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DEADSPACE POETRY
by Christopher K. Travis
THE SUNRISE BABY
With soft, gargantuan pink baby feet
the sun toddles across the meadow
that lays glowing through the window
and licks, nay slobbers
on the sides of trees.
Flaming pink baby saliva
flows like gossamer lava.
Light filters through closed lashes.
Fluttering eyes fight to shed the day,
but when dreams are ragged,
sleep is no more a friend
than the threatening light.
Grumbling, we arise.
The morning stirs and rolls over,
in its cradle of dimming stars.
It shakes its rattle to menace the fleeing night
and laughs that gurgling,
gushing, arrogant baby laugh;
that boisterous, beautiful sound
full of birdsong and breezes
‘till all the world chuckles
in giddy, joyous fear
For the sunrise baby does not care.
The sunrise baby obeys no rules.
The sunrise baby moves where and when
its whim and desire suggest
without concern for those
who fall beneath its colossal infant feet.
So the toddling terror stalks
the land with careless abandon
stepping where it may.
All the world awakes and sings,
looking over its shoulder
and all the world trembles.
I tremble too,
cowering beneath my comforter
cringing before the morning coffee
frightened of what the day may hold.
How good could it get?
What else could go right?
What if my experience
is magnificent?
In all our tiny measured worlds
the child awakes each day,
the almighty, indomitable, electric child.
Nothing is more terrifying
than that which is perfect.
Nothing inspires more fear
than the perfect child.
Nothing is so real.
Copyright 1998 Christopher K. Travis
JESUS IN THE CLOUDS
He’s up there
light all around
I’m reaching, reaching...
“Why?” he asks.
“I need something,” I reply.
“Why?” he asks.
“Something is missing,” I complain.
“Why?” he asks.
Plants grow like this...
in the sun,
reaching, reaching...
But nothing is missing.
Living things just grow.
Growing feels like something is missing
but it’s not.
It’s just growing.
Jesus is up in the clouds,
angels all around.
He spreads his arms.
He’s all in white.
He’s very calm.
He’s very cool.
You would be too if you were Jesus.
Maybe you are.
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
being calm...
being very cool.
Jesus in the clouds.
Copyright 1998 Christopher K. Travis
WRENS NESTING IN A PENNY JAR
Wrens are nesting in the penny jar,
on the shelf above the washing machine.
making change atop flotsam lucre
on whirls of cedar bark
Leave the screen door open
...let them fly away.
They startle my lover when
she pulls my underwear from the dryer
I can’t have that
...not from wrens.
The wind sands my house
such warm abrasions
suspended grains of glass
or talcum sandpaper
etching a patina
on the pouting weathervane
that stalls in the wobbly gale
pointing my shining heart...
flinging reflections...
The sun has nothing on me.
Whirrrrrrrrrr the breeze
rattles the slack wire of falling down fences
I can’t close the gate
for all the squeaking...but even so.
My house remains beside a gully.
Bottles come uncovered when it rains
lost, brown and green...forgotten bottles.
Who threw them?
The bed of the gully is dappled there
amid the stormwashed liquor containers.
The drunken light bobbles on the ground,
weaving as it stumbles down through the leaves
seeking shiny things, finding few.
Mostly the lonely puddles, like stepping stones
rest like toads in the lowest places
and like the wind
...erode all they touch.
All of it...rubbing off on me
“My shoes are muddy” she said “and I
forgot to tell you...
if you are tired after your walk,
do not throw the dog leash in the penny jar.
The wrens have nested atop the loose change
and Washington’s coins have become
the wrens’ quarters.
The nest is high on the shelf
above the washing machine
and you might not see...
the possibilities.”
The wrens are very insistent
like metal spikes being driven.
I try to be quiet, taking little steps
but the dryer sounds like Ragnarok,
heroes tumbling dry at the end of the world
disturbing the wrens
the whirring, bursting wrens
the damnable, creaking wrens
squeaking like angry, rusting hinges.
“Yes, grow, hatch and go.
My favorite shirt is not dry
and you are crying out loud like you do
The screen is open.” I bluster and storm
“Go...wrens!
Don’t just sit there, fluttering
on your bed of lost coins,
changing your eggs.
I have to get dressed!”
Now, again I wander into the dappled trees
daring snakes and spiders
who dwelled there in my imagination
until I saw so few.
Now these creeping things
have become a real threat
since I doubt their presence,
and have therefore... become blind.
Soft, yellow leaves drift down
like origami
folded and forgotten
and the meandering storm sends bursts of air
to dislodge more
to descend on the shards of bottles.
I always wear sturdy shoes when walking there.
A sly glint of green catches my eye
and stooping I pull it from the muck.
A bottle’s base, chipped all around
and amidst the leafy, sandy mire
half the shell of a tiny egg...
set like an opal
in the center of the ragged glass
Shamed, I creep past the wrens once more
past the tarnished nest
past the dryer door
silently, foregoing my shirt
I will not wear it until the little wrens
have flown through the open screen
out into the gathering storms
out into the drunken light
up into the fluttering, yellow leaves.
Then I shall clean out the cedar bark
from amidst the nickels and dimes and pennies
and filtering the coins like sand through my fingers,
I shall put on my most favorite shirt
and contemplate the change.
