Nicholas Power

looking at his coffee cup by the window at Central Billiards
he is thinking of Mayan blue
surviving fifteen hundred years after the firing of the clay
he likes the way the light comes in to where he is sitting
the waitress is kind and the few other regulars don’t bother him
his serious gaunt face and worn plaid shirt are familiar
but no one recognizes him here
an artist seated at the centre of the universe
entering words into the codex
natural and supernatural worlds surround him
as he opens the symbolic portal to the spirit world
his job is to maintain the cosmic balance
to record the cosmological myths
he will perform all the necessary rituals
he will assert the community’s beliefs
the doors to creation are open
the ways of sunlight are loosened

looking through the backdoor screen at the neighbourhood laid out
familiar subject matter under the painter’s grid
becoming objects in perspective
each particular element tree leaves on tree
fence line particular board
studied in detail small squares separately framing just enough to write about
seeing through structures
that disappear at a deeper focal distance

thick paint blocks the left side of the composition
torn edges of tissue and triangles
and golden tangents to circumferences
horizons tree trunks fresh grass
and gaps and diagonals and vertices
and black and green and that white area
in the bottom right corner of the canvas
where the painting looks unfinished
the wheel’s still turning
spinning out lines that extend beyond the frame
something sprouts from the split shape
in the greenest part of the picture
light from the distant horizon catches a thin thread of desire

walking at night in the woods
between my childhood home and the river
fully awake and wondering in a dream both strange and familiar
particular trees reach out like lovers
breathing in their distinct rhythms
rough skins pulsating with heat
colours of their chemicals glowing with
rich greens and deep blues
druidic mysteries and radio waves
I am drawn by their yearning
their knowing and their intimacy
a filament sprouts from my hip to the nearest tree shimmering transparent
trembling with desire I am rooted in the same ground

Prologue
after a film of Michel Nedjar’s opening in Paris of Poupées de Lumière

entering the gallery
naked in hands and feet
we are ghosts of absent colour

feeling our way
without guile or voice
through affinities of air and light

if we could speak
with more than slow-motion limbs
the message would be our own gentle presence

we dance imagos
willingly held before you
our dances doing more than mirrors

these objects are part of us
the silence of these objects our silences
the muteness of these masks must be our voices

we stand within our creations
their brute beauties one with our own
what shadowy beauties dance in your back streets?

Proprioception

i want to explain
how neutrinos glide through our bodies
as we talk,
how the invisible life of the universe
slips through us constantly,
sliding by like moonlight at mid-day,
atomic memories as elusive as forgotten dreams
unfolding in the empty gallery of space

between the particles of my self
there is room for you
to pull up an odd-shaped chair
there is unlimited space
amid my spinning selves
i am trembling as i speak,
cells murmur,
behind me there are voices
a whole city in the brain

a door opens and
people walk through
unaware they are in a poem
this poem desires to sit with each one of you
each one taking the synaptic leap of faith
arriving in many places at the same time

this poem is a body with its own awareness
the mind of this poem knows itself
in each word, each phrase, each incomplete sentence
this poem wants to describe
the relationship between two unknowns
by talking about the changes
that curve between them

dragonflies rise
unbottled
blue

swallows skim

a fish
curves under

distinct conversation
on the uncertain surface

not the autumn wind
not the occasional kind
not the coy chinook
not the hurricane force wind
the wind that summons poetry

one small word frees you
nameless fish in nameless stream
you’re not a flower
your god’s gone from the canyon
nature signifies nothing

know the nature of water
Niagara is made of joy
it can be your cure
but come too close
you’re swept into nothingness

Nicholas Power

We trace the shadows, like Keats, with chance’s hand,

Love both what’s missing and what’s at our feet;

Poised on our toes we, for a moment, stand,

Not rushing our brushstrokes, not in retreat;

Drawing mysteries but not on demand,

Our truncated poems find their own feet.

The dance is unfinished, not incomplete.

