Monday, June 20, 2011

You stand...



You stand –
Tall among fathers –
legend to my love
my wife –
your daughter –
and for me –
a jealousy and a gift.

Jealous as you speak
day to day
to the ones you love
three daughters
devoted - and proud.

Each a rose
of a different color
bloomed from the same bush
buds picked and
not pruned
wild and beautiful -
each exploded of their own
volition
yet sprung from the same vine –

good stock – fierce
and full of life.

Jealous in a healthy loving way
as sharing love –
and the adventure in life
is knowing that this
beauty comes
from two poles.
                                   
The yin and the yang,
each - I completely adore.

Father – O blessed day
when we give all to the one
that gave us life.

Father – O blessed moment
when we realize that only
in this moment – past
present and now is
all we own in this life.

Father – you have given me
all I could ever dream of –
and in this day –

yours –
we celebrate –

O the gift
Of being
a Father.



For Rod Napier – Father in Law
On Father’s Day – 06.19.2011.
Copyright © Doug Claybourne 2011. All Rights Reserved.





you lay quietly old friend...





You lay quietly
old friend,
under the earth
a continent away – all bone
and spirit – anguished -
part of my history
woven into memory;
Dear departed one,
Ingrid of yesterday,
your sister – you are
Father to no one,
unmarried -
friend to many,
hung up on the rafters
next to your father,
and last seen as your mother
by me
in front of a daytime TV show,
dead in a way - not from alcohol
or suicide like your sister,
but I think,
from loneliness –
or terror.
Not finding in Mexico,
what you were looking for
in California – or elsewhere
and never found.
It was your future,
your passion,
your reason for living that was
somehow lost.
And so – you died
looking -
you gave up – rolled out of bed
early one morning,
naked -
with nothing and no one
next to you that cared.
And now – six months

Or years later,
you lay still as dry bones
buried in an unmarked
grave in Tijuana, Mexico -
old Mexico of memories
where we went together
as young recruits,
to kick up our heels
lose our money
and our virginity
but never our sanity.

My old friend – Andrew
U.S. Marine, soldier of fortunes,
buddy, comrade in arms and peace – I miss you.

The fog rolls in over
Morro Bay and thirty-five years of memories
creep over the marsh to me.
They steal along the lush wetland –
as soft as Sydney’s kisses.
I miss your wide generous smile,
your great boisterous laughter,
your love of beautiful women,
and bass guitars.

The fog and the quiet here
is as thick as death,
while you lay quietly Andrew
death itself -
under the earth –
A world away
all bone and spirit
and wonderful, tearful, sad memories –
a U.S. Marine – we have yet to bring home.










J.E. Dorsey – aka Doug Claybourne - For Andy Bill Brudvig my pal who joined the Marines with me and  joined me in Vietnam in 1968-69. Died August 1, 1999. Revised 06.20.11 Andy Bill Brudvig – Notes 09/10/02 - Copyright © Doug Claybourne 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Monday, June 13, 2011

The Thin Line…inspired by Terrence Malick



I

It is true
I admire the beauty
of a woman’s breasts
rose buds, the sensual curve
to peaked mountains
nipples standing erect
against the open sea.

II

Even searching my memory
back thirty years
to a ship steaming from Japan
across black waters
to tiny Vietnam
I remember well -
nights bursting with stars.

III

Crossing over an ocean
stuffed with adventure
so alive at twenty one -
a witness to our expanding galaxy
above the full horizon -
the breath of a dark angel
on my mouth – then as now.

IV

Sucked out
as the first incoming rockets
crash indiscriminately - killing
into our compound -
fathers, brothers and sons
I am lifted out of my bed by concussion
twisted pure and brutal.

V

That first image
of death draws me back -
like a single flower in a vast field
alone with the wind
blowing, moving – then still again
stem bent
by invisible fingers.

VI

There was that moment
of recognition -
as a startled quail bolts -
then drops, shot from the blue sky,
breast heavy with pellets
life slipping away
before our eyes.

VII

It was moving
as your vision
of sweeping blades of grass
covering the round
bosomed hills streaming bullets
of dark red blood
into boys running
on their death day.

O tears, I lay waiting
for that hot smothering kiss
to be born again
and in that last breath
of blood and metal and mud
there is smoke -
and a fire burning.

VIII

My love -
you were there with me -
in the heat of my heart,
and the night - sharing my loneliness
terrified of death and his messenger
coming in nightmares
haunting my bones.

IX

This confession is mine.
I am the one
who comes crying -
tears in my eyes,
with the hope of experiencing miracles
I am singing my country tis of thee
sweet land of lost legs and arms.


X

There is a silence
when death stops bleeding
it is in my heart -
there is a desperation
floating in the mist
with a lost friend
laughing - in one’s memory.

XI

Your ancient alligator has
washed up from some silent river.
What do his eyes see?
I have misplaced the desire
to hold her,
to be held.
in her arms.

XII

I receive your mother’s letter
there is a sad relief - yet
a deep unbearable sorrow.
I still see her face, happy, laughing -
the little grin, the wrinkles tend,
to go away from us
with his baby - and your broken promises.

XIII

There is no anger,
not this far from the truth.
I shiver momentarily, feeling the rain -
the monsoons of Chu Lai,
fall on thin tin metal roofs -
on beer cans and rough canvas.
The smell of shit burning is in my nose.

XIV

O my soul,
you are drifting
and my memory is melting away
I am seeing you again
with closed eyes and
the once soft cheeks -
death is the mystery
that finally brings us together,

all strangers – all lovers.



J.E. Dorsey – aka Doug Claybourne

Copyright © Doug Claybourne 1999-2011. All Rights Reserved.

For Terrence Malick after watching his film, The Thin Red Line
On the 2 nd viewing and for Polly Platt on her birthday 01.29.99

J.E. Dorsey was a violin maker in Houston, Texas and the grandfather of Doug Claybourne. The pen name keeps his grandfather alive in Claybourne’s heart.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

time..


How much time
am I allowed
to finish a poem
that bring tears, empathy
and understanding
to a world
desperate for joy,
love and kisses.

Past nor future speaks -
we all sit
quietly
side my side
I writing
in the present –
absorbing the heat
watching
listening
feeling.








J.E. Dorsey - for DRC & SLC

Copyright © Doug Claybourne 2011. All Rights Reserved.

a certain embrace...

They stand smiling

at the 42nd Street station
the couple
touching –
very close
yet
not kissing –
together – joined
in a certain embrace
love – I call it.















J.E. Dorsey – for L.D.
Copyright © Doug Claybourne 2011. All Rights Reserved.
 

the bees...



Today is the day

the bees gather
to share their kisses
with the wind
and the blooming trees.

I watch them
from my window
as summer arrives
with falling lilac blossoms.

I listen to a thousand wings flutter
set letters to this page -
spend the day with words
ideas and this moment
in a glorious epiphany.







J.E. Dorsey – for John D.

Copyright © Doug Claybourne 2011. All Rights Reserved.