canopy of roads
poems by leum artwork by christopher woodyard
Day windy day A teapot full of roses, a garden full of hounds. golden hills ethereal fragments water sin una gota de agua good afternoon you look fill in the box From Milton fin Fishing in Navarre The lamb smiling friday morning blankets of sand stars, preparation China plates the days ahead the librarian Obligation hug stereo Pensacola Surmise two sentences Strikes sketch 4 My Way bus driver Earth to Mars doorway Entra Night turquoise Green form Black Cat Jazz building shapes Of Eyes Closed white, yellow on green Actual Silence the seed High Tide flight to amsterdam A Movement’s Finale to be Goodnight and Goodmorning 36 compositions The Sunset Sets writer’s block never to be forgotten. new chapter To describe the space between the buried bodies under Tallahassee’s capitol building, modernist typography xylophone daydreaming our forgotten
“If I have died and don’t know it of whom do I ask the time?” - Pablo Neruda, Translated by William O’Daly
Para la Nana, mi abuela, Rosa Herrera
DAY
windy day
A teapot full of roses, a garden full of hounds. A lonely settler walking through the halls of candlelit clouds. A muse, called Serendipity, looked to me and wondered what she saw, a broken down limo in a trailer park or an esteemed ostracized duck of a turkey attempting to lay a golden egg. Relief from being released from dawn’s requiem. Saturday Night Lives on 4k tables. Marooned on a bed in the Pacific, lifeguard off duty. What floats eventually leads down to a hook. The fish knows this, but the worm’s good looks and the fisherman’s good catch. Of the days and their passing, the weeks will not speak. A man once said, and a woman once answered. Lottery tickets being sold to cats & dogs— What lonely days, and what lonely caves.
golden hills
ethereal fragments A blessing to breathe without obstruction. Shiva dancing on a baby’s back. Ducklings following their elders home. Showerhead singing a pitch too high. Effervescent vowels and low-tide consonants. Mountains becoming rooftop raindrops.
water
sin una gota de agua like a seashell without a shell in no sea
good afternoon
you look you look perplexed; if only i could get under those nails, the smudges of ink still there, weeks old, fields galloping away to their own rises & sets. too vague the train that has no friends. may i stay and look at you forever? as you feed i swallow, as the doves ring the trees wallow. what else do you take when you ask for my name? love calling you by its original tongue? the sun drying the leaves to match itself, the moon holding roses when no one else will. get my drift of being adrift? stars between us, you look.
fill in the box
From Milton Canopies of shade spread alongside the Panhandle Coastline. Buzzing of the fleeting engines, nimbus standing still for the painter to brush away the painting, the trees & their relation to an utmost relaxation. And below, the ants & their leaves.
fin
Fishing in Navarre Home ruminating on the edge of the sea, landscapes of Lego blocks mimicking babel. A seagull aiming for the buoy ahead, catching a king mackerel by the end of the pier.
The lamb smiling Picking out petals of sand between your toes – individually. Eyes closed, you look away, arms stretched outwards, standing at the tip of the Atlantic, the wind playing its strings as clearly as the yellow light blinking & in fronts, the waves pushing against rubble, the moon beneath the clouds, me letting go into the water below. A kingfish tooth as a bookmark. Fortune cookies wishing us good luck. The lamb smiling at the headlights of a bus.
friday morning
blankets of sand stars, trees producing streams from their roots over the canyons an expansive route with expensive palm leaves on the tall grass leading to Her Majesty, the Empress who decides the Emperor’s land takeaway-giveaway: how we are subject to the devices we have manifested.
preparation
China plates the days ahead Handing a white daisy to the sky. Heading up the alpines for a month, the Himalayas closed down until further notice. The days ahead planned on a calendar of dates & notices. Walking back to Wales the long way out, through a shortcut from Delvin. Saving up gold coins, sheep sold, camel about to be rode through a sea of sand. Last trek before the golden moon arose. A rose too common for the rain. A sun too blunt for the stars at day. Paradise just a short walk away. What else does a dollar bill say after being given away? My hands fitting the hole in the wall, my feet close by, teeth of silver mercury the new gluttony. Forty hours of slavery a new leaf on top an old tree.
the librarian
Obligation hug an obligation to take off my coat from its hanger, my shoulders. obligatory to make sure the dog has ample water in a bowl too large to be drank from. do you oblige me a handwritten letter not meant to be read? what hence is there to obligate a mouse to eat cheese from a trap, nonsense or more sense? what obliges the cat to play before dinner, and after supper does the cat grin without a face? an obligation to take from the cookie jar when the lid's wide open. obligatory to make a knot out of knots. let us oblige the many days and their many knots. circumstance obligates us to look at our eyes from different moons. where the sun's oblige brings the noon, midnight has her sun. therefore, an obligation it is to kiss you too soon.
