Dax Bayard-Murray
four poems
**
Lines Taken from Tranströmer’s “Loneliness”
I’m never unseen
............I live in a swarm of eyes
My face turns to clay
**
Tortola, British Virgin Islands, 1991
All I heard was the wind
those nights I stayed awake
walking the quiet roads.
How many roamed the hillsides
in a half dream of just-lost life
loosed to float across the water?
How many spirits were . . .?
All those years I never knew.
Not five miles away,
people slept soundly.
As they hung from gallows.
As they hung from gallows
people slept soundly.
Not five miles away,
all those years I never knew
how many spirits were
loosed to float across the water
in a half dream of just-lost life.
How many roamed the hillsides
walking the quiet roads
those nights I stayed awake?
All I heard was the wind.
**
I'm Not Going Crazy
I had to mash the brakes: when did I ever see
a mongoose run red like fire across Scott Free Road,
chasing a young iguana, lime green, baby of greens?
Does someone want to tell me how come the power goes out
every night at my parents’ house, but the golf course is still lit all night?
I can see every blade of yellowing grass at Mahogany Run.
I tell you it’s no good. Earlier I passed a dumpster in Peterborg
where a bunch of wild scraggly chickens and feral scrawny cats
gathered together and ate from one bowl like some Last Supper.
I’m only gone twelve years and a damn fool built a Home Depot
near Hidden Valley. Only two cars are parked outside. On one of them,
a hen was crowing like a rooster. Somebody’s going to lose their baby.
These things ain’t right. A bunch of Frenchies up by Hull Bay
brought in a hammerhead two days ago and the thing is still
thrashing on the sand. The gulls won’t peck its eyes.
The ferry dock at Nazareth has barbwire and security checks
(unmanned – it’s still the Caribbean) for a twenty-minute ride.
Who are they expecting?
All this just today.
The island has gone crazy.
My parents agree completely.
**
Further On
............from Tomas Tranströmer
On the main road to town
just before sunset
traffic thickens and crawls.
It is a slow dragon that glitters.
I am one of the dragon’s scales.
Suddenly the sun is ginger
in the middle of the windshield
and streams in.
I am transparent.
A scrawl grows visible inside of me.
Word with invisible ink that appears
when paper is held over fire.
I know that I must go a long way off
straight across through town and then
further, I must step away hours
and wander along in woods.
Go in badgers’ tracks
until it’s too dark to see.
There among mosses lie stones.
One is heavy, it can transform everything.
It can allow darkness to lighten.
It is a switch for the whole country.
All hangs on it.
Look at it, play with it …
**
return to sawbuck 1.2
**
**
Lines Taken from Tranströmer’s “Loneliness”
I’m never unseen
............I live in a swarm of eyes
My face turns to clay
**
Tortola, British Virgin Islands, 1991
All I heard was the wind
those nights I stayed awake
walking the quiet roads.
How many roamed the hillsides
in a half dream of just-lost life
loosed to float across the water?
How many spirits were . . .?
All those years I never knew.
Not five miles away,
people slept soundly.
As they hung from gallows.
As they hung from gallows
people slept soundly.
Not five miles away,
all those years I never knew
how many spirits were
loosed to float across the water
in a half dream of just-lost life.
How many roamed the hillsides
walking the quiet roads
those nights I stayed awake?
All I heard was the wind.
**
I'm Not Going Crazy
I had to mash the brakes: when did I ever see
a mongoose run red like fire across Scott Free Road,
chasing a young iguana, lime green, baby of greens?
Does someone want to tell me how come the power goes out
every night at my parents’ house, but the golf course is still lit all night?
I can see every blade of yellowing grass at Mahogany Run.
I tell you it’s no good. Earlier I passed a dumpster in Peterborg
where a bunch of wild scraggly chickens and feral scrawny cats
gathered together and ate from one bowl like some Last Supper.
I’m only gone twelve years and a damn fool built a Home Depot
near Hidden Valley. Only two cars are parked outside. On one of them,
a hen was crowing like a rooster. Somebody’s going to lose their baby.
These things ain’t right. A bunch of Frenchies up by Hull Bay
brought in a hammerhead two days ago and the thing is still
thrashing on the sand. The gulls won’t peck its eyes.
The ferry dock at Nazareth has barbwire and security checks
(unmanned – it’s still the Caribbean) for a twenty-minute ride.
Who are they expecting?
All this just today.
The island has gone crazy.
My parents agree completely.
**
Further On
............from Tomas Tranströmer
On the main road to town
just before sunset
traffic thickens and crawls.
It is a slow dragon that glitters.
I am one of the dragon’s scales.
Suddenly the sun is ginger
in the middle of the windshield
and streams in.
I am transparent.
A scrawl grows visible inside of me.
Word with invisible ink that appears
when paper is held over fire.
I know that I must go a long way off
straight across through town and then
further, I must step away hours
and wander along in woods.
Go in badgers’ tracks
until it’s too dark to see.
There among mosses lie stones.
One is heavy, it can transform everything.
It can allow darkness to lighten.
It is a switch for the whole country.
All hangs on it.
Look at it, play with it …
**
return to sawbuck 1.2
**
Dax Bayard-Murray grew up on a hillside overlooking farms in the Virgin Islands. He left for Boston in 1993 to become a linguist. He never quite got around to it. Dax now lives on a hillside with an Irishman who smokes a pipe and a dog who limps.
