The Poetry Page
This page is dedicated to the work of my father, Michel Keith Bateman. He has his own book published, so these are some new poems which have not been published yet.
Pale Glass Ideas
Looking into each other's eyes
There is a time among the cold dark days that winter brings, when the sun in his low chariot, spreads fingers of gold across the frozen forest. Turns droplets of ice into diamond strings, and where cascades of water metamorphose, blue green candles glowing in the dark recesses of hidden canyons that shiver in silence, where once thunder danced in a wild ecstasy of freedom bound for heaven.
It's a bitter sweet pain, the touch of cold smooth stone, the smell of snow, the distant clouds filing away the sight of granite peaks. To reach with inner eyes a solitary piece of wood captured in ice, awaiting
time's loosened grip, and turn it in an imaginary slow circle viewing it like an insect caught in winter's amber.
It's as if, each move in a chess game has its own individual beauty. Like stones in a creek, moving only when the grip of thought frees it from the frozen bed. Sometimes a smooth black pebble reminds me of Karpov, and sometimes a dappled rose held in brittle crystal dreams of an early icy rain, whisper Kasparov's name, and sometimes a rainbow of colors through pale glass ideas floating like dust, in sunbeams where time is held a prisoner unable to pass. A snapshot of possibility, caught in the thin reflective imagination. A blur, frozen like some cartoon roadrunner to be investigated, inspected, matched a square peg a round hole. Turned slowly, then blown in one long breath as dust in the wind.
It's funny how the chess board fades into a distant memory, caught by the sound of a clock ticking away chances of existence for the moves, and the mover, drowning in the sound of countless waves on a far away thought. How many consciousness' have pondered depth in two dimensions, or wondered at a move that fits without bludgeoning, finely measured, exact, and yet questioned.
Searching the shadows, questions within Mandelbrot Sets, where each move stand among friends and daggers. Living a dream within a dream, within a dream, a thousand smiling faces turn one by one looking back from the mirror, a kibitzer's wish from phantom onlookers. Pushing the moves in a cold stream of logic, flowing the path of least resistance to the sea of dreams. A tumbling kaleidoscope of promises in side out, with just a touch of mercury.
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To . . .
It was a wish that hung in the night sky, just beyond a beggar's imagination, a hundred gold coins tinkling through the dark passage of dreams, squeezing drop by glittering drop in hourglass time, burying an elegant promise under mounds of pyrite reality.
We meet, for the first time among the pages of a book, yellowed and forgotten, born again in timeless lines. Caught in the perilous balance of reddish brown, dust blown streets that for me never existed, and the center of circles wedged within my curiosity.
We meet here, the author and me. Like shadows flickering across the pages. The ghost writer, and the ghost reader spiraling outwards, inwards, reflections in the ether of thought, the changing colors of promise and yet, knowing the book and its eternity must also crumble being of chance and matter, we three intermingle.
I catch a moments existence, remembering, forgetting, each frame sliced and balanced along shelves of a library stretching between mountains, and raise an eyebrow as to attach some importance to the dedication of trivial pursuits. Mouthing words I cannot hear, picturing what can't be seen. Is it God we wait for, or just the sound of returning footsteps, and old friends' voices at the door. We meet again, the author and me, looking into each other's eyes.
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