Rose Colored Windows

by John-Philip Penny

  Table of Contents

  When The First Petals Of The Season Fell

  Rose Colored Windows

  I Have Forgotten You

  I Have Forgotten You (2)

  Rain, Leaves, Tears and Wings

  Like the Lamb, I Have Feared the Blade

  Beneath Orchids And Cherry Blossoms

  As A Wave Is Drawn Through A Wave

  Almost Silent, Like Seashells

  The Ashes of Innocence

  My Mouth Has Not Been Torn

  Do Not Make Me Idle

  Your Eyes

  The Children Sleep

  I Move Towards It Slowly

  The Warmth Comes On

  I Opened Myself

  From The Deep Wells I Draw You Up

  Barely Yet Accustomed To Summer

  I Have Resigned Myself

  Here Is My Inner Peace

  Though Unaware Of All But You

  Amen

  I Am Waiting For The Light

  Empty Of The Raven, Empty Of The Dove

  The Morning Started Early

  I Have Dreamed Of Hiding Away

  It Has All Become The Deepest Of Echoes

  Lift Up Your Eyes

  I Move To You

  I Do Not Wait

  Why Not Dance Here Awhile?

  We Will Always Need

  Poetry

  The River Of Sound

  I Want To Take You There

  Twelve Horses

  It Is In The Distance

  The Smallest Figure

  Where Are You, Soft As Nails?

  With Endless And Unknown Purpose

  When The Rains Come Down

  I Am Lost

  Night Sonata

  Whatever Was, Was

  Shake The Trees Of Their Lemons

  Death Awaits Everyone

  Flowers To Earth

  Like An Open Flower Gives Away The Sun

  I Watched You In The Sun

  The Revelation (A Broken Man)

