves a certain purpose well,
In light suggestions
that compel
The perseverance that endures
And common sense, that may
resolve
The doubt in yours in seeing hers--
Those eyes, where other worlds
revolve
Yet courage too, in all you see,
The overture to luxury…
Or
not, depending on the day.
And yes, to honor, come what may,
Compelled as
once from clay compelled.
This most of all, if she’s beheld:
The impact of
a higher plan
Of simply this: goodwill towards man.
© Dave Blanchard
2012....to Francesca Neri
IS THAT ALL THAT YOU HAVE?
as though a king
Upon the moors, who grinned and bore it too,
And
so leaves you the fool. A weathered storm
Is all you are now, though
each lightning bolt
Still echoes here, the evening in revolt
At
beauty bent and naked thundering,
The bifurcating power of your form
That lifted off the canvas champions
Not long before,
Not quite
as great as this--
The one who smiles, seeing how you miss.
as
'meeting her match' in Zaire (that epic bout also in 1974)!
© Dave Blanchard 2012....to Francesca Neri
the first one that the lady inspired!
--and one hers, why
not?--perhaps to grant some title.
Perhaps she is the end of sight as I
Have
known it, seeing her, no longer can--
What left to see, the shuttered
sea a man
With sails empty, torn is left to try
Of sight a
journey's, as if through a mist,
A prism'd light that tears unshed
suspend,
Perhaps this way instead she is the end:
That yet at dusk
persuades the day resist
In that a chance the light, in giving in,
Proves vital as the rosy air, as I
Thus given sight, now fear that I
could die
Now having seen her, had she never been!
© Dave
Blanchard...to Francesca Neri