Thus spoke Pinocchio.

The next one...

Thus spoke Pinocchio:

I believe my myriad leaves

became words, each poised

to find a truth

as quickly lost as the green shoot

plummeting into the universe

constructed from my new mind.

My hands touched objects,

made them more real

than a tree’s leaf ever will.

Some nights I remember

branches rubbing like skin

against the window pane.

Movement is the greatest joy,

when lonely it allows me

to find a new landscape;

new space for the words

falling as easily as amber leaves

in autumn’s forgetful rain.

Inside the wail

 The other "wail" in the P. series...

Inside the wail:

Geppetto waited for God’s breath

To set him free

Fish memories of the tree

He carved into his son

And listened to the waves

Beat against the Leviathan’s breast.

When Pinnochio arrived

With breakfast

The old man was crest-fallen

God would never save

What the fairy had created.

In the whale’s stomach:

 t\The three whale poems from the Pinocchio series.

In the whale’s stomach:

                        I

In the darkness

I remember the time before

Ocean.

Before the spluttering candle

we save by burning

only at odd moments –

we have seven matches left

after that the darkness will become

Eternal -

If only the Leviathan

yawned when it rose

to the surface.

Does it dream?

Are its dreams as small

As the krill it swallows in the millions?

And we, merely accidents along the way –

do we impinge upon its thoughts

in the slightest?

The boat Geppetto travelled in

holds up well in the ebb and flow

of life within a stomach.

My wooden legs rot, flesh

does have distinct advantages – even Geppetto’s feet,

at their age, fare better.

                        II

In the stillness

between waves of saltwater

I close my eyes; imagine

the morning sunlight covering

the dusty mountains

of home - night’s galloping shadow

races before the rays,

flowers turn towards the light,

in the distance

the sound of rugs being beaten

by village women

and the squeals of children

in bare feet, their knees

scabby, their noses running,

play soccer with the bladder

of a dead cat in the street.

                        III

Geppetto often holds my hands

and explains how he carved each digit,

shaped the half moon nails,

crafted the elbow and wrist sockets

for movement.

At night

after his lips have blown out the candle

and the sound of the sea

fills the dark cavern

in rhythmic sympathy

he likes to explain

how it feels to have a chest

that within a heart beats.

I know I have missed out

and cannot bring myself to believe

my wooden torso can contain

a soul. I do no pray

for rescue, only for a break

in the monotony.

I wish I could see

The light of the fairy’s wand

And believe again for a moment

That anything is possible.

Leading the bear....

We continue on....

Leading the bear home:

This gilt cage

swings in a breeze created

by a harsh voice,

feet curled

like old leaves

around the wooden perch.

I sing for supper, dance

for lunch, weep when breakfast

does not come.

I have seen my name

in lights brighter than stars,

discovered a cage needs no bars -

guilt stronger than finest steel.

I befriended the dancing bear,

licked raw patches that once had fur,

fed him rats cut

into the shapes of salmon, dreamed

with him of rocks and water and leaps

into freedom.

It was not until I let go

of faith that the door

finally opened - wings not from angels

but through acceptance; feathers

of words and cadence.

I was once a tree,

once turned only towards the sun

now I move about the land

leading the bear back home.

Hung, drawn etc..

The series continues...

Hung, drawn or quartered:

During the days when he believed in

the blue fairy’s magic wand his actions

were scattered upon the workshop floor,

shavings, curled, twisted, unconnected.

He lay as a log and let the plane

shape him into whatever design

the fairy deemed suitable for a boy.

In the days when he followed a cricket’s

whispers of conscience, his hands and legs

were guided by strings leading him down

alleys and through adventures – he became

a grey donkey to the strings’ carrot.

It was not until he let the wand go,

not until he severed the strings from

the puppeteer’s cross that Pinocchio’s

grain became skin, his resin, blood

and his yellow hat became separated

from the voluntary movements of his head.

It was a close thing, however, when belief

tumbled towards his unsteady feet.

Some villagers strung him up in fear,

others tried to burn him but Geppetto

discovered a haven in the stomach

of a wise whale and from there called him.

The latest in the series of P. poems.

Things not meant to be:

The saddest sound

is made

when wooden lips collide

across the string divide.

Stomboli laughed

at foolish puppets

mimicking the grandest acts

of life.

Mangiafuoco was more kind;

set me free

with coins and a sad shake of his head

when he heard the tale

of two puppets kissing -

wooden lips bump

to the sound

of earth hitting a coffin lid.

When my wood turned to skin

I sought her out. 

She had been devoured by the fire;

there was nothing left

but memory: the texture

of wood on my lips –

the sound of a wooden club

as it connects to the small head

of a fur seal pup.

