David Michael Jackson

David Jackson is the publisher of Artilla.com, Motherbird.com and several other websites. David is an engineer, poet, artist, songwriter who has been presenting his material and the material of others on the Internet since 1998. David lives in Murfreesboro Tennessee.

Translation of Rimbaud Poem by Richard Vallance

by

Richard Vallance”s recent translation into an English quatrain of Arthur Rimbaud”s “Ophelia”:

Richard Vallance, translator. Ophelia, d”après, Ophélie d”Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Ophelia

In black waves becalmed where stars fell asleep,
Ophelia lily-like dreams dreams too white.
Where she slowly floats, through her tresses seep
The forest”s morts still serenading night.

It”s been some thousand years since she has passed,
The phantom waif, along that long black stream,
And some thousand years since those eyes were glassed
With madness murmured in her faded dream.

The wind will kiss her breasts where it unfolds
Fair tresses cradled in that lapping pond;
Will weeping willows dare touch rippling folds
Her cold raiments trail round every tired frond?

The waterlilies weep around her bier;
Now and then she stirs in her alder”s shade
That must comfort her in her wildest fear,
While silver stars sing her their serenade.

© by Richard Vallance 2004 (All Rights Reserved) *

***

Quick Poem by David Michael Jackson

by

Quickly
by David Michael Jackson

Write fast
don”t stop
let me hear those keys click
don”t you dare look up
you might miss this moment
out there
some where.
my soul on the paper
life ticks and tocks
the time away
slowly
one long endless moment
at a
time
waiting
waiting
for
something.
Don”t look up
you might
miss it.
This moment
p a s s e s
now this other moment
r e p l a c e s it
Each long
moment laughs at the setting sun
and
life passes
so
quickly.

***

Carry Me Home Poem by David Michael Jackson

by

Carry Me Home
By David Michael Jackson

Carry me home
home to the creek
and the water
and the leaves on the trees.
Carry me home
past the worry and the frantic pace to
the water and the dew on the grass
and the summer days
when grasshoppers are plentiful bait for
the fishes.
Carry me home to the field
and the newly plowed earth
and that smell of the soil
recently
turned
so that I may replant myself with hope
for a new
harvest,
so that I may kill the weeds which have grown over me until
I cannot see the light.

Carry me home past the roads, past
the buildings, past the red lights.
Carry me home through the darkness of a thousand nights spent
grasping for something which is not there, something which
could
never be there or
anywhere

Copyright © 1998 by David Michael Jackson, All rights reserved

***

Plan B Poem by Thomas Kellar

by

PLAN B

you and me

terminal union

cancer full-blown

no chance of re-mission

we work hard

not to notice

outside

back porch

I sip cheap red

strum a cracked and buzzing

harmony six string

tell the stars

to go fuck themselves

upstairs

on your back

in bed

Cosmo opened

across your chest

you whisper

something to someone

on the phone

downstairs

in the kitchen

under the ironing board

the 3 year old sits

blissfully occupying himself

with a green, rubber,

T-Rex toy

welcome to plan B

much time ago

I was to be a writer

of words and music

you were going to travel the world

a single woman

scoring brown-skinned boys

taking in the sights

but as in figure 8 racing

we “discovered” each other

an “accident waiting to happen”

made ourselves giant targets

easy marks

lowest form of idiot

the “little-man”

has no such regrets

no fear for what’s future

he’s like a sponge

soaking up the moment

laughing to himself

as he and imaginary friend

slip past the angel

sent to guard Eden’s gate

Copyright © 1998 by THOM KELLAR, All rights reserved

***

To Miles Davis and John Coltrane Poem by Thomas Kellar

by

KIND OF BLUE

What Miles Davis was

to melody

John Coltrane was

to virtuosity.

black giants

in white-bread world

mixing up a masterpiece

branding iron hot-glacier cool

tornadoes and sea breezes

shouts and whispers

bold slashing strokes-lines straight, and razor thin

the frenetic energy of a humming bird

the economized motion of a crow

muted trumpet-raging tenor sax

“Kind of blue”

2 of a kind

heaven squared

***