Tularosa Sunrise - Opus 17 - Infinity

Tick, tock, talks the clock.
Smiling Cheshire, it mocks
The masses that tread ceaselessly
To its metronome of nothingness.

Tick, tock, the clock rocks
On the wall. The second hand pounds.
A powerful sliver of an engine
Drives the clock smith to an imaginary end.

Sometimes the second hand
Spins in merciless abandon.
Now and then, it drags like stones
For building pyramids.

The clock strokes the numbers.
Clicking, never silent, it forges ahead,
Trying to keep up with infinity,
Exhausted, it is trashed.

The clock smith is out of a job,
Recycled with all recyclables.
He despises the relentless ticking.
He hides all his clocks under a blanket.

Later, he puts them back on the wall.
Finally, he takes the tick tocks
To the beach and buries them,
Deep in the sand. He hopes for high tide.

When the clocks stop, the waves take over.
The swells pulse and a dolphin appears.
The clock smith wiggles his toes in the sand.
He peacefully sighs, resting in infinity.

Timelessness erases the time.
He lays down in the tide and is washed.
The dolphin leaps, flips, splashes and disappears.
The setting sun heralds a revolution.

Catalina
copyright 2009 Wavepoint Productions

Catalina and Chris

"I produce music as an apple tree produces apples"
Camille Saint-Saens

Tularosa Sunrise - Opus 16 - Purity

At one point, the man found himself
Walking against the wind in a suit and tie,
The sand sticking to his socks
And filling his shoes.

Weighted, he approached the water.
Standing still, the tide swirled up
To his ankles before he could run backwards,
To escape capture.

Gasping, he sat down and unlaced
Each shoe and rubbed his toes.
He stood with his hair blowing,
While he undid his pants.

The wind caught his jacket
And blew it into the air as
He drew his arm from the sleeve.
His shirt unraveled.

He pulled down his underwear
And stepped naked onto the hard sand.
Everything he came with went
Bouncing down the beach.

He gathered driftwood in the dunes.
He wedged wood together,
Tucking large under small,
Locking up a framework.

The sun warmed the sand.
The wind lay down with the lamb.
The man crawled naked into the
House and dreamed.

Catalina

© Wavepoint Productions 2008

Cathleen and Chris!

“For is not music a language? And of what is it the language? Is it not the language of the dream world, and the world beyond thought?”
Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus

Tularosa Sunrise - Opus 15 - A Song

Sliding up, rolling back,
the tide licks the sand
swallowing sea dabs
and bleached dollars.

Waves signal
coming folds
spreading out
like skirts opening.

Salted and perfumed
wind gives permission
to dance with abandon
at the crest of swells.

Alone, watching
each advance,
wary, I tiptoe
seeking asylum in a shell.


Catalina

Cathleen and Chris!

©WavePoint Productions 2008

“Songs are sneaky things. They can slip across borders. Proliferate in prisons. Penetrate hard shells…I always believed that the right song at the right moment could change history.”
Pete Seeger

Tularosa Sunrise - Opus 14 - A Song

Tularosa Sunrise at Sunset – A Song

A New Dimension

Tapping my toes
I hear the wind whisper
Bring out the castanets
Slap the drums
Slip on my skirt with ribbons
Turn up the music
Move my body
Move my soul
Move my mind
To a new dimension.

Clack, clack. stamp
It’s a heel, it’s a toe
Castanet’s burn
Running a gypsy rift
Through my puritan child
Open to another side
Of humanness
Move my touch
Move my heart
To a new dimension

Run up stairwells
Cars squeal on turns
Parking structures fracture
With the crackle of castanets
Borderless sound
Spanish spices
A Gypsy guitar
Fan tremolos
Move my ears
To a new dimension

Slide down hallways
Spinning in layers
Kaleidoscope colors
I’m illegal in fiesta
An imposter
With castanets
Telling tales
In rhythms
That move me
To a new dimension.

© Catalina 2008

Cathleen and Chris!

“Music, of all the liberal arts, has the greatest influence over the passions, and it is to which the legislator ought to give the greatest encouragement.”
Napoleon Bonaparte

Lake Minnewaska II

March winds whip
across her slate grey body.
Not a boat afloat or a soul trolling.
Light presses through pinholes in the storm.
Unwelcomed, it shimmers, glances, bounces,
unable to penetrate the stern, icy silence.
The barren lake lies aloof,
shrugging off suitors
with wet shoulders and liquid distain.
No encouragement in her slicing surface,
she slaps the pebbled shoreline.
Icebound, hosting fisherman,
she seems friendlier.
Her virginal white invites extended visits,
she suggests a wedding,
a possible marriage.
Melted, she grows colder.
She distances herself.
She waves frigid fingers, carressing the freezing air.
Thankless, turgid, troubled,
she rocks and heaves.
On the edge,
cautious lovers consider her intentions.


Catalina

Cathleen and Chris

"The painter turns a poem into a painting; the musician sets a picture to music."
Robert Schumann

The Lion and the Lamb

A wide grass plain
Bakes under a searing sun.
An elephant trots, a giraffe sways,
A zebra bolts, a tiger leaps.
Behold, the lion sees the lamb.

A hyena shrieks, a rhino rushes,
A snake slides, a crane glides,
A vulture gazes, a gazelle darts,
The parched soil thirsts.
Behold, the lion hunts the lamb.

Above the plain a mountain rises.
Storm clouds shroud her distinction.
Turning inside out, she melts her collar.
Ice drips down the sides of her cone.
Behold, the lion catches the lamb.

The earth splits with a humble sigh.
The mountain crumbles over the broken plain.
The withered grass whispers silent sobs.
The moon disappears into a starless sky.
Behold, the lion licks the lamb.

A canary sings a clarion call.
The pastel dawn hosts one shear cloud.
White sand shifts under aqua tides.
In the shadows, an orchid opens.
Behold, the lion lies down with the lamb.

Catalina

Cathleen and Chris

"As matters now stand with me I am no longer spurred to creative effort by ambition, but by the urge to communicate with my friends and the wish to give them pleasure: whenever I know this urge and wish to have been satisfied, I am happy and content." Richard Wagner, in a letter to Franz Liszt

Beyond the Dark Blue

A short story

Beyond the dark blue ran a deep purple that bled into a thin white spilling out looking like puddles of blood. Silence. A shadow tiptoed over the puddles and left large tracks that disappeared after the rain. Yes, it poured that day. Poured like water from a faucet on the hill behind the small white cottage on the edge of a Mediterranean sea. Everywhere else it was dry. Dry like salt. Another shadow slipped out the front door of the house and slid down to the sea. Sliding out of nothing, its blackness slid down to the water and then into the water where it faded into the water.

The two shadows knew each other from yesterday, but today they were strangers going in opposite directions. One was headed for the town of two palm trees and a bucket of water. The other was headed for an island of one beach and a small coconut tree. A monkey beckoned the water shadow to come up out of the water and sit on the sand. The black shadow slid silently over the low tide and lay quietly by the monkey. The monkey tried desperately to caress the shadow, to make friends, to have a conversation, to make a connection, to tickle, to snuggle, to kiss, but the shadow slipped away about two yards. The monkey, in frustration, bit the shadow. The monkey with a mouthful of sand ran off to hide in the coconut tree and weep until the sun went down.

Ciao!

Catalina

Cathleen and Chris!

"For is not music a language? And of what is it the language? Is it not the language of the dream world, the world beyond thought?" Robertson Davies, The Lyre of Orpheus