Nicholas Power

We’re not in Brazil here
beneath the green crowns of trees
and the endless blue of the sky
it’s a summer night in Toronto
still holding traces of sunset in its thin clouds
and this most benign of crowds
picnicking on the grass
waits for the dusk
with light in our faces

We are here for the capoeira
the dance of love, a fight to music
and while you take your turn on the drum
I am the first to dance
my arms flung wide, ready to lose everything

We were baptized in rain
and gave ourselves new names
we practiced in secret
among trees we will never forget
now we take on the bodies of dragonflies
and the strategies of grounded birds

We are here to play, knowing this is not a game
when you leap up high, I move in close to the ground
we feint, we dodge, we deke, we lunge
your foot sweeps low, I leap and kick
when you cartwheel and fake, I handstand and spin

we improvise to our own music within the circle of dancers
showing our moves without hurting anyone
shifting from light-hearted play to songs of lost love
both imagining what the other will do
trusting that this is not a trick
you lean in and I don’t turn away
you jump in quickly
while I dance to a slower beat
we dance apart together
creating an illusion
that everyone
falls into

Nicholas Power

if you want to be like those glamour girls
in 1940s photoplays
show up at the club
in a perfect black dress
wearing a snap brim hat
like the singer in the house band
kick off your shoes
and dance like you’re drunk

don’t get up on the table
you know you’ll fall
never look natural
be all showgirl

do everything you can
to keep yourself lovely
we all need you to shine

you’ve already won the beauty contest
you’re everyone’s dream girl
you’ve got a free ticket

you came glimmering in
it’s your exit that’s dark
and where’re your shoes?

you dance off-balance
but enough men stand by
one of them will catch you

every one of them worries
how you’ll get home
your soul “burning with desire
for charm and beauty”
and a boyfriend who’ll find your shoes

this doesn’t have to end in tragedy
this is a club in Toronto
not a back alley of Hollywood
it’s not even midnight
how wonderful you’re here
dizzy from dancing
still able to smile

they’re all thinking you’re they’re baby
they’re all thinking you’re the one
but they don’t know Susie
the way I know Susie
I know Susie doesn’t know Susie

It’s wonderful to be the perfect woman
but I know that you’re more beautiful
without the persona

I can tell from the pictures
you’re not really there
they turn out more clearly
when I look at the negatives

you yearn for memories that flash and burn
you hint darkly of strange companions
you have a schoolgirl complexion
and a grown woman’s complications
you may still be here in the flesh
but you’ve already made a fresh start
somewhere else
a secondary detour with someone else
the naïve guy still waiting in the wings
the prince charming who’ll find your shoes
it doesn’t take much plot
when there’s a femme fatale
at the centre of her own story
I’ve read the book
and I still want to dance with you
you’re the opposite of Cinderella
you take your shoes off to swing
if I hold you tight enough
maybe I’ll cure what ails you
but for now
flattery is what matters
you want a man to hold you up
someone who agrees with your skin
and the shape of the dress you’re in

you imagine yourself in a movie
“the beautiful slave girl
in the lovely misery
of surrender”
this way you’ll be his forever

You’re like Marilyn Monroe in Niagara
we’re always aware of water
rushing over the falls
and despite the scenery
we spend all our time in a haunted house

something is cracked and broken
there might be ‘yes, yes’ in your eyes
but all I hear is No! No!
like some girl in need of rescue
but your cry for help is just part the show
there are no simple joys in your future
and none of us have 3-D glasses

I want something superfluous safely removed
I want to rinse out irony
wash away artfulness
rinse glamour, rinse vanity, rinse void
rinse alcohol, rinse tobacco, rinse guilt
rinse away your mother, rinse expectations

“any talking machine will reproduce noise
but the charm of sound” comes
only from your own breath

shake off the tight corset
on the showgirl figure
you’re fully developed
in your natural shape

I’m not just throwing you a lifebuoy
some new kind of soap
I’m not offering you the Keeley Cure
Or Wonderland

I don’t want a rendezvous
at the Cactus Motel
or true romance

just give me
the real intimacy
of a Saturday dance

Nicholas Power

The following are the original poems that formed the basis for;

Get Happy     lindy hop dream theatre performed at The Toronto Fringe Festival in July, 2011  script adapted and directed by Alisha Ruiss and produced by Tricia Postle

rooms
from a line in the mind

He waits inside the house
hunched over his desk
scratching at paper

lays his arm beside the page
and sticks the needle in

They’ve read each other’s work
as if it were their own
written words that the other
has not yet remembered

