Feast - a sonnet

Where nation, having fled tyranny's shore
Meets bitterness again in frozen form
To have a faith that still stirs, barely warm
And sees new worlds are humbled even more

Deeper than leaf-meal on the forest floor
Are secrets kept for those guardians of skin
Who have not peeled the forest back within
But share its shadows briefly before war

Announcing him who represents the least
When blood and gold the summer overtakes
The arrowed geese are shofared over lakes
And woods of mist, witnesses to the feast

The eyes of sky and hands of earth beneath
Hold mercy for each trembling, clinging leaf

October 14, 2014

Wild Geese Are Yodeling

Wild geese are yodeling
On a wind that's in training
To bruise us before long

All the flags are gold and brass
Mists among the fruit and vines
Feign silver before old sun's rebuke

Grant us on a changing world
Peace in skins that flake and peel
To spill and waste to die and feed

10/4/12

Pockets 080304

NW - 12 assorted guitar picks, slide , capo, paper clips

NE - twonie, 3 elk, penny, Kleenex, 2 sets of keys

SE - wallet (no cash) - contents too dishevelled to list

SW - rectangular key, rogue plectrum, gum in foil

4/3/08

copyright 2008 Trevor Haug

Preferring Poetry

One day I'll board a plane

With nothing more

Than verses in my head

And a few under my arm

No guitar to hide in the bulkhead

No amp to rent at the other end

No reverb, delay, effects to tweak

I'll have a comfortable chair

And a short introduction

And polite applause

After every selection

The faithful will trickle in

From surrounding towns

Older ladies who have time for poetry

A child or two and a coughing man

And with these borrowed

Items from other poets -

A crutch of grief

A nostalgic seabreeze

And witty jazz metaphors

I'll hobble and paint

Over someone's despair

With my own carousel tones

And sad eyes

While outside

The cars will wait

In the Spring mud

8/3/08

copyright 2008 Trevor Haug

Cien Poetas Mexicanas

I have invited

100 Mexican poets

into my bedroom

I shake them alive

like dusty puppets

who need forearms for spines

and fists for brains

My Spanish is lacking

so their eloquent soliloquies

are full of gaps

like messages from space

disrupted by solar winds

I catch something from Carpio

about the virgin,

a whisper of death from Espino

Lerdo tries to explain light

Solana, a tree

I coax from some

the shadows of sadness;

from others, secrets

buried by time's conquest

Hour after hour

they interupt each other

in an anthology of ruined verse

In the end, leaving me to dream,

they interpret each other's awakenings

Gallardo is in the corner,

head in his folded arms

and Nova is lost

in a volume

of Neruda's love sonnets

Plaza and Rincon

have slipped out

to make quesadillas

While the rest have joined

the moon and the stars,

riding like bandits across the sky

09

copyright 2009 Trevor Haug

Christmas Sonnet

The crowning and the cry - it is begun

Thrust out with groping hands into our world

Turned on His human side, the Son preferred

An ambience of hooves and straw and dung

Soon feeding like a beast upon the breast

He turns milk to His body and His blood

With eloquent witnesses, chewing cud

As passive as the east is to the west

How bright tonight the wide symphonic sky

To stage a spectacle amongst the poor

And draw them to the stable's open door

With lambs in tow, to see, before they die

The Lamb who heals the fault of worlds apart

Sleep comes to His incarnate racing heart

21/12/10

copyright 2010 Trevor Haug

Ironwood Giraffe

I hold in my fist

the neck of a foot-high

ironwood giraffe

I bought in a market 

in Johannesburg

This hard wooden sculpture

reminds me that

I saw no giraffe

while in Africa

though I strained my neck

and squinted against the plane's

tempered double window

and looked upon Senegal

to see only darkness

and a few huts

All the way to Jo'berg,

to Maputo and north

along the coast of Mozambique,

past the swollen Zambezi,

there was no sign

of the prophetic beast

who says very little

but flaps an ear

while exfoliating

a village tree

I saw children close to earth

and mothers bending the knee

and a ragged beggar

sleeping on the beach

and many bare feet

There were homemade boats on the shore

and on the wrong side of the road

worn down diesel trucks

I met mahogany colored people

who raised the palm with "Salaama"

Beneath me, the hard red earth

Above, palms and boabab trees

At eye level, orphans and widows

bright smiles and laughing

music and dancing

I still see large yellow African morning skies

with rainbows at noon

I hear the rhythms of Makua and Makonde tongue

I listen to boys with wares on the beach

who can negotiate with anyone

Then back through small airports

named for national heroes

but never a glimpse

of a noble and cow-eyed

black and orange race of seers

So I hold my ironwood

giraffe by the neck

and plant him on the mantle

so I can see every day

what I have not seen

6/3/08

copyright 2008 Trevor Haug

from "Poems of Africa"