The moon, of course, is always
there -- day moon, but it's still there; behind the clouds but
it's still there.
--Richard Siken
She is going deaf,
one part of growing old,
heavy as a sigh.
It's always there, a dim figure
like the moon, absent at noon
but nevertheless, always there.
At night it lays itself down with her,
runs into the pillowed darkness
under her ear, a ringing of bells
that fills an absence of sound.
It is something from her aging brain, filling
the enormous void, woven like a bright thread
through her sleep, like ripples from
a thrown rock in a pool of water.
Some part of it is music, sometimes
a string quartet playing a high c-sharp,
other times the reedy whine of a clarinet.
Quieted by day, it sinks like the stone ghost
of the moon, meandering at the edges
of light, but still there,
always there.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 16, 2012
God Can Weep
God Can Weep
Because we have opened our mouths
and they are not filled, and we have, from
Grandpa's Dentist, a gorgeous smile, and did not
have to pay twenty thousand dollars for it, and because
we can't afford not to hear, yet our ears
are dull of hearing
we have foresworn ourselves, and by our oaths
have brought death
and because Syrian warplanes leveled
a poor neighborhood, burying scores of people,
among them women and children, under piles
of rubble, a hell was prepared for them,
and the killings took place under a late spring sun,
and the people who tried to remove the bodies
were shot,
all flesh is in his hands, and he will do
as seemeth him good.
And in Mexico, students pondered
their next step, to build
a human fence.
The mountains did not flee before them,
and the rivers turned not from their course,
and the economic recovery is the weakest
since WWII, the consumers are feeble and exhausted,
and their pay checks are shrinking, and they are broke
and nearly homeless, and
Enoch went forth among the people
and cried with a loud voice, and all men
were offended because of him, and said:
there is a strange thing in the land, a wild man
hath come among us
and anti-nuclear critics are crying that executives
on the board that regulates radioactive waste is akin
to having the fox guard the henhouse,
(a wild man hath come among us)! And the Lord
has cursed the land with much heat, and the barrenness
shall go forth forever.
Of course, there is Global Warming, the melting
of icebergs, the rise of oceans, the withering of corn,
and the price tag for wildfires has hit $50M.
Does it matter? Does it matter? Does it matter?
Does any of this matter? Do you have any
of the following symptoms? No Woman
Should Have To Suffer The Way You Do.
Why haven't we been told, generation upon generation?
It came to pass that the God of heaven
looked upon the residue of the people, and
he wept; and shed forth tears as the rain
upon the mountains. Were it possible
to number the particles of the earth, yea,
millions of earths like this, it would not be
a beginning to the number of thy creations
from eternity to eternity. How is it
thou canst weep?
In their son's room, they found a sandwich bag
full of oxycodone and acetaminophen pills. The problem
is now more deadly than car crashes. You can read
all about it in the papers: Our beloved, our dearly beloved
brother, uncle, friend, passed away at his home, died
as a result of being stubborn and "stirring the pot"
for six decades, died, and the garden's been watered,
the lawns are mowed, and dad's gone fishing. His ashes
will be placed in Wise River, Montana, at the flumes.
I have passed life's greatest test and I'm home again,
after a long and valiant struggle....
Enoch knew, and wept, and stretched forth
his arms, and his heart swelled wide
as eternity; and all eternity shook.
There will be a viewing.
Teach your children. Amen.
--Deseret