The Colonel's ghost sinks toward the ocean floor | Joseph Ceravolo: Hidden Bird

.

Untitled [Av. Paulista, Sao Paolo]: photo by Vitor Damasio, 25 May 2018

 Untitled [Av. Paulista, Sao Paolo]: photo by Vitor Damasio, 25 May 2018

 Untitled [Av. Paulista, Sao Paolo]: photo by Vitor Damasio, 25 May 2018

 Untitled: photo by Maria Kappatou, 11 February 2018

 New York, 2016 / 2893 | Midtown Manhattan: photo by dirtyharrry, 23 May 2018

 Crete, 2018  / scan 2335 | dirty diary: photo by dirtyharrry, 22 May 2018

 LA: photo by Missy Prince, 19 April 2017

 KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018

 

 KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018

 

 KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018

It seemed so easy

all those years   

                                    the rays

slicing through the currents

you'd order

wait a bit quietly in the shallows

and done

you could breathe again

 arms pressed tight to your sides

then things changed

with the great calcification

you'd turn to stone

down down down you'd sink

plummeting to the bottom

 

Untitled: photo by Pierre Donadeo, 18 August 2014
 

_DSF4222 [Paris]: photo by Pierre Wayser, 26 July 2013

It seemed so easy

all those years   

                                    the rays

slicing through the currents

you'd order

wait a bit quietly in the shallows

and done

you could breathe again

 arms pressed tight to your sides

then things changed

with the great calcification

you'd turn to stone

down down down you'd sink
arms pressed tight to your sides

plummeting to the bottom

 moscow2018: photo by Emil Gataullin, 18 May 2018

 Untitled: photo by Alexei Yuriev, 6 May 2018

 Untitled: photo by Alexei Yuriev, 6 May 2018

 Untitled: photo by Alexei Yuriev, 6 May 2018

Yellow Saree [Kolkata]: photo by Bryce Watanasoponwong, 10 April 2018

 

 Mumbai (2018): photo by Suresh Naganathan, 7 April 2018

 Mumbai (2018): photo by Suresh Naganathan, 7 April 2018

 Mumbai (2018): photo by Suresh Naganathan, 7 April 2018

 I prefer feeling l̶o̶v̶e̶d̶ understood. | (Playing around with some of my pictures): photo by Sven Laurent, 8 May 2018

Untitled [Havana, Cuba]: photo by Gustavo MInas, 7 January 2018

Untitled [Havana, Cuba]: photo by Gustavo MInas, 7 January 2018

Untitled [Havana, Cuba]: photo by Gustavo MInas, 7 January 2018

 

The quiet of a storm: photo by Nico Ferrara, 9  May 2018

 Joseph Ceravolo: Hidden Bird
     June 13, 1985   

Song birds enter the morning
the pre-dawn before the fires,
you know, when the night floats away
like vapor on a lake,
or like kisses in the woods.
Songs that even creation
might not remember.
 
Continuous, threaded, as if
a cherry pit were stuck
in the throat
to produce the trumpet of the branches.
So varies, yet never, changing
through all the days, since
reptiles fell to earth.
 
I give up the reason for the sound
I give up the creature of sound
and the creator of the creatures
and of us and of dawn and
air and of vacuum
and human inhumanity.
I give up the song.
I give up the place

Joseph Ceravolo (1934-1988): Hidden Bird (June 13, 1985), from  Collected Poems (2012)

Untitled [Tiber, Rome]: photo by Pierre Donadeo, 2 January 2015

 

Untitled [Tiber, Rome]: photo by Pierre Donadeo, 2 January 2015
  
Untitled [Tiber, Rome]: photo by Pierre Donadeo, 2 January 2015

The Colonel's ghost sinks toward the ocean floor

It seemed so easy
all those years
slicing through the currents

you'd order
wait a bit quietly in the shallows
and done

you could breathe again

then things changed
with the great calcification
you'd turn to stone

down down down you'd sink
plummeting to the bottom 
arms pressed tight to your sides

Untitled: photo by Pierre Donadeo, 18 August 2014

KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018

KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018

KFC, Komachi, Kamakura, Apr 2018: photo by Shin Noguchi, 24 April 2018