Round Top Register - Texas Fun Travel Guide - The Courtjester
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DEADSPACE POETRY

by Christopher K. Travis



That Which is Unexpected


What stalks the usual like a predator's child,
full of mock play, yet lethal and wild?
What cloud sculptor, what shadow architect
molds faces in fog, paints dusk silhouettes,
casts shapes in the dark skulking just out of sight?
What is it we all fear in the night?

What is seen only in retrospect?
Things that happen we don't expect.

What whispers ‘neath the surface of every sound?
What is lost and can never be found?
What sends cascades of adrenaline ice
up the spine like the cut of a ravening knife,
‘til our hackles, that most primitive hair,
stand at attention though nothing is there?

By what fire are our hearts all tested?
The cleansing flame of the unexpected.

Brigand chance is reviled by mankind
for it's human nature to seek peace of mind
by asserting dominance, mastery and control.
Yet, we remain sadly short of these goals.
For the simple cup which we dip in the sea
can hold but a few drops of eternity.

We build our boxes of words and steel
trying our best to contain what is real.
We explain and describe and classify
hoping to construct walls that fortify
the plans we spin...but these gossamer webs
flutter in the wind like broken threads.

By this force of nature have all been bested,
the sudden gale of the unexpected.

From the unknown does all true magic come,
a rainbow, a shooting star, an eclipse of the sun...
and love? Mercy! When was love predicted?
Note the surprise on the faces of those so afflicted.
Truth now, who attends to a call from the heart
‘less it creeps upon them and gives a start?

By a sad preoccupation are our thoughts infected
since the greatest joys...scorn the expected.

Surrender is wisdom. The day's tide will come.
Despite our prayers, man's will not be done.
Thank goodness for that. We are so small.
What a pitiable world if we ruled it all.
And though we may not be the masters of fate
a few facts we may still prognosticate.

When the unknown is welcome, truth can be detected
from clues in the wake of the unexpected.




Cat Time Indenture


In the morning before the light
a katydid creeps down the window frame.
This old house, built long ago,
offers entrance to such neighbors
all along the eaves...
and through the spreading floor.

I don't mind. We have plenty of room.
The house is a visitor in the forest.
It seems only fair that the forest
be welcome in the house.

Most nights, Sarah, the royal dog,
jumps with a start from her rumpled throne.
Roaring like Cerberus at the gates of hell,
she attacks the front door,
announcing an interloping coon or possum
who dares dine at the front porch cat dish.

Her majesty is no longer young,
and has grown broad of beam,
so despite her lion heart,
she is glad we seldom open the door.

On that disheveled porch sits an old kerosene stove,
callously inciting my lover's ire.
This unfinished project
is a study in rust and peeling paint,
and as such historic structures often do,
it has become a café.

That fashionable establishment is frequented
by the pride of cats who own our house.
These lords and ladies seem to find it natural
that an occasional possum or raccoon
would drop by to clean their plates.
Cats are not much for domestic chores.

They preen and continue the aristocratic conversations
that cats have in the early morning before dawn.

From time to time, one will casually
leap onto the rusting oven
and inspect the work of some sleepy-eyed possum.
Most often, it will shake its head,
return to the others,
and complain of the dearth of competent staff.

The dog queen however, is not so laissez-faire.
She is offended by such blue-collar interlopers,
and if not preoccupied with affairs of state,
will banish them from her domain
with a furious barrage of patrician displeasure.

After years serving the queen and her court,
I have adjusted to life as a domestic.
The lot of an indentured one is not easy.
All of my ilk know the soft paw
of feline aristocracy hides sheathed claws.

I set their table and clean their privy,
performing the menial tasks they disdain.
Without so much as a please and thank you
they demand my obeisance.

From time to time my spirit stirs
and I think to rebel.
I dream of throwing off the yoke
of cat box and fur ball
and walking out the door,
free to pursue my own will.

In the end, I always lack the courage.
I fear I would have no place to go.
I doubt another cat would accept me into service
after discovering I had failed my last masters.
So, I abide.

The dog queen is a gracious monarch
and offers us some relief
from the rule of imperious felines.
She has a common touch
and allows the wife and I to feel as though
our poor duties are important to the realm.

Over the years, she has inspired us to loyalty
with her gracious manner.
She has genuine affection for her low-borne subjects
and forgives us our churlish ways.
So fear and allegiance keep us servile.
But, when I am honest with myself,
I admit to another reason for my bondage..

In the evening, as the Missus and I
sit in our rockers awaiting the cat's pleasure,
we watch our masters lolling in the sun.
The Queen and her court exude such perfect confidence
we can almost touch what it is to be high born.

In those moments, basking in their royal presence,
we live vicariously in cat time and dog time...
a slow, stately tempo with no schedules,
no appointments, no routine,
nowhere to go, no one to please...
each moment as rich and full as the next.

