In search of parchment, indelibilityExcerpt from Meteors, a collection of poetryby Robert René GalvánGRAFFITI Take this glowing script As a burnt offering Of chrism from my brow. Midnight oil consumed By the greedy darkness, When my wick grows dim And words become a relief Of amoebic spectres On the wall. We are the same, A whimsy of dancing hands, Indigo faces in search Of parchment, Indelibility: The stealth of youths And the stench of sprayed Rebellion in the trainyard, A lover's vow scratched in oak, Or in wet cement, The bathroom bard, Granite elegies, Scars of melody on vinyl, Frozen images on celluloid, And shadows made fast on wafers Of dead tree. My own strokes are engulfed By solitude, Like footprints on the moon. They are faint adumbrations, A sack of spores Waiting to be strewn From the folds Of paper birds. An earlier version of "GRAFFITI" appeared in Sands. LA PARTERA My grandmother's raisined hands Guide a new life through the meniscus of sleep and into the blinding day. This has been her ritual for fifty years: The phone rings -- The metallic music of her black bag Answers back as she flies to a neighbor's house. She prepares her fingers in boiled water As if to coax sweetness out of those dried figs And waits for the mother to blossom. But this one's a breach, Poised as if trying to break his fall, feet first. Calmly, she finds the baby's mouth With her finger; He bares down to suckle And she turns him toward the light. Age and aches have not dissuaded her For her room is filled With reminders of her faith: A statue of La Virgen, Bottles of holy water Among brittle blades of palm, And countless gift rosaries That grace the bedposts; She caresses each pearl And prays for stronger hands. MEMORIAL for Woody McGriff, dancer 1957-94 The blood-dimmed tide is loosed.... -- W.B. Yeats An obsidian wing glanced my shoulder Amid the languid trance of cicadas Seething in the midday heat. It fluttered like an errant leaf And summoned the splendor of your dance, Flight frozen like a Rodin bronze, Fixed by a flash of incorruptible light. But the heavy tide drew you under, The once supple leaps reduced To a lumber toward a distant sea. Robert René Galván, born in San Antonio, resides in New York City where he works as a professional musician and poet. His last collection of poems is entitled, Meteors, published by Lux Nova Press. His poetry was recently featured in Adelaide Literary Magazine, Azahares Literary Magazine, Gyroscope, Hawaii Review, Newtown Review, Panoply, Stillwater Review, West Texas Literary Review, and the Winter 2018 issue of UU World. He is a Shortlist Winner Nominee in the 2018 Adelaide Literary Award for Best Poem. Recently, his poems are featured in Puro ChicanX Writers of the 21st Century. He was educated at Texas State University, SUNY Stony Brook and the University of Texas.
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