stereo
Pensacola Surmise Handlebars close, downtown, the Vinyl, Stage right next to my Aunt’s doorstep. The differences that are apparent in all fornications of society’s minglings. Sergeants putting their badges down for the week, the latest iteration of Cordova coming next month with just the plus, a promised couplet for fleeting fledglings. Playground slides leading to quicksand. Fox Run like French Town, Meech a prime suspect. Told I was dying. Grill cooks wise with a knife, Japan the longest swim away. Told I was fat with pottery. Walking a bike to Zion, the Waffle House caught up with my ghost stirring on a stool, eternal nights and their second-long sundowns.
two sentences
strikes The incoming waves a blanket for the shoreline. The coastline the line in the sand drawn by Neptune. Etchings of sand castles in the Sahara built by the ancient. The daily rumination on where the lightning strikes. A gunshot echoed by thunder. Then another. The feeling of pain coursing through the stains. Insects, stars with wings entangling around a Cross. The sky tattooing night-time dreams, the ocean mirroring the sky, the dream sunny. The shoreline for blankets. Coastlines drawn by sand castles by the ancient. The stains coursing pain. Insects, cross entangling wings. Rumination lightning strikes. The nighttime dreams mirroring the sunny. By thunder. Another.
sketch 4
My Way Peach tree blossoms about the Midwestern Haven. Candlewax dripping on my forehead. Twentythree stores spanning the block. Fingerprints on bubbled glass walls. Burn marks etched on each psalm of the hand. You consider dancing with the moon, but the sun holds you back. Throwing holy water on first light of sunup. Walking a mile the whole way drinking a bottle straight. Making my way back to Heaven, the ladder in the left of a cold building, in the right of a cold building. Playing chess against the dead barber after a haircut. Run away as slow as the clouds say our dreams overhead for tomorrow.
bus driver
Earth to Mars Sandstorms upon the camel’s hips, the alchemist awaiting his lover’s lips. The journey travailed alone, unlike the novel of his own. Stars different this time of year, unlike last year. Patterned drums making orange humps, lately being down in the dumps. The sun stripping bare any animal & its hair. Moons orbiting, rotating. Planets questioning their next destination, who’s to decide their current affirmation. Losing sight of the tunnel’s end of light. You dance with me one more night, & we kiss under the struggle of what has & what might. Several several’s & no no’s. Rattlesnakes quirk from their bed of rocks in attempts to make a lizard dead. Commentaries telling stories heard & yet to be heard.
doorway
Entra Entre los árboles del viejo sol, no sé quién soy. Soy los pájaros que gritan en la mañana, los delfinos que nadan en el mar oscuro, el hielo durante el verano, la paz caminando en la guerra. Soy los trigos de oro que usan para pagar al tiempo, las calles que se han convertido en ríos, la luna cuando no hay luna en el cielo, los peces que comen a los osos. Los ojos de las nubes, el viento adentro de la tierra, el camino a San Juan. Tiendas de commercial desaparecidas, verde y azul contra el rojo, rotaciones de revolución. Vez aquí en la página las palabras sin notación. Vez ahí más adelante la puerta que debes abrir. Y con los oídos, escucha el agua diciendo debajo del puente:
NIGHT
turquoise
Green Rummaging through a microscopical blend of intentional artifacts based on preemptive associations with hallucinational trains of coal brought to predetermined destinations selected, not scratched off. Blatant views mixed with hypocrisy & leverage, severances detached from their norms, something in something, nothing in nothing. The root always the root, a cord in a cord, instances guided by detached passages, empty pages, a moan misplaced by a sigh, a yawn echoing a hum, someone far away drums. Someone here sits down for their first escape, an impossibility, a virtue, an escape. What good is the first breath of the moon if the sun never comes up? Where do my eyes meet my eyes? The Exit sign blares its red glare, and the earth rotates one last time.
form
Black Cat Jazz Blues from the Café Booth, blatant sipping, compost turned to its other side, a level of conformity brought to its highest point, the amount of contention necessary for an excuse, obtuse angles versus the acute. Elevators going one more floor than the roof. Scaffolds tipped to their preferred side, high tide setting loose a generation of currents upon the coast. Nothing more, something less— compact declaration of dependence. Seven minutes late, two minutes early. A second wasted in success. Lady Liberty holding the scale of Judgment, Victory and her wings with the head of Truth, shocked by the sudden urge to kiss her lover anew till the days wind down, until the nights without their stars shine brighter than today. Till Love begins her descent…
building shapes
Of Eyes Closed Underwater, tranquility sets fishes know regularly by scale and color, the depths and its lack of light a warning to those that wish to be forgotten. How familiar each step away from the heavens, our fingernails digging, burrowing the ladder deeper into the crust. August passing its dead ends to September, nights tired and full of roads closed.
white, yellow on green
Actual Silence Vente a mi cielo y pregunta por mi. Trialed formulations of anticipation. Dificil manejar la tormenta. Pensive is the pen when at work. Una vida sin la vida, agua con agua. The white rabbit snickering to my right. Por lo menos, podemos respirar. Withering leaves trailing behind. Al dicho que dice mucho, diga nada.