She listens for a tonal shift
the beat of a new language
he is not yet ready to hear

There is a room in the house
he does not visit
described only in coded messages
set in formal structures

Outside the window
a field of books scattered in the rain

she walks toward the gate
light converging through a prism

He invites her into his study
in the house where every room is empty

you’ll hear her voice
in random words he speaks

He finds himself writing where everyone can see
typing for the whole neighbourhood to hear
bodies press so close
someone else’s fingers strike the keys

She sits down to finish his line
while he gets up to dust the room

She begins a longer poem

He cleans the rest of the house

Their dance continues
rules changing as they play

They consider each other slowly

optic nerves relax

erotic noises calm

They turn to face each other

laughing at their own reflections

bowing to gravity
from Dancing with Gravity

she is half the world when she bends, hair falling to the ground, face obscured

she is a hemisphere mapped in five lines, arching over emptiness, holding nothing

she is a sketch of an idea, the anatomy of a watermark, anonymity on blank paper

she is without choreography, without lights or stage, with only her whispered music

there she was, there she will be: her whole body bowing to gravity, not yet in motion

Elizabeth’s Song

I’ve been hurt enough to write a blues song
but never as deep in the blues as you
an off-duty waitress still at the bar
and me just another guy in the queue

I knew right away that I’d seen your smile
when you served me here before
and we both know the singers who come here to play
and all the words of their heartbreak folklore

and now your sweet mouth is red from drinking
and when I ask you why you just stare
a delicate hand on your tender heart
shy silence lost in a tangle of hair

we’re holding hands but you don’t look at me
I’m warming you with compliments, not flattery
but you look down into your glass of claret
like it’s the last rose from his bouquet

Write Me a Letter

Write me a letter and let me know that you’re with someone else and we’re always going to be good friends and great dance partners – our heads together in the dark with our eyes closed listening to the music we make up ourselves; remind me that when we’re together our worlds overlap like wonderfully round and full circles in a Venn diagram of proximate but not intimate happiness; remind me how we’ve always had a crush on each other and that we always will; remind me that that is what makes our friendship hum in it’s own time and space; make this clear to me so that I don’t fall, so I can stay on this broad plateau of joy and amazement that I could be so lucky, to be so happy-go-lucky when I’m with you; remind me not to fall over the edge, to stay in this open and sunny and musically live place where I’ve had enough tequila to be intoxicated but not so much that when I kiss you it’s only because you’re so lovable and not because I’m in love; remind me that when we dance behind an old house on Spadina with the car door open so we can hear Bob Dylan singing Beyond the Horizon like we’re in a low-down version of a Gene Kelly/Ann Miller movie that it’s our comedy not a romantic comedy.

The Mirthless Men

There isn’t a straight-man left in Canada.

Everybody’s a comedian
and not a single one is wise.

Where’s a funny-man’s comic foil –
the set-up man whose sly question
makes a stand-up joker look so sharp?

Have we sold out local humour
for the laugh track on some channel
that’s glad to deride a poor man’s hope,
mistaking someone else’s reflex hee-haw
for the redemption of a hard-earned laugh?

In the silent era before spoken word
humour was not on the side of the empire;
it did not stir up our deepest fears without reason.
The screen was black and white but the stories weren’t.
Who will bring the good news from that vaudeville
where humour found good people in their bones?
What a joy for me, what happiness for you,
when an eyebrow raised invokes a smile.

adapted from Psalm #14
from the series momentum

Talkin’ Song

The night travels with you
as you walk
Water running down familiar streets
Cars playing their part
in the dark jazz
Lights reflecting in the rain
like lost notes in the air
You carry the streets with you
Tucked inside your coat
Faraway and right beside you
Lost, then found,
Lost, then found all over again
Pull your coat tighter
Don’t run for the bus
Don’t stop walking
Keep the night right near you
Like an old friend
Like a bad memory
Keep going down the hill
Looking for a lost love
Listening for notes you haven’t heard yet
Keep walking
Deeper into the music

Nicholas Power