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Editor's note : David
Gonzalez, Ph.D., is a storyteller, musician, teacher, performer, and
poet who has created numerous productions including the critically acclaimed iSofrito!
and Mytholojazz, both of which enjoyed sold out runs on Broadway. His Double
Crossed: The Saga of the St. Louis was commissioned by the Smithsonian
Institute's Discovery Theater, and his The Frog Bride
has just been nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical
Experience.
In the New York Times review of The Frog Bride
, Lawrence van Gelder says, "Once upon a time, there lived a man named David
Gonzalez. In an age of gaudy toys and gimmicky games powered by batteries, he
relied on the majesty and variety of language, the limitless landscape of
imagination, the pulse of music and the beauty of art as he kept alive the
ancient art of storytelling…Mr. Gonzalez cast a spell…absorbing, funny and
suspenseful…"
Here, David Gonzalez shares some of his poems with us, and at Mythic Journeys,
he will take us on Orpheus' journey to find Eurydice. This first poem is an
introduction to David's version of Orpheus, Play the Line Orpheus .
Enjoy!
Play the Line Orpheus
Play the line Orpheus,
(scat a double-time bop lick here)
Walk the line, Orpheus,
between night and day light,
Draw the line Orpheus,
There in the dirt where Eurydice,
your love fell,
and dropped away from you.
Draw the line Orpheus,
straight and narrow,
make it an arrow pointing down,
directing you to the darkness of the cave,
it is your own neglected closet Orpheus.
See there hanging the forgotten threads of your life,
clothes you left behind,
the things excluded from the ‘you’
you did not want to see.
Suits with pockets full of possibilities,
Pants pleated with lost memories,
Old shoes, sour and decaying,
rooting into the soil of the dark earth.
The dark earth you have hardly known Orpheus,
The dark earth whose shadow presence stalks you,
and knows your step,
your measurements,
and your dimensions.
Gathering Waters
Let there be a song of praise for the gathering waters at this place.
Let there be a song of praise for the nameless tributaries,
and a song for the seven seas.
Let there be a song of praise for the currents that pan the distant stream-beds
of the earth,
to deposit their treasures at our feet.
Let there be a song of praise for bracing Canadian springs,
for the Yang-Tse and the Mississippi Delta,
for Hudson Bay and Harlem River.
Let there be a song of praise for the convergence of salt and sweet,
each flowing into each other,
white-capped and tumultuous,
making something new in the brackish womb of their joining.
Let there be a song of praise for this stirring of turbulent histories.
Let there be a song of praise for this brimming, liquid now-moment.
Let there be a joyous song,
an anthem,
for this blessed confluence of longing.
The Blue Guitar
after Wallace Stevens
The blue guitar strains to be heard,
tears slip from its sound-hole,
its grief and jubilance are quiet
and close to the wood,
you have to make a choice to risk everything
to get close to the grain
to hear it.
The blue guitar’s strings quiver with fine truth,
and those who hear these tones know
that they too must sing out,
whether they are heard or not.
It is such a song.
Rest, my warriors
for Gabriel Garcia Marquez and all the warriors of art.
12/17/2000
By the shore you shall sleep my warriors,
by midnight I will come.
By the shore you shall sleep,
with the choral hum of the waves at your ear,
by midnight I will come.
By the shore you shall sleep,
beneath a blue-black blanket sequined with galaxies and shooting stars, clasped
by the crescent moon,
by midnight I will come.
By the shore you shall sleep,
breathing the free winds of the earth,
by midnight I will come.
By the shore you shall sleep,
upon soft sands and tiny treasures washed up out of the aqua-world,
by midnight I will come.
By the shore you shall sleep,
where water and dirt kiss open-mouthed, and all is moist,
by midnight I will come.
You are within my sight and I watch you my warriors,
Your light dazzles my iris and intoxicates,
I take you in like honeyed wine.
I know what you have done,
I will come to you before this day is through.
Rest, my warriors,
by the shore you shall sleep,
by midnight I will come.
12/31/99 point 23:59:59
This poem will only take a second.
The cosmic dreams and apocalyptic terrors
that hinged on the math of the millennium
clanged, and clamored for attention
on the eve of the twenty-first century.
So, let’s talk about it,
let’s talk about time.
Take “tick-tock” for instance.
These points of the pendulum’s reach
pronounce themselves with declarative faith,
tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock,
marching click-heeled into tomorrow,
but what of the smooth, silent swing?
tick-tock,
what marvels dance upon this tiny hyphen stage?
tick-tock,
what swims within the pool of the ‘o’?,
tick-tock,
or the thin space between the tiny eye
and tear-fall of the dotted ‘i’?
What occurs in the open, quiet spaces?
The work of this poem is to cast a shadow over the sundial,
to empty the hourglass,
to set the small and large hands gently to rest,
to quiet the humming crystal in the digital face,
and pull the plug on the atomic clock’s counting.
The work of this poem is to dissolve
the armor of angstroms and epochs
that keeps us bound to the future.
The work of this poem is to tint the thread
that stitches this moment to this one,
and this moment to this one.
The work of this poem is to sing below, between, above,
and through the nanoseconds.
The work of this poem is to speak in the seasons of nebulae and galaxies.
The work of this poem is that of a sky-blue satin mobius,
endlessly sky,
endlessly blue,
endlessly satin,
endlessly sky,
endlessly blue,
endlessly satin.
There,
a second has passed.
To Breathe and Breathe
This consciousness of time
that brings the death angel to stand upon our shoulder,
makes us human.
Sparrows alight on branches then fly till they fly no more,
wild turkeys roam and peck and stay close to the pack,
till their last,
oh to be the tiny bird or the wizened old one,
innocent and with a single mind,
oh, to relinquish the minor-god status bestowed with wide-awake mortality,
to live where there are no clocks but the turning galaxy
and beyond,
to age without dying,
to live into eternity with hope and wonder,
to breathe and breathe till we breathe no more.
My Beckoning
Forces of creation
here is my beckoning,
Smooth the gnarled receptors of my old brain,
Re-direct the molecules of your enchantments,
Prepare me for a surprise,
Bring something new,
Make a wish,
I will close my eyes,
Inhale, surrender,
And direct my breath.
These poems are copyrighted material and are reproduced with the written
permission of David Gonzalez. They may not be reproduced without such
permission.
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