We imagine ourselves open to any whim,
free to express any spurious thought,
any sudden impulse or desire.
We find ourselves enmeshed
in the luxurious self-satisfaction
of cats and dogs.

The harried tyranny of time fades away
as the evening shadows melt into dusk.
My wife will place her hand in mine.
Our eyes will share the recognition
that for those brief moments...
our onerous indenture
has given us true freedom.




Things I Just Know


Often reason will not suffice
and explanation falls short.
The clamoring din of the mind's surmise
defers to the music of the heart.

Love's like that and so is rain.
Joy fills the bill and so does pain.
An innocent touch, a single word,
by the teller the tale is finally heard

Some things simply occur like this;
a friend's embrace, a lover's kiss,
a sunrise or a mother's smile,
a snowflake...the laugh of a child.

The sun on our backs, the breeze in our hair,
the heat of passion for beauty fair;
these songs we sing in harmony.
We all "just know" the melody.

Moments appear in our busy lives
that stop the world. We realize
that the greatest truths require no thought.
By our souls our hearts are taught.

How does this happen? How can it be?
From whence comes this sudden congruity?
Perhaps a clue to this affinity lies
in the way the world dances with our eyes.

All we see are reflections in light
though our minds interpret the details of sight
as houses and trees and birds on the wing.
But without light, there are no such things.

Only through light can we perceive
the existence in which we all believe.
Despite the "reality" we claim endures,
light is all that truly perseveres.

The words, the labels, the claims of fact
the maw of history swallows intact
and the sum of all rational thought
crumbles with time and comes to naught.

Subject to revision, a child of change,
science never remains the same.
The only gospel in nature's flow
are the simple truths that we just know.

Some say serendipity is hard to find,
that intuition is a trick of the mind,
that senses deceive and emotions delude,
that a wise man keeps only facts he can prove.

I have no logic to dispute this premise.
I am a poor carpenter, a fool's apprentice.
I have no proof for these truths that I hold.
They are simple things...things I just know.




The Sharecropper's Vow

Cry baby child. It's your right.
Dark riders trampled your soft night.
Hoods like ice and hearts to match,
passed you huddlin' in the corn patch,
shrunk so small, a tremble with fear
wishin' you could disappear.

Their blood hot like a flamin' knife,
they gallop to take some po' soul's life,
some fool boy what talked too loud,
some black man who walked too proud.
Momma said, and you know it's true,
"if yo' found, they'll take you too."

For a picaninny girl ain't got no voice
and her momma's never had no choice
but to bow her head and shuffle her feet
if her young'n was to have enough to eat.
No one can help on a night like this,
a night on fire with white justice.

I stand and watch my murderin' kin,
beasts who share my sallow skin,
thunder into the dreadful dark.
Shamed I pace to calm my heart
What can I do, a po' white man,
who farms for shares on another's land?

They'll come for me if I talk back.
"Po' white trash" hangs good as black

I got to protect my wife and young.
I can't stand up for rightin' wrong.
I see you crawlin' out ‘tween the row,
My heart gives in...cain't stand no more.

I hurry ‘cross the cotton field
the one yo' daddy picks and tills
and pull you shakin' from the turf
your gingham dress all cloaked in dirt.
Like a po' whipped pup, you pull away
but I hold tight and have my say.

"Little one, I'll stand by you.
From this day on, I tell you true,
I won't back down ‘til yo' head is high.
I won't give in ‘til the day I die.
I swear it now. I'll see it through.
All the way, I'll stand by you."

From that day on, I done my part.
I smuggled colored folks to the North
when the Klan was howlin' for their blood.
I did my best, did what I could.
One spring, the fields was green with clover
when they come and killed this "nigger lover."

But I had taught my children well.
They fought Jim Crow, rang freedom's bell.
My grandson marched with Dr. King.
In Memphis, he heard that bullet scream
but he didn't give in and he didn't quit
for I was there to give him grit.

My great granddaughter carried on
fightin' so women could be free and strong,

fightin' for those who were cursed
and damned
and for their choice in love condemned.
When she was tired and longed to stop
I was there to prop her up

And still today I keep my word
when hate and prejudice are heard.
For black or brown or yellow or white,
a child should sleep safe in the night,
an a man and a woman have a place to stand
proud and tall in the promised land..

So I work ‘til the day all men are free,
in the fields of freedom, tirelessly.
It's my call and duty, a Southern man,
who long ago made his final stand.
Though I be long dead, I still ain't free
while any child lives in slavery.

For I gave my word long, long ago
to a small dark child in a cotton row.
She shook at the sight of my white hide
and broke the hardened heart inside
I remember it like it was yesterday.
The riders and the words I had to say...

"Little one, I'll stand by you.
From this day on, I tell you true,
I won't back down ‘til your head is high.
I won't give in ‘til the day I die.
I swear it now. I'll see it through.
All the way, I'll stand by you."

All poetry - Copyright 1999 - Christopher K. Travis

More Chris Travis poetry here.




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