Copyright 1998 Christopher K. Travis
More Chris Travis poetry here.
THE SUNRISE BABY
With soft, gargantuan pink baby feet
the sun toddles across the meadow
that lays glowing through the window
and licks, nay slobbers
on the sides of trees.
Flaming pink baby saliva
flows like gossamer lava.
Light filters through closed lashes.
Fluttering eyes fight to shed the day,
but when dreams are ragged,
sleep is no more a friend
than the threatening light.
Grumbling, we arise.
The morning stirs and rolls over,
in its cradle of dimming stars.
It shakes its rattle to menace the fleeing night
and laughs that gurgling,
gushing, arrogant baby laugh;
that boisterous, beautiful sound
full of birdsong and breezes
‘till all the world chuckles
in giddy, joyous fear
For the sunrise baby does not care.
The sunrise baby obeys no rules.
The sunrise baby moves where and when
its whim and desire suggest
without concern for those
who fall beneath its colossal infant feet.
So the toddling terror stalks
the land with careless abandon
stepping where it may.
All the world awakes and sings,
looking over its shoulder
and all the world trembles.
I tremble too,
cowering beneath my comforter
cringing before the morning coffee
frightened of what the day may hold.
How good could it get?
What else could go right?
What if my experience
is magnificent?
In all our tiny measured worlds
the child awakes each day,
the almighty, indomitable, electric child.
Nothing is more terrifying
than that which is perfect.
Nothing inspires more fear
than the perfect child.
Nothing is so real.
JESUS IN THE CLOUDS
He’s up therelight all around
I’m reaching, reaching...
“Why?” he asks.
“I need something,” I reply.
“Why?” he asks.
“Something is missing,” I complain.
“Why?” he asks.
Plants grow like this...
in the sun,
reaching, reaching...
But nothing is missing.
Living things just grow.
Growing feels like something is missing
but it’s not.
It’s just growing.
Jesus is up in the clouds,
angels all around.
He spreads his arms.
He’s all in white.
He’s very calm.
He’s very cool.
You would be too if you were Jesus.
Maybe you are.
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
looking inside...
being calm...
being very cool.
Jesus in the clouds.
Copyright 1998 Christopher K. Travis
WRENS NESTING IN A PENNY JAR
Wrens are nesting in the penny jar,on the shelf above the washing machine.
making change atop flotsam lucre
on whirls of cedar bark
Leave the screen door open
...let them fly away.
They startle my lover when
she pulls my underwear from the dryer
I can’t have that
...not from wrens.
The wind sands my house
such warm abrasions
suspended grains of glass
or talcum sandpaper
etching a patina
on the pouting weathervane
that stalls in the wobbly gale
pointing my shining heart...
flinging reflections...
The sun has nothing on me.
Whirrrrrrrrrr the breeze
rattles the slack wire of falling down fences
I can’t close the gate
for all the squeaking...but even so.
My house remains beside a gully.
Bottles come uncovered when it rains
lost, brown and green...forgotten bottles.
Who threw them?
The bed of the gully is dappled there
amid the stormwashed liquor containers.
The drunken light bobbles on the ground,
weaving as it stumbles down through the leaves
seeking shiny things, finding few.
Mostly the lonely puddles, like stepping stones
rest like toads in the lowest places
and like the wind
...erode all they touch.
All of it...rubbing off on me
“My shoes are muddy” she said “and I
forgot to tell you...
if you are tired after your walk,
do not throw the dog leash in the penny jar.
The wrens have nested atop the loose change
and Washington’s coins have become
the wrens’ quarters.
The nest is high on the shelf
above the washing machine
and you might not see...
the possibilities.”
The wrens are very insistent
like metal spikes being driven.
I try to be quiet, taking little steps
but the dryer sounds like Ragnarok,
heroes tumbling dry at the end of the world
disturbing the wrens
the whirring, bursting wrens
the damnable, creaking wrens
squeaking like angry, rusting hinges.
“Yes, grow, hatch and go.
My favorite shirt is not dry
and you are crying out loud like you do
The screen is open.” I bluster and storm
“Go...wrens!
Don’t just sit there, fluttering
on your bed of lost coins,
changing your eggs.
I have to get dressed!”
Now, again I wander into the dappled trees
daring snakes and spiders
who dwelled there in my imagination
until I saw so few.
Now these creeping things
have become a real threat
since I doubt their presence,
and have therefore... become blind.
Soft, yellow leaves drift down
like origami
folded and forgotten
and the meandering storm sends bursts of air
to dislodge more
to descend on the shards of bottles.
I always wear sturdy shoes when walking there.
A sly glint of green catches my eye
and stooping I pull it from the muck.
A bottle’s base, chipped all around
and amidst the leafy, sandy mire
half the shell of a tiny egg...
set like an opal
in the center of the ragged glass
Shamed, I creep past the wrens once more
past the tarnished nest
past the dryer door
silently, foregoing my shirt
I will not wear it until the little wrens
have flown through the open screen
out into the gathering storms
out into the drunken light
up into the fluttering, yellow leaves.
Then I shall clean out the cedar bark
from amidst the nickels and dimes and pennies
and filtering the coins like sand through my fingers,
I shall put on my most favorite shirt
and contemplate the change.
Copyright 1998 Christopher K. Travis
More Chris Travis poetry here.
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