3 Poems by Jonathan Heidenreich
Between Trails
Tread me
into warp wood
and the honey strum
of a hill wind
Green kissing gold
falling
in a folk dance
Birch root
Bedfellow
Bearded father
Sing me the gift
of waiting
Grant gills to my memory
that thoughts may breach
with creek moss
And touch the promise
of an August
Meadow edge
Milkweed
Myth-mother
Sift me a fire song
sour sweet
from out the blood
of berry meat
The sun is folding in
Now, trace my path
back
in pumpkin skin.
Sipping Ancestry
Between lacquered roots
and whistling lip of a Cairn glass
phantoms
recently un-tombed
rise and writhe
from a dram of Green Gypsy
Miles of Isles
distilled
smoked
oaths from ghost-fires
twined in tar rope
I envy images
Thistle pricks,
bog breath,
fairy brine,
dragon wings and older things
Time before time
Dwelling on unfortunate names
I drum the music of the knuckle bones
And see their eyes as clear as moon silk
Kaiser, Culloden, Kilkenny, Calypso
and someplace where Coats still matter
I had one grandfather
Shoe-horned into a time unkind to
mystery
barely born but bastard-worn
The mimic of memory
has its formula:
germination
veneration
imitation
tracing fault lines with a sun dial
looking beyond
to window faces
fogged, smogged, and smeared
clotted knots in milk-water
paper smiles roll and smolder
Clutching at mercury and make-believe
the rest is invention
For on the other side
there is no other side
I wear a name like coffee stains
obvious and inconvenient
a wardrobe of dead ends, or bell-ends
Let nature return
reaching to the few I remember
like me
with divining rods
tugging at husks that will not tear
only there
raw hands find
we are clay and kennings
Dream-meal
measured whole
ground between a mother’s thumb
and her two sons
Where is inheritance hung?
The doctors say
I have “tall lungs”.
Gallery
My Lady ‘wants a walk’, she says
‘I want the poets grave’
She opens the door for a thousand obscurities,
a thousand he-once-was’s,
a hundred leaning arms,
tens of empty vows,
and a smile
if the sun
stays quiet
I watch my Lady tread
She eats the air of Gods, while others
wheeze on words
Her lips command-
Etruscan pillars stand
I chew skin with the Ancients
In the parlor
she leans on vellum of a Christian calf
and asks
‘Where have they hid the French?’
Eden’s irrigation couldn’t quench the thirst we knew
Leading parched eyes to Gothic alters,
I’ve found an hour to dream in tones
scarlet
leaves a taste like
permanence
My Lady dances with the Revival
And settles into petals
where Impressions leave no less
than themselves
But our day was led astray
by heavy-breathing cataracts
Whistler followed fast
and followed faster
till our song one burden bore-
Modernity
To slither through its mausoleum,
catching shards from fallen spheres,
We lose our taste
for amnesty
Who wouldn’t cringe at an old man’s smile,
to learn your dreams are timed?
To the sea I scream with open eyes
Why must we bleed for constancy?
She brings me back
She breathes the patterns against a broken canvas
My Lady’s eyes
She meets the storm in smirks and whispers
My Lady’s eyes
The reaching walls and wide hours
splinter
to a violent truth
There are no lies in the Baroque
My Lady’s eyes
We leave with our tickets.
Jonathan Heidenreich is a classical actor, director, and Secondary English educator. Jonathan is the founder and executive director of the Pittsburgh Shakespearean theatre co. 'Food for Groundlings. He has been writing poetry for nearly 10 years.