THE BITTER OLEANDER PRESS LIBRARY OF POETRY
NEWEST SELECTED BOOK FOR 2024
DREAMS THE STONES HAVE
by David Chorlton
Born in Austria in 1948, David Chorlton grew up in Manchester, close to rain and the northern English industrial zone. In his early 20s he went to live in Vienna and stayed for seven years before moving to Phoenix with his wife in 1978. In Arizona he has grown ever more fascinated by the desert and its wildlife. Much of his poetry has come to reflect his growing concern for the natural world. He has a poem in BIRDS, an anthology from the British Museum, and is included in ENTANGLEMENTS, New Ecopoetry, from the Scottish Two Ravens Press. His A Field Guide to Fire was part of the Fires of Change exhibition, a collaboration of artists and scientists addressing the role of fire in forest management in the age of climate change. He now lives in Ahwatukee in Phoenix, within easy reach of South Mountain which dominates a 20,000 acre desert park within the city. It is just beyond the back yard and its birds, and opens a meaningful window on nature.
THE FOLLOWING TWO POEMS HAVE BEEN EXCERPTED FROM DAVID CHORLTON'S DREAMS THE STONES HAVE:
(1)
LAND ALIVE
The land isn't empty, it's thinking.
What will it become when
the clouds disappear and rocks take their place?
Where will the roads lead
when they reach the edge of human thought
and turn into philosophy
where the compass needle bends
and points toward itself?
How much history
can a lizard carry on its back
when it moves at the speed of a reflection
that waits for no one?
It’s as dark as dreams in the canyon
where shadows conspire
to climb the red walls
and fly, as questions do when
they outgrow any answers
that would have bound them
to the Earth.
(2)
MEMORY FLIGHT
The mountain’s night breath runs downstream.
There’s no turning back
when a dark wind carries all before it
and wing for wing
it’s a smooth race from the caves
spilling secrets
to the stones and creeks.
Here is silence hurrying beneath
the midnight shadow of the peak.
Rumor has it
they’re headaches flying, but the truth of the night
is that the canyon’s memories
come loose from its slopes to search
for their origins. They are streaming
through time
with nowhere to land.
with nowhere to land.