DEDICATIONS, PLEDGES, COMMITMENTS. For the past. For my own path. For surprises. For mistakes that worked so well. For tomorrow if I'm there. For the next real thing. Then for carrying it all through whatever is necessary. For following the little god who speaks only to me. --William Stafford

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Unfinished Business


The universe lies snugly tucked
inside my head.
Only my private time scale
has been altered, somewhat--
I await the final leap of the tiger.
Under the old paint of all biological
possibilities, morning and noontime

have come and gone into the dark void
around the roots that hold shape and size
and color in focus.
The House that Jack Built
becomes a hall of mirrors, a maze
of horrors. Nightmare Alley,
the beginning of learning

is not spectacular
the way sex is spectacular, for instance,
the way the Fourth-of-July is spectacular.
Still, I dance to this dispassionate drummer.
Restless sticks rap out messages
that define the fall of sparrows,
the toil of lilies,
and all degrees of human contact
from sleep to deepest coma,
to death itself.
And still I have not finished
with the Judas drums,
the death-rattle of breath,
with the random motion of stars
or gulls wings beating on waves.


photo: ozproductions
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5 comments:

Sir James Eric Watkins said...

Hello.

I am James, as you may know. It looks as though I should have check you out long before now.
Please join us in a poetic experience of sights and sounds:
www.promiseoflight.org

pay close attention to the contest that ends midnight the 31st.

~ James

~ James

Anonymous said...

I love "Judas Drums" (I'm a little obsessed with Judas right now - and I also really love sex and the Fourth of July being on equal ground as spectacular events. It's true, and I like it.

Anonymous said...

The more you read this poem the more meaning it seems to acquire. The final leap of the tiger is clearly important(?), and learning - are they linked as i think they are?

tkkerouac said...

very talented!

Ram Krishna Singh said...

Hi: Your divine sparks of poetry refresh the spirit. I liked :"And stukk I have not finished/with the Judas drums". Nice.
Maybe, you too would like to visit my blogs :
http://rksingh.blogspot.com
http://rksinghpoet.blogspot.com
http://profrksingh.blogspot.com
and share yur view on my poetry.
Best wishes
R K Singh

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1. In dreams I am often young and thin with long blond hair. 2. In real life I am no longer young, or thin, or blonde. 3. My back hurts. 4. I hate to sleep alone. (Fortunately I don't have to!) 5. My great grandfather had 2 wives at once. 6. I wish I had more self-discipline. (I was once fired from a teaching position in a private school because they said I was "too unstructured and undisciplined." --Who, me??? Naaaahhh....) 7. I do not blame my parents for this. Once, at a parent-teacher conference, the teacher told me my little boy was "spacey." We ALL are, I told her. The whole fan damily is spacey. She thought I was kidding. I wasn't. 8. I used to travel with a theater reperatory company. My parents weren't happy about this. 9. My mother was afraid that I would run off and paint flowers on my cheeks and live in a commune, and grow vegetables. I once smoked pot. ONE TIME. 10. I don't drink or smoke. (Or swear, much. Well, I drink milk, and water, and orange juice, and stuff. Cocoa. I love Pepsi.) 11. Most of my friends are invisible. 12. I am a poet and a writer. All of my writing on these pages is copyrighted. Borrowing (without acknowledgment) is a sin.