Liquid canopy descending sky It’s dark inside the storm drain but you took me here. Tongue slow lips open hands lightly under. When I’m eighty no one will crawl with me in a storm drain to hold my breasts while the sky is falling. I lean into corrugated metal. Rust. Age. Wet. My back into all that.
The Palm Trees are Restless. Five Poems of Kate Gale
Song Cycle by Mark Abel (b. 1948)
1. The storm drain  [sung text checked 1 time]
Authorship:
- by Kate Gale , "The storm drain", appears in Echo Light, Red Mountain Press, first published 2014, copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Mark AbelIMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.
2. Los Angeles  [sung text checked 1 time]
Los Angeles people look right through you, see little ghosts with no shape or color. Money gives a body form like a straitjacket holding you against wind, pestilence. You are shadow against dusk. Cream against pale. All colors not cream become sunshine. I have stood in the sill of time counting my days, the cups full of cries and laughter, paint and words, silence and tea equal nothing here. Los Angeles, once a desert glitters green The green holds you up against the sky. Gives you shadow. That shadow casts longing across beaches and highways. As morning opens, you see hands stretching out for a piece. The palm trees are restless. Your silhouette an outline. Light streams across you, you are nothing. You must be thin to cast a shadow. You must drive a cool car. You must have blond highlights. There is no place for silence. I stare in the mirror. Cover my face with my hands. My hands hold my reflection. In the mirror I see nothing.
Authorship:
- by Kate Gale , "Los Angeles", appears in Echo Light, Red Mountain Press, first published 2014, copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Mark AbelIMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.
3. Crater light  [sung text checked 1 time]
The man drinking whiskey sours tells me about his divorce. The problem was his wife, apparently. She would not lie still. Any movement, any distraction caused malfunction. She knew this. She was warned. Yet she moved arms, ears, toes. Stay still, he said. His wife underneath. Said it louder. She froze. The light changed. Moonlight, shadow. I can’t focus, he said. She opened her eyes. Can I watch? Better not, he said. Nothing’s going to happen. Stay still. She knew he was right by the way the moon’s craters seized the light and reflected it back to earth through the window. Unable to create light of their own. Some receptors create. She was sure of this. She stayed still, but he was right, nothing happened. What he tells me? She was warned. He buys me a drink. Hopes my mind will change. But my mind is with his wife in bed watching the moon’s craters.
Authorship:
- by Kate Gale , "Crater light", appears in Echo Light, Red Mountain Press, first published 2014, copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Mark AbelIMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.
4. Shura  [sung text checked 1 time]
It wasn’t a face anymore. A broken thing. Opened wide by time and cavernous washes of memory. Waves of what might have been. The memory where my sister’s face was is empty of light and shadow. Time rushed in leaving stains only of itself. All hollows and blank fields where iridescent sunshine glances off, goes its own way. Search for eyes shining. Nothing. Huge dark spaces. Lips that move randomly around parroted word shapes. A face like leaf shards buried. What used to be alive pieces floating around just under the surface, you see them give way to decay. Used to hold water and sunlight, echo sky even. Now darkness. A face once. Surely a face.
Authorship:
- by Kate Gale , "Shura", appears in Echo Light, Red Mountain Press, first published 2014, copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Mark AbelIMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.
5. The great divorce  [sung text checked 1 time]
You can’t talk to me like this. I told you. Or somebody told you. Somebody ought to have told you. I’ve suffered terribly. I’m fragile. And therefore. You musn’t. No. You don’t see. I’ve had to pick myself up. Hold it all together. I’ve been raped by pretty much every male I’ve ever met. A sort of rape anyway. Something I would characterize as rape. You can’t imagine. You really have no idea. Don’t start. Let me stop you. Let me pour myself a quick shot of Hennessy and stop you. No, I don’t want to go to therapy. Don’t you see? This is who I am. That’s the problem with most people. They don’t actually see you. They see it. This thing you hold in front of your face to keep them out. To keep them from knowing anything they can hold against you, and they will.
Authorship:
- by Kate Gale , "The great divorce", appears in Echo Light, Red Mountain Press, first published 2014, copyright © 2014, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Go to the single-text view
Researcher for this page: Mark AbelIMPORTANT NOTE: The material directly above is protected by copyright and appears here by special permission. If you wish to copy it and distribute it, you must obtain permission or you will be breaking the law. Once you have permission, you must give credit to the author and display the copyright symbol ©. Copyright infringement is a criminal offense under international law.