the seed
High Tide Facets of my face lain on a tablecloth with the sheets all ruddled up. Configurations of the Constitution tweeted by tall trees, lizard-tongue, lizard-speak, car pulling up on the driveway not what she means. Makeshift models of the same brand in their high-horse seats, contemplation of an empty stomach on what to eat, the liver, the heart or all the meat one can stuff before running out of pennies. You know what you mean, losing balance at the end of the street. No need to pull out a knife, I see the cuts in your eyes. No need for the grease; did you forget your body's on a lease? No matter, no matter, no matter the cost. Heavy being the beating bag. Light being light. Wind pulling on the front door's crease, fish rods pulling fish sticks. Ultimate ultimatum
before thunder speaks the day away, the night's fight to stay awake after solemnly swearing out the tide. The tick is tired of ticking. The clock is tired of clocking in. The sea is tired of seeing the same sky all ruddled up.
flight to amsterdam
A Movement’s Finale Stars dropping like snowfall, Autumn early in the sky’s night. Under a tree will I meet Death. Timid is fire inside its basket, peeking in through the hedges & trims; stars droop down their aching snow. An anthology of dead correspondents burns in the moonlight of the eclipse. Underneath a tree awaits Death, there. Names scribbled on abandoned school desks at an abandoned mine in Chile’s north, stars shadowed by the Valley’s dust. Should my consideration turn then to wealth, when fate’s hand lies mine with Macbeth, and under rain, greet Death? The doors open & close for you, my Lord. Yet she holds my key, which is but a scar, wilting as the stars do from much woe of Death staring under in awe.
to be
Goodnight and Goodmorning for Danielle We’re not made so different, you & I, you with your green eyes, mine blind. Cuantas veces
Tus ojos me
te he encontrado dentro
reconocen
de mi bolsillo lleno de arena.
como
el cielo conoce las estrellas. Tantas sonrisas que los días dan son para las noches que nunca mueren. After a tree is cut and put in a vase, tempting it is to create bouquets. El viento pasando cuenta de su pasado. Al fin del infinito, donde te encontré con mis manos desechables
Cenizas
y tus mareas del desierto.
negras
en las alas de las mariposas. Hasta la última gota de lluvia, desde el Canary, carnation, chrysanthemum, rose & sun foliage surround the stigma of our iris. ciudad en los nubes. A quién le digo Do you see them? Letters on a treble clef spelling out my many deaths for you. de la tortuga que no sabe del tiempo.
36 compositions
The Sunset Sets The sunsets for the day’s eye set. And we all had our head phones on. Red like late evening’s dress, the same you will wear at my last night.
writer’s block
never to be forgotten. me staying on, you turning off the light. a consideration best needed when needed best. we forget so easily what we meant never to be forgotten. in a city that always sleeps, shutters drawn on by colored pencils, rain erases all permanence. no matter the shade or how deep the ink can get, even under the cover of an umbrella do we get wet losing ordinance.
new chapter
To describe the space between the buried bodies under Tallahassee’s capitol building, to explain the intricacies of a conclave of international law inquires, a relative benediction to modernize the post-pavilion as a fence in congruence to a family portrait hung in the kitchen diner scene after dinner knives have been set on the table, entry checkpoints before setting up camp in the meeting hall, labeling folders and ketchup bottles, you name it, whisky in an office drawer, the secretary hanging up the phone, an editor with the the half-note on the flat of a form for whatever the news paper sharps saying, to discern the reputable from the reprehensible, nothing clearer than the foggy patches on a highway drive in the summer night we spent riding without our belts on through a canopy road, eons ago, to discern the facsimile of disclosure given on a warranty sheet, to fathom the wealth held by the Federal Trade Commission lower floor savings account,
to discern the absolute in the fallacy of human rights, the misuse and abuse of the missing page of amendments in the following Bill of Rights, to facilitate the lateral traffic of abstract and maximal text during session, the construct misinterpreted as unequivocal, unethical, the right font size unestablished, relaxing in priorities, standards for sermons lipped by serpentine foregrounds, longitudinal mono theistic foreplay an interlay for interviews, the basic gist of the hustle listed on the top of the list for a candidate most worthy when faced against literal minimal support, a contract developed on film, and further on, rolling credits.
modernist typography
xylophone zealous juxtapositions of uttering yearning for base compositions of fake, heavy gold, queries into iterations, what’s varied postponed. words that hurt left for the language of law. the grand piano on the fifth floor of the Capitol has her keys shined each morning, dusted at night, played only once or right a week to random bystanders while speeches echo through the walls of the state’s buildings. what goes amiss stays missed. editors and janitors in their free time stating, note for note, their misses on black and white steps.
daydreaming
our forgotten a rose floating in the air, to who is it for, lady liberty on her rocks, or the bright light sitting on her throne. a definition cold on a dark clotted cloud, cold like the black moonlight coursing through a canyon’s veins. we forget what we see when we see what we forget. purple lilies draped over our shoulders, the weight of a thousand suns the sum of a handshake. an eye stares at a post pointing to a thief of flowers. a rose floating.
Š 2018 Luis Eduardo Utrera Morales All Rights Reserved @leum__ All Artwork by Christopher Woodyard All Rights Reserved Front Cover: dusty eyes Back Cover: texture, line @ciao_chris