In a Gallery of Birds

/ Salvatore Ala / Leave a comment

                             The mind is brushed by sparrow wings.
                                                           Hart Crane

All shadows of a kind                           cross the atlas of the mind.
Alone or with fledglings                            in realistic settings
The ghosts of those birds                             migrated into words.
The longer we stayed                                     the sound of a glade.
Windows doubled as skies                                for eternity in their eyes.
Even for a feather                                             it is a heavy tether.
In each nest                                                     eggs at rest.
Such stillness grows                                        like flight in repose
Mounted there                                                        in flying air.
What is seeming                                                 if nature is dreaming?
What is death                                                    to a hummingbird’s breath?
In an eagle’s gaze                                         soar endless days.
A glass case sings                                      it breaks with wings.
All field marks fade                                    light goes into shade.

In the Beauty of a Lower Heaven

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

Autumn in Paris is like summer in a lower heaven.
Sycamores and chestnuts paint the air,
Pencil-thin branches sketch the city like Utrillo,
The Seine sets leaves in moon-glass.

We caught the metro at Bir-Hakeim
Near Vel’ d’Hiv, the Nazi detention center.
Cyclists went flying into fire and ash
In the beauty of a lower heaven.

Something grotesque in the accordion
Like a fascist playing Mozart.
Something hypnotic in the sound,
The bellowing of giving birth to terror.

In the beauty of a lower heaven
All the people are lovelier, tranquil,
Even at rush hour music tames
The writhing beast of megalopolis.

Goodnight Paris, bonne nuit,
Your accordions are like history
Repeating the music and the horror
In the beauty of a lower heaven.

Goodnight Roseline, Simone and Eliana…
We will meet again, Aviva…
The doors of the trains are opening
In the beauty of a lower heaven.

Ice Music

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                St. Lawrence River

1
The rivers of the river were moving again.
The shattered ice glided
In one giant flow of crystal shards.
A concert, a symphony of treble sounds,
Frozen keys of light and music
Glittered all along the seaward shore.

2
Was it the beginning of time?
Or had the end of time begun?
The earth was locked in ice.
Darkness was upon the land.
When sunlight filtered
Through the poison gases
It struck the ice and multiplied.
The light looked through itself,
Dissolving, congealing,
Until the air had cleared.
Light took the shape of a fern
And ferns unfurled out of nothing.
Light moved and there was wind.
Light poured over its rim
And from ice water trickled.
When light was exhausted
The night was born.

3
Those who live by the river
Have heard the sound of light
In that staccato of shattered ice;
In the sharp tintinnabulous
Wavering myriad of chimes,
They have heard the cold
Remote music of a crystal age.

What Angels Know

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A handicapped child is born to test us,
He’ll see if we are worthy of his attention.
The sick hold out their medicine for us to take—
It is good for the soul, they say.
The homeless guide us home unaware.
The hungry feed us with their eyes.
The suffering save us with their heavy tears.
When we are tired of being frivolous
We sometimes look differently at people and at things,
And they look at us and say
Even you are greater than you know.

Six Rooms

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The first is my window blinds.
Slats with pull cords
Between light and dark.

The second is my carpet.
A magic carpet of wine tracks
Notated by cannabis tacks.

The third is the cigarette tin
In which I keep my addiction
To loose change and nicotine.

Fourth, a few fossils
I found on a beach
In primeval childhood.

Next to last my old pool cue.
I play impossible shots
On imaginary tables.

Finally, a faded photograph
In inexpensive frame
Of someone loved and lost.

Kiwanis Music Finals

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The practice area is like an orchard of sound
Where you pick notes as they ripen
And those that fall seed the ground.

You can harvest grapes from this vine
That grows along the staff of time
Following the sun into drums of wine.

The pianos seem near and far
Like conversations behind doors
Or rain on the roof of your car.

The practice area is a paradise
Where even angels clash
And beauty is soundly imprecise.

Please listen to the children play,
Their music is so unaffected
You’ll hear the origins of rhapsody.

Sea Dreams

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how the sea learned to walk on so many legs where the seashell began compiling its manual how coral disguised itself in itself how jellyfish learned erudition how the octopus engineered fluidity where the flower was born and the tree where the root went down how branches branch why leaves need to grow how the eye of God became a fossil of meaning where time began work on its museum how the dragonfly was invented how spiders of crystal learned to cooperate in the mineral kingdom when the seed discovered its shape in the word love how birds learned to sing through bone why why is the smallest seashell the faintest star

Cryptozoology

/ Salvatore Ala / 2 Comments
Our research points to terrifying conclusions,
Cryptids don’t exist but we believe in them.
We spawn marine reptiles in our minds.
We descend like Andean wolves, into the lower forests.
It might as well be that skunk-ape migrants of global warming
Indicate their degrees in theology.
It might as well be that being is bizarre,
Monsters of the lector unsolved in the sermon.
It might as well be that Chupacabras
Are devil dogs stirring the furnace of souls.
Perhaps a pharmaceutical apocalypse
Creates the condition for a mutant menagerie.
All we can say beyond a reasonable doubt:
They are the varmint of the malcontent
Who have peopled else, and are on the move.

The Becoming

/ Salvatore Ala / 1 Comment

  Abyssus abyssum invocat


For weeks I felt revenant,
Embraced by vampires,
Leeched and guzzled,
Sapped of blood and spirit,
My shadow was more real.
The sun honed its edge,
Carved out my darkness,
Shaved me to the grave,
Perfecting my disguise
Like a kindred apportation.
All children of millennia
Are superstitious mathematicians
Plussing negative numbers
Minus the undead.
We are fixed to one place,
Our place is next to dust.
Salvation from eternal night?
A wasted incarnate light.
I woke from my anemic trance.
Sunrise in the monster village
And all my strength was back.