  Came Ages Within Ages

  When the First Petals of the Season Fell

  When the first petals of the season fell

  Like the notes of a dying symphony

  There I stood alone and without you

  Lonely music stirring the river's edge

  But you were always there, weren't you

  In every book, leaf, or opening flower

  Everything was imbued with your fragrance

  And spoke to my longing beyond all repair

  Now everything speaks to me of you

  Every photograph of every stranger

  Looks out at me with your eyes

  But remain unsent letters in a drawer

  You are a mystery to me, like shadows

  Or a candle's dimly flickering silence

  And dark chandeliers are my memories

  Here beneath this Baroque cascade

  The gusts of spring lifted all the flowers

  Like Cinderella gathering up her satin gown

  Just as you used to lift your hair to the side

  While wondering if you were beautiful

  Everything was yours to inherit

  Every bird in flight, every cloud

  And every single raindrop

  I would have given to you

  But now the season is over

  Long buried beneath the snow's calligraphy

  As here I gaze, out frosted windowpanes

  To where the trees weep frozen tears

  Rose Colored Windows

  Rose colored windows illuminate the garden

  Wherein far off dreams carry scents of Istambul

  Now see how the flowers of her body cry out

  For a drink of sun, for a drink of water

  As the contrary fountain-fire refuses to blossom

  And see how beneath Christ's suffering face

  The ashes of every great work of art

  Are lifted up in fragmented ascension

  And see how the first snow within the cloister

  Has collected in every bell-rung corner

  And now all of the pearls are gathered up

  and put into a basket to be carried beyond

  As the bride and bridegroom go with them

  On a great dias made of silk and elm

  And that smells of myrhh and honey

  Clim, climb all the way to Mecca

  To be with the wisemen of old

  As they gather beneath date trees by an oasis

  Listen to the call of the morning prayers

  From a tower raised into the dawn light

  And now all the women come forth without their children

  See them pulling their hair and gnashing their teeth

  As they cry out to the long dead beloved one

  Who promised to send a cool breeze forever

  Through the gated gardens of paradise

  Montreal, 2009

  I Have Forgotten You

  I have forgotten you, even before our end

  Even my poetry could not disarm you

  And all the dead poets I called upon

  Could not bring you into my world

  I hope all your prayers remain intact

  I sold everything. Having no possessions

  I sold myself; all to buy us a quiet eternity

  Under the spreading blossom branch, so I

  Could convince you that without the moon,

  There would be no tide, and without the wind

  No waves, and without the waves no sand

  Summer came, and with it,

  Proofs of my convictions

  I took you by the hand and led you

  Towards a truth I mapped out as a child

  It was all there, this word, that gesture

  I had no resources against your distance

  But could never turn myself against you

  You remained full of silence, like a stunned forest

  While even the clocks began to sound their own end

  And poems became merely a pilgrimage to amen

  And then the vision ended perfectly

  By your own hands, you made it perfect, imperfect

  It got torn out, like a fish from a lake

  Or a palm from fire, I have skilled myself enough

  To draw out slowly

  Now I have forgotten you

  The way one forgets dreams, the way one

  Forgets to dream, swept away in light

  Or like the sound of a seashell

  You hear ringing in your ear

  But only if you listen with purpose

  I could never sit here a thousand years

  To bring you back to childhood

  Or repaint your first love in the snow

  I cannot whisper away rain

  Or make your body sing once more

  Hurry back to where the thirst began

  Hurry these birds to flight, these blossoms

  To flower, these clouds to rain

  Everything closes again, wings, petals,

  It must have been something this small,

  And this perfect, that willed us apart

  Toronto, 2000

  I Have Forgotten You (2)

