Month: December 2017

A storm from Africa visited the island during the night.

In the morning, giant clouds carrying the dust of the Sahara

billow high above the waves, like lemon-colored sails.

In a chalk-white house at the edge of the beach, a woman

sleeps alone on a rumpled bed:

blue sheets, white pillow, amber skin.

Outside her window, palm fronds snap in the wind

but she hears only the gentle breathing of

a man asleep on the other side of the world.

She feels his heartbeat through a thread as thin as a strand of saffron

that he has looped around his wrist. When she releases her end

of the thread, they will both tumble, together, into the clouds.

© 2007 J.M. Keating

Formentera, Spain

1.

The curtain opens.

It is dawn somewhere.

A boy pries open the

door of what used to be

his home and stumbles into

 

a rubbled landscape of

what used to be his village

and his family’s olive trees

uprooted by bulldozers

and treaties pledging peace.

Teacups, photographs and

his mother’s eyeglasses crunch

beneath his feet like eggshells.

He hears the drone of helicopters and

the hammering of plowshares

being beaten into AK-47s

and hospital beds and

the voice of a soprano

singing a cappella Somewhere

Over The Rainbow.

 

2-

At midday in a desert

under an indifferent sun

three small dots of green appear:

The first two are the

sneakers a little girl is

wearing. The third spot

is the green shirt worn

by a boy in an oil-on-canvas

portrait she carries

in the basket of the

bicycle she pedals

as she follows the

dust clouds of

regiments of theologians

retreating from the

latest siege of Bethlehem

toward a mountain in

the distance where

one of their Holy Books

insists eternity begins.

3.

Twilight curls like smoke

into darkness and the singer’s

voice quavers into silence

as the rainbow evaporates

and the boy and girl embrace

inside an empty room.

Snow sifts down around

them in dark red flakes the

size of olive leaves. The

throb of helicopter

gunships grows louder.

She gives him the portrait and

he gives her the apple he has bitten.

Outside in the fields women

are harvesting bones.

Commandos slide down cables from

the gunships as the snow deepens.

The curtain drops slowly as.

the audience heaves a sigh and

everyone goes back to sleep.

© 2015 J.M.Keating

One day, once upon a time, we met

each other in the house of Death.

However, Death, apparently, was not at home.

We seemed to understand that the house

of Death is rarely far away from wherever

we may find ourselves, but on this occasion,

Death was no farther from us than

a little house at the far end of a lane of

leafless maple trees, a little cottage

almost hidden in an leafless orchard.

Light flooded into every room

but every room seemed empty.

We couldn’t find a saucer or a toothbrush,

not a bathtub, nor a frying pan, not a curtain,

nor a light bulb, not one stick of furniture,

nor a spoon, nor a clock,

not a single roll of paper towels.

 

I held you in my arms and moved to kiss

your neck, but you said, “No.”

I kissed you anyway, and you said,

“Never stop.” We pressed together

into each other and only at that moment

felt the presence in the room of the

one who owned the house.

Death was block-like and metallic, as gray

as clouds in January and as

rigid and immobile as a

sculpture of the pharaoh

Tutankhamen seated on his throne,

except it had the unmistakable

appearance of a filing cabinet with

the top drawer opened, and—

how could we forget?–it also

wore gray wing-tip shoes.

Death, there are so many things

about you I don’t understand. For

example: why don’t you allow

yourself a more stylish coat of

paint? Would basic black be a cliché?

And those ridiculous shoes. Who

shines them if not you? And most

of all, why did you allow the two

of us into your home so I

might gently tease you now?

Forgive us, Mr. Death, we were so

absorbed in discovering each

other we forgot you came to

terminate our lives.

Then suddenly the house’s roof

and walls evaporated and we

found ourselves in rain and

darkness, pressed together

like a pair of leaves swept out

of the orchard and down

the lane, lost in a storm

with a thousand other leaves.

When light eventually returned I tried

to find Death’s home and find the

one who kissed me, but after searching

many years I’ve managed to find neither.

Perhaps one day, once upon a time,

another wind will blow us back into

the house of Death and we two leaves

will at last be ready to be pressed

together in a folder in the cabinet.

One final question, Mr. Death:

when you close that drawer on

what had been our lives would

you kindly shut it on us gently?

© 2010 J.M. Keating