James rêve à Paris

 

je rêve à Paris

 

Mes nouveau amis, Guy-Amie et Phillipe

ask me, the tourist, to photograph them

handsome young men, with beards, black and blonde

and slender bodies, clothed in tees

 & shorts, twins of masculine beauty

 

They are on an open terrace above me

sitting at a small café table, wine glimmering in sunlight

“Arrête ça” calls Phillipe, raising his right hand

He runs down below to

Reappear with a  flowering tree

In a planter,  taller than a man

It arches over the table

Cascading red blossoms

Obscure each face

 I move to the left, then the right hoping to get them in focus

Zoom button to capture

The camera animates itself

swiveling in my clutching hands

Exploring, pivoting between the two men

Embracing/evading the two, as brothers or lovers

Alarmed, bemused

Taunting, teaching, twisting my mind like the lens

 

Phillipe and Guy are amused at my look

nod & Salute farewell

 saying "a bientot au pique-nique"

the lunch promised in the garden

behind  their apartment

I follow, stumbling  engrossed in the images

Swirling on the camera view screen

 

I am a dog following a scent

my camera's eye

Reverently frames a Renaissance steeple

peeking between thin arched buildings

I snap the shutter

which zooms to capture gnarled

glass coupling of electric wires

 

Turning the a corner

I focus once again

Surprised to walk a familiar path upon

Rue Catherine de La Rochefoucaud

Toward the home art gallery

of mystical Gustave Moreau

the fairy MerryBlueberry blew these words into my ears:

 “Thou were in the soul and hands of he, before thou was thee”

 

I slither quietly,  a  hunters gait

my camera  gun

in Urban Forest

buildings tall and thin (it could be Amsterdam)

before my goal,  a garden fronts a building

out of place, its seems

a darker red, lined with white marble

Inscribed above the 3^rd story of the building:

Connecticut Community Church

at basement level

an arched tunnel entry to the painters gallery

I raise the camera

 

It shifts to the garden foreground

Blocking out my beautiful composition

a white brick oval, fencing a garden of lush green grass

Across it walks a large, fat and very furry

Orange and yellow cat, prowling proudly towards the sewer

“Absurd!” I shout to the camera, loving the image

I turn up a hill, up a street

turning on that alley

where I shall greet my friends

there are  others

Two chubby men, one with a distorted face

Missing teeth, and eating roughly

Both without shirts, red with sunburn and freckles

And I wake, laughing heartily

With Phillipe et Guy-Aime

Still

The cat struts across  my camera lens

As morning sunlight opens the window of day

A continent away

 

Dream of 9/5 somewhere between 5 and 6:30 am

©j.m.frase-white 10/5/2021 

 

 

Jessica's Tree to Celebrate

 

Tree of Life

 Butterflies flitter, flutter, fly

Dancing for flowers

Around the tree of life

To drink, from the heart of beauty

Brilliant sustenance

Each sip a kiss, a heartbeat

Each person we love

Our flowers, Our butterflies

Our sustenance

You, Jessica, are the bluebird of happiness

Circling

Singing the love, sorrows and joys

Surrounding, nurturing

the tree of life

(Jess at Cleveland Zoo a few years back)

For Jessica’s 54^th birthday, 9/11/2021 & the blessing she brings.  Love, your dad, James 

Bicycling in Venice with Bob Manning, 2021

 

Those Bikers in Silly Land Ride Again

 

"The Biker in Silly Land" by Robert Manning 2019

How far we fly away in dreams

So far

So here and now

Last night we hopped upon a bicycle seat

An in Venice took a spin

We seemed to dance upon  the water

on rock back street or water top

No sail, nor fin, or rudder

Just laughter and adventure fluid

Dancing through our veins

Feet twirling past black gondolas

And singing gondoliers

 

We rode upon a bridge

Brazen signs barked Beware!

Off the bikes we jumped

pushing towards the barricade

ladders, traps blue & orange

paint cans, masonry tools

blocked the passage

but a gap

we slid through a gap between

the walls

followed song with eyes

a Baritone Romeo sang rapturously

from a balcony so so high

across the way his Juliet

in sweet soprano sighed a kiss

a musical confection so silent

we heard with heart not ear

 

on bikes we spider up the wall

defying gravity

and then

the couple fly away

 

We are in a raw red striped room

Floor a blue, yellow stripe highway

A roaring rusting red pickup

burst through the walls

a waterfall we now ride down

the truck swims  under away

 

Upon the canal

a baker walks out  balancing bread upon his head

bakery goods and confections taunt air and eyes

an elegant woman in red spiked heels towers by

her red silk dress luscious upon her milk chocolate skin

a Hassid enters a lovely candy shop

windows  filled with stars of David

strawberry Torahs scrolled like sailing arks

 

A dock appears and up we ride

into a Japanese street, with curtains hanging halfway down

soba, ramen smells beckon us in

 

a sudden intrusion of McD, his arches taunting bows

arrow us quickly back to water, the Grand Canal to see

merrily into sunset ride, with friends and family

 

Sunset really is the morning, as rays awake my eyes

We Biked in Silly land refreshed 

an invigorating, heavenly, dreamland ride . . .

 

For Libby Hillhouse, with memories/dreams from Robert Manning & the light he showed upon this earth that continues on, growing inside us in a garden built on love

For a lovely party of family & friends to celebrate Bob Manning, on 22 August 2021

love, James

"A Sunday Afternoon" by Robert Manning 2019

©james m. frase-white July 2021

4ward 2 Past

 

The little man
who looked forward to the past

he walked into the dream

We darkened the room to see like him

blueblack on a black rainy night

to awake the dead

the dead as the goal of living

the living lost in the unknown past

child borne sorrow we talked with him

He whispered into his ears

telling of

the missing ones

ancestors gone blank

blind closed-eye-blind to the existence

of what they have wrought

a zipper undone, clothing ripped, passions torn

lashed/splashed/dashed

birth unloaded into life

haunting the living unknown

they wept in tears 

Oh, if only I knew how to hold them in comfort

j.m.frase-white, dreamscape 7.23.2021

 

A Poem for Amy (1958-2021)

Amy in the Mountains -- wish we could see her lovely eyes, as they captured radiant joy always, her smile will have to do, with the beauty of the scenery, like her with a heart as big, and fragile, as all out doors

A Poem for Amy 

How astonishing it was to wake this morn

trees grow one step greener

forming leaves, little goddess gifts

Birds burst in joyous mating songs

Sudden thoughts return to the loss of you

Taken in the night to the cavern of death

To die when Spring is dawning

It seems so wrong that you are gone

The breath of life exhaled

Your loss refutes renewal of Earth

The daffodils bow their heads

And call for mother sun

We wish you could do the same

As we hold you in our blood, in heart

In memories, in mind, in visions

Illusions to the flesh of you

Your kind and loving voice

A laughter that we’ll hear inside

A life you gave so freely of

Farewell, kind heart, dear love

Amy, you kept us well, the world a better place 

             With all our love, from Jim & Chuck

(Amy M. Sullivan 1958 – 2021)

 ©j.m.frase-white 10 May 2021