Rochelle Owens: “Everlasting Duration,” in memory of George
In Memory of George
You are sitting down
to a late lunch
in my castle on a hill
while a jazz trio plays
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
and you smell
the scent of roses and feel
my hair growing
on every part of your skin
but not the palms
of my hands or the soles
of your feet
Day One
I am standing
in front of a group of musicians
controlling
the speed of sound
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
saliva pools behind
your teeth sinuous the rhythms
under my skin
your lips move
audible inaudible
and I begin to chant a secret
tribal language
Day Two 2
In a triangle of haze
and smoke I am following
a marching band
appear and disappear
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
spirals of veins pulsate
nerves and tendons drink color
sight smell taste
pale and red your lips
my tongue protrudes
from your mouth and I taste
the rain
Day Three
You are hanging
upside down and side to side
I swing
earth air fire water
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
I am a barley plant
cut down dead white the barley
plant cut down
you are a pouched mammal
attached to a nipple
mother and father crawled
onto the land
Day Four 3
I am flapping
my right hand and your left
hand is balled into a fist
the universe contracts e x p a n d s
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
the smell of saffron
and lilac morning to evening
evening to morning
milk of the mother misery
milk of the father terror
vigilant the babe sucking carnal/
spiritual
Day Five
Through the gaps
of my fingers vibrating subatomic
particles blink in and out
vertical/ horizontal
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
a breast vein
as thick as a finger amorous
the greedy seed
every day bears the data
grain grape bread
and wine your skeletal frame
the limbs spreading apart
Day Six 4
Behind you
a black line appears disappears
a latent image
a wall of brown dust
then suddenly
a chemical reaction
takes place---
a black line curved
like an embrace lay your hand
feel the bones
under my skin
your sculpted pelvis
vertical/ horizontal corkscrews
of white smoke
Day Seven
In the twenty-first century
the here-and-now in the zone
diverging
from a course of events
then suddenly
a chemical reaction takes
place---
a metallic taste on
my tongue I am an old
woman
sipping black tea
you are a little boy
sitting cross-legged under
a dead blue glow
November 13, 2019
First published in Poems and Poetics
A prominent figure in the international avant-garde for 50 years,
Rochelle Owens
is a poet,
playwright, translator, and video artist. She has published over 18 books
of poetry, most recently Hermaphropoetics, Drifting Geometries (2017), Out of Ur: New & Selected Poems 1961-2012 (2013), Solitary Workwoman (2011), and Luca: Discourse on Life and Death (2001).
Owens is the author of a novel, Journey to Purity (2009), and four
collections of plays: Futz and What Came After (1968),The Karl Marx Play and Others(1974), Futz, and Who Do You Want Peire Vidal? (1986), and Plays by Rochelle Owens (2000).