Derrick Buttress

The Building

The exquisite design was perfect:

rooms of many-angled glass set in stainless steel

and suffused with sun-on-snow light,

the atrium shaded by watery plum

over pools cooled by crystals of frost.

Vines clung to interior walls

the colour of old ivory and bone,

a movement of shadow and light played

over leaf and fruit, the space

transformed into perpetual summer.

Not even the voice of the city

could filter through that glass and steel.

Day and night it gave us the gift of silence.

Inside those perfect rooms

there was only the sound of settlement

like a distant scream foundation deep.

Marx By The Sea

On the beach the children grow afaid of the sky

and its thunder, dread the approaching rain.

They follow their father

to the water's corrupted edge,

this grand chorus of humanist sopranos

squealing in the cold shock of their nakedness.

The children laugh and cry for more.

They have never seen the master at play.

How they scream at the fabulous1

How they love to watch him directing the tide!

Now he steps into the sea and the children follow,

swimming towards the promise of islands beyond dreaming

The Forester

walks the forest

in his hands

an axe honed

for cutting down small trees,

branches, the undergrowth

two strokes

and through the space

he makes falls light

air, clouds

and the warm

plump carcases

of featherless birds

A Hymn to Bebop

Blessed are the cats who scat

for they shall make the world to swing.

Gifted are those who tease the reed

for they shall cause the earth to sing

Oooh bop sh' bam

Trust in boppers with lips of brass

who, from midnight unto dawn,

shall triple-tongue the notes that burn

with the hot breath of the horn.

Be-ya ool ya koo

Thank you God for Groovin'High,

for the crazy trumpet, and Dizzy's cool beret.

In Club Paradiso shall we hear the alto of the Bird,

and the changes he plays on Porter's Night and Day?

Ooh bop sh' bam

Be-ya oll ya koo