Free Will... the next P. poem

Free Will demands punishment:

They hung

me for clumsy crimes

and petty acts

committed unwittingly.

I hung

at wits end;

swung

back and forth

in time

with the rope’s creak.

It did not concern me

to be hung -

coming from a tree

I was used to the feel

of suspension.

I will admit

that hanging there

gave time for thought.

I regretted the hurt

to Geppetto who, (in my imagination)

stood below, his teary eyes raised

as if I

a mysterious sacrifice (in truth

he was not allowed to visit,

the villagers fearing he might take an axe

can cut me down again).

My breath exited,

I found though

that toes

had kept some sort of consistency

with distant roots

while my twitching fingers

returned to being leaves.

I spread out;

soaked in the world

while time

became the preoccupation of those

who hung me.

When they cut me down (again)

I ran to Geppetto’s arms that opened

as if he was a door closed for too long

but finally, seeing the spring sun

had come knocking, let the day back in.

Embraced by those arms, I wept

tears as thick as sap; as into his chest

I promised that I’d do better

if he granted me a second chance.

His aging hands touched my brow

as he smiled, his lips parting,

his yellow teeth appearing like the stamen

displayed by the unfolding flower.

‘Second chances are for the religious,’

He said, ‘for us two, we must make do

accepting our mistakes and returning,

as you have done, to try anew.’

We stood a while…long enough that I feared

we might both take root, become two trees entwined

and lost in a stillness I did not wish to return to.

I moved apart and said with a smile, ‘anyway Papa,

it is good to be back.’

We laughed and Geppetto took down my bowl

from the shelf and prepared dinner

and in my head it soon seemed as if I had never left;

had never hung from the scaffold tree

and so took another step back in the same direction —

not knowing that the past is the best teacher we can have

if we but listen to what it tries to teach us.

Dust to Dust: The next P. poem.

Dust to Dust:

Coming from wood

when he stood, still

as air after a thunderstorm,

his mind dripping - raindrops off leaf

and branch - memory and thoughts,

blue words falling from a mother’s disappointment

so soft the little boy strains to hear

and in the effort remembers the lesson.

Coming from wood

when he stood, feet,

hidden in a darkness

where air lives in pockets - forever trapped

in the desire

to remerge with each other. Toes

set into the soil,

roots that seep in dirt’s sea of  earthly secrets

to steal riches, carry

them towards the light

and offer them to the sun.

Coming from wood

when he stood, eyes

closed so the world dissolved

into scents and smells and the sunshine caressed

and the damp earth nourished,

he felt himself spread out large and thin -

a bridesmaid’s veil tossed into the sky

floating flimsy, folding

back upon itself, in the air

transparent and free.

Eventually he must land

but in those moments

when he let himself go

for seconds or minutes he felt his leaves

and his wind-chime heart

tinkled back at the world.

Pinocchio poems continue...

Construction:

There are quiet days when I sit

in a room's comforting corner,

study moving joints that permit

knee, ankle, thumb and finger.

The leap for a cell to acquire

complex structure is almost enough

to make me believe but desire

and truth are not the same language.

Next Pinocchio Poem.

Pinocchio’s eyes 

Twin opals, hard black cores

that have waded through the wooden years 

when time fell in drops that dripped, 

slow as honey, 

off Geppetto’s tarnished silver spoon. 

Undisclosed, in the darkness between 

the two shapes of tree, the amber eyes waited. 

Geppetto’s blade, urgent as a lover’s thigh, 

slid between bark’s exposed ripples 

and the soft, tender wood of secret desire, 

licked the two hard shells of resin  

formed over two small woodpecker wounds

that had captured two lost flies that flew 

in with an insect’s hungry curiosity eons ago.

Geppetto plucked them free of the tree,

gently shaped them, took an oiled rag and

polished them so the amber shone and the black specks

of what once flew began to drink in the light,

and placed them back

into the newly shaved head of me.

These eyes see everything at the speed 

of an insect; a flood of the senses 

condemned by the choice 

the savage, armoured warriors of the micro-world

made when they selected tubes 

over lungs and themselves condemned 

to a fleeting, Achillean existence.

These eyes force time to gush like water 

forced out of a hose, body pushed 

and pulled, a puppet dancing 

at the String Master’s whim - to combat 

the constant sensual attack 

mind must concentrate on a single point 

and leave the larger flow of life 

to other forces. 

These eyes are not gentle,

do not guide towards the light,

are blind to the magic of just being.

These eyes, formed by greed,

remain trapped in that act of need,

seek not to see but to feast.