~ Tony Vaughan Poetry ~

 

A QUICK REGARD CONCERNING FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA'S THE DUENDE: THEORY AND DIVERTISSEMENT
(1930)

The Duende of Lorca is a force in the blood. 'A mental air blowing . . . over the heads of the dead, seeking new landscape.' When the blood stops, the Duende continues, a force, ready to appropriate new form. A poetry does when it enters a language. A new color suddenly occupies a field of absence. Lorca writes: 'In every country death comes a a finality . . . it comes and the curtain goes down. But not in Spain. In Spain the curtain goes up.' But Duende is not to be confused with a poet's muse, or a guardian angel. Writes Lorca: 'So much for the Duende; but I would not have you confuse the Duende with the theological demon . . . The Catholic Devil . . . or the talking monkey . . . the arrival of the Duende always presupposes a radical change in all forms as they exist on the old plane. Angel or Muse escape in the violin or in the musical measure, but the Duende draws blood. With Duemde there is always the certainly of being loved and understood.' .... Tony Vaughan.

SAN FRANCISCO

Silver dollar-sized tables
-- hold them between
      your knees.
      Pink lights.
      Two trumpets
& two sets of drummers.
   Booooooowang     !    The

          bass
         swims in the sound.
         Fish fish diving
         into deep emerald
              music
                 under the sea

             electric
             boomerang

                               jaz  z    z        z                z

 © Tony Vaughan

 

---

THE WIDENING CIRCLE

"You didn't come into this world. you came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.
You are not A stranger here." Alan Watts

In the tunnel
    between being
    and nonbeing
     there is
    a steel
     door. Go

        through it
      passed a frozen
      waterfall
     to a garden
   of buried soldiers.

   Pick only the narcissus
       flower,
turn west
  and go into a
      free fall.

You are rebuilding
the world
  as it wants
   to happen.

    Justice
       and equal rights
 for all conscious

    phenomena.

Beauty is the left hand of life.

Remember:
    it is summer.
    You are standing
    by a well
    at night.
 Three stars
 glimmer from the water below.

At the electrifying
 moment
you are kissed
    by a woman you
     once knew,
or a man,
the answer is even

     closer..

Learn to recognize
every point of balance
    by accident.
  Jazz has always
  changed the world.

The wide
  highway
leads
to brooding mtns.

Turn away
not when the
  dead man sings

but when
the stairs going up
  never end.

You are a body
and you can
run
through houses
if you are happy
  enough.

Planet earth
is a mind
you can speak

if you have wisdom
and courage
         enough.

You raise
the winged hoof
of your heart

& gaze into
the forest
with deer
eyes. Yes.

The miracle
is this.
And you are
standing in it.

© Tony Vaughan

8/31/98

 

---

NARROW MARGINS

Rolling the sky like a blue sheet
of paper into your typewriter.
Your consciousness is
where the sun is --
so brilliant
it can burn a hole in
the paper. That is --
but you've learned to filter
out the heat.
The goal of time
is to become nothing.
But nothing doesn't happen --
it can only be invented.
The horizon line is a wish,
a gesture.

Tap tap tap tap tap. Words on paper.
A thousand birds in the sky.
Then the lightbulb
goes out in your tiny room.
You smolder like an enemy,
dreaming up revenge.
With eleven cents
to your name
all you can do
is keep
on typing
in the dark.

©Tony Vaughan

found in AWAA-TE A literary Arts Publication,
Editor design: Bob Booker
Asst. Editor; Vince Storti
-copyright 1998

---

SUMMER IN A TENDER WAY

          First the
              good weather,
then the "hello"
'Goodbye."

Larkspur among
creaking trees.
Your compassion
for others
              equals your
            compassion for
              yourself
       is as true
       as the golden
                             rule is
                                         wise.
The sound of a broken bell,
 backyard dandelion, ants
   chirp, chirp

"Lintinicular timing" in the crush of molecules
                                         dark blue ocean air
                             nobody can see...
in white light
of early June & secret green...

is a welcome place when the breathing begins,
     when the 5 songs
    you know by heart
    are no longer enough
  and
in the middle of
   "for better or worse"

this summer will be
                                      tender
                                                       in a different way.
©Tony Vaughan
from Eavesdropping on the Muse, Mission and North Beach Poets
published by Luna's Press 2000

 

---

NO PEACE WITHOUT JUSTICE
"True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice."... Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the real book of justice punishment is very rare. But everybody has the opportunity to eat well, be loved and learn. Freedom demands choices. But the greatest freedom is consciousness itself. The wisdom of justice is the providence of all in a community, reaching from circle to circle, though authentic participation. Justice does not break hands, whip, hurt or impoverish. Justice mediates, balances, restores. There is no peace without justice. No justice without wisdom. No wisdom without consciousness. Wake up and take on the outrage. The real force of justice depends on the human heart being open & to feel every experience that goes with it. There is no justice without the accountability love makes. © Tony Vaughan top

Painting © Tony Vaughan   Butterfly © Tony Vaughan

selections from NO EMERGENCY PARKING by Tony Vaughan

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