Winter 2004, Volume 21.2
Poetry
Dennis Saleh
Dennis Saleh's poetry, prose, and artwork have appeared widely in magazines and collections, such as ArtLife, Montserrat Review, Paintbrush, and Psychological Perspectives. Selections of his poems are also included in three forthcoming anthologies, The Great American Poetry Show, The Mercy of Tides, and The Pagan's Muse.
Belladonna Nightshade
In the wet of early spring
kinds of belladonna and nightshade
in the waste ground
at the bottom of trees
The dull flowers
are almost mistakes
first tries early in the year
still clouded with winter
For a week it breaks the surface
uncoils, loosening in the earth
then hangs the miniature folded bells
of its first blossoms in the sun
The cup petals shake out silence
dust in the wind
bells, the sound of dark earth
bells, the ringing toll of nothing
The first roll of color is faint red
then purple, like the hood of dusk
the first black berries
are like drops of night
black pearls in
the stalks and branches
swollen, almost glittering
like ornaments of a deadly lady
The flowers are in a hall
the flowers are in a grave
the blossoms sway and lift
offering like hands
They touch the lips with sleep
they lead back into darkness
They remind the spring of death
dying planned and carried out
Afternoon
The light outside
falling on the brick two-story,
the blinds sipping in
a little, that streams
with settling dust on the landscape
of wheat painting
and striped-sofa;
pale yellow replicas
of sailing boats on a lake;
flowers in a vase
on a shelf, a little water on them,
long stems crossing
in the dark then still;
there is something here
that will not come back again,
even tomorrow.
Dogs bark at the afternoon;
they are right to do that.
Grey
Between December and January
there is almost nothing
the flat grey stretches between dawn
but then no further light all day
caulk of decomposing cardboard scrap
down a garage siding
collage mark of winter
Clouds hang like errors mistakes
like an enormous dull bell
that swells and rolls with rain
In the last weeks of December
mistletoe trails and clouds
in the trees like wind
that caught webbed and stayed
When the leaves began to fall
it began to show
Then winter came on a Sunday
and it was grey
Mistletoe is a parasite
The tree it is filling will die
The little berries could be skulls
tiny moons rising in hair
dull white dusted with frost
in the ringing cold
could be bells tolling last nights
of a year that hang and fall
The death of the tree
will fill the mistletoe for months
It is in the tree
like the tree is in its grave
It is like brain in a tree
It makes a head