Except as noted, all images copyrighted by and should be attributed to E B Hawley.
I had become many eons ago a traveling literary gnome, inquisitive about places I had and had not visited,
walking the same paths of peoples from the past, through places once grand and still grand,
photographing images that now show me the places about which I still dream . . .

Friday, April 15, 2011

Poetry: Tattered Silk Robe

Artemision Bronze, Athens, 2007. 

Tattered Silk Robe

Would you consider it a lovely thing if every man
and woman would write about the life of a lover? I ask
as my husband's life careens on and around the oceans
dusk until dawn and spring to autumn before the icy
caps on the waves hurl inland to slap his shins --
he runs and skips and dances and makes love
until sunrise shows the pink of his ageing cheeks . . .
and so I write about him -- wouldn't you in my bare feet?
I sit naked on a log near my soul mate, pen in hand,
he wears a silk robe suffused with the oils of his body
and the energy of his prayers that do not cease except
to begin again praying for the many people he loves.
Then he looks out the window, walks on the sand
finding the piece of an oar, he lifts it above his head
and like the Artemision bronze he poses  . . .
breathes deeply the salty air, and squints at the sunrise.

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Let Lovely Turn of Phrase Begin

JMHawley Gave Me a Kiss to Build a Dream On

Listen, will you? I think that . . . literature, poetry, music and love make the world go round . . . while mathematics explains things; I fill my life with them, then go walking in snowy woods.
Let us go then, you and I
like two etherized patients floating
through life, together feeling prufrockian.
DDB Jr. makes my world go 'round; during his absence, Pachelbel fills it up.
One summer I sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, then through the Gulf of Finland to reach Saint Petersburg; I pursued Joseph Brodsky in its alley ways. I dream of making that two summers.
I read “Biking to Electra;” found my way in a Jaguar car, and glanced at the flashing steel grasshoppers at sunset. I’ll follow K.O.P.’s footsteps after he followed N.Scott Momaday’s; find warmth and inspiration on a rainy mountain.
Throw chinese coins for the I Ching.
Save the whales, the spotted owl, the woman in toil.
Cast a fly for trout; my memories of fly fishing under the sunny blue Colorado sky remain; I yearn to build more . . . with more trophy Browns.
Listen for the swan’s calls on the Baltic Sea. Feel KKII's joy, his arms spread wide in Yazilikaya.
Good night, Jimmy Durante, where ever you are.