  I tried to buy us an eternity

  Under the spreading blossom trees

  To show you what I'd dreamed as a child

  Here in the springtime breeze

  Then summer came along

  And I took you by the hand

  Showing you that without the moon no tide

  And without the waves no sand

  I never understood your distance

  As clocks sounded the end of time

  I couldn't turn away from you though

  Nor save what we had with a r
hyme

  But then the vision ended

  Torn like a palm from a flame

  Something I'd long learned to endure

  Though you never burned the same

  But still I can't forget you

  Like a dream in morning's light

  Or an ocean seashell's sound

  You hear all alone in the night

  I would sit here forever waiting

  And repaint your first love in the sun

  But I can't whisper away the rain

  Or repair broken wings into one

  I want to go to where the thirst first began

  And make your body sing once more

  Back to where these flowers first bloomed

  And these birds first cried on the shore

  For who can accept nature's design

  When from love it wills us depart

  As everything closes around us

  Wings and petals and hearts

  Rain, leaves, Tears and Wings

  Rain, leaves, tears and wings

  Everything falls eventually

  Falls within itself, falls without

  Then rises from some deep place

  To become some other fallen form

  The fields of wheat lay fallen

  Fallen Kings upon their thrones

  And Knights of ancient days

  Who fell in great beauty

  Beneath cascading banners

  And the lovely daughters of Noah

  Who gathered around him in his tent

  As he lay there mumbling, drunk

  His words no longer floating

  Above the eternal flood

  Now they are arisen

  Every bird, every fish, every beast

  Fallen into stones, into grass and dirt

  There in a brief moment of pain

  They stumble, as if confused

  Like The Lamb, I Have Feared The Blade

  Like the lamb, I have feared the blade

  That turns above me there in the light

  For I was never overthrown

  On the high deep hills of sacrifice

  As my vision mad father was

  When I hid beneath his poised hand

  I learned instead to move above it all

  Like beautiful floating barges

  Or flecks of cork on wine

  Above the cries of dying Messiahs

  Who leave their bodies in the air,

  Like a bird that has been speared

  And I carved out strange ways

  Upon the tablet of the law

  These words borne from blood, tears

  Divide the lovers in their sleep

  And bow to smiles from below

  Where rejected light likes to go

  And so here I am nailed to your body

  Here on its throne, here on its alter

  In the place of darkened houses

  As slow the reluctant lamb draws forward

  And offers itself up to your appetite

  In this fulfillment of the luminous contract

  Beneath Orchids And Cherry Blossoms

  Beneath orchids and cherry blossoms

  The courtyard's breath is still in the sun

  As ladies pass in two's and three's

  Chatting lightly below its bowers

  And mirrors reflect the luxurious drawing out

  Of her Ladyship's hair by a servant girl

  As old hunched over women bend

  To sweep up the fallen spring

  And here and there, radiant sounds gather

  Round children and flowers and courtyard

  As trickling water plays its games

  With she who sighs for love or grief

  Now bring tales under the lifted petals

  That drink of the summer rain

  As passing people on the cobblestones

  Avoid the glances of one another

  And now wait in quiet expectation

  Till you hear her singing softly there

  Beneath this canopy of spreading branches

  Beneath this mauve-flushed light

  As A Wave Is Drawn Through A Wave

  As a wave is drawn through a wave

  So you have been drawn through my life

  And though we are hidden from each other

  We pass through these veils together

  Such a defeat to be lying here alone

  Longing for your accompanying sound

  But I have learned a way to picture you

  Like a silent and forever looping film

  I have moved with winding caravans

  And have been to the highest places

  Seen the land as though on a map

  From peaks that rise like Cathedrals

  Yet I long to be beside you here

  And with movements even smaller

  Than the smallest waves, or sand

  To lay my palms upon your surface

  The patterns of my life gathered

  And my whole heart seemed to lift

  As I watched you attend to details

  But now my heart has become still

  Can I spend my whole life walking,

  In order to dance just for a moment?

  Now I am here, on the edge of the world

  If ever you should want to find me

  Moraine Lake, 2005

  Almost Silent, Like Seashells

  Almost silent, like seashells

  Your voice, I hear in a dream

  Like a distant wavering star

  That barely sheds its beams

  Oceans have never drowned

  In depths as deep as your eyes

  And birds never flown like this

  Across clear morning skies

  I cannot forget your rain

  Twelve pale petals deep

  As it sighs like wind in grass

  After the flowers go to sleep

  I long to bind you close

  But as seaweed grasps the moon

  Will never draw you near

  Like stars that die too soon

  I am just a fallen Knight

  Breathing out his last

  Here upon a dying field

  Where even love dies fast

  The Ashes of Innocence

  In flames within flames

  Strange events are foretold

  By men with eyes that see in the dark

  And beneath the peering stars

  The shrieking animals

  Draw nearer and nearer

  Now blood stains the hands of children

  Who offer up dark gifts

  Upon the points of spears

  As just outside the city walls

  The people pass slow as seasons

  Past the branches where pale brides sway

  Who beholds the end of all?

  And what of these new Messiahs,

  Each one more blood glutted than the last

  Who spring forth like smiling tigers

  From the ruins of order,

  And from the ashes of innocence

  My Mouth Has Not Been Torn

  My mouth has not been torn

  For insulting the name of poetry

  With my cheap psalms

  That ask for what they do not deserve

  And that take a tarnished coin

  From the street begger

  And just as you have not folded

  Up the wings of birds forever

  Because they languished atop the waves

  So you have not asked me to blur myself

  Against the light horizon

  And become lost in the sun

  For look at me, I am just a

  Stretched-out leather bag

  Over a stooped bone frame

  As I misstep my clownish dance

  And grovel for your love

  With this handful of plastic flowers

  Do Not Make Me Idle

  Do not make me idle

  So that I stop breathing


  Even before death

  But do not transform me

  Into an endless road

  That I cannot travel

  I am bewildered by your touch

  And when you speak

  I hear the rain move in the fields

  I still have steps to take

  And rests to yield to

  To restore my need for you

  But do not let us part

  Let us echo one another

  The smallest movements we make

  I live for this

  To see the seaweed

  Drawn through the waves

  And to see your hands

  Like tiny animals

  Building thier nests

  Ttransform me slowly

  Imperceptibly

  Like the light coming on

  Remove the shadows

  And weave them into

  Dawn's rustling gown

  Draw me like a breath forever

  And never leave me

  Till our last breaths are drawn

  Your Eyes

  Your eyes

  With idle lids

  Choose when to move

  A moon

  And then a sun

  Blink out a star

  Draw back the waves

  On this dying shore

  I see you

  In my dim light

  Ruining my dreams

  Burning the ancient rule

  That brings down

  An Order

  And creates movement

  In the staring water

  There is something higher

  And farther

  About your surrender

  You summon

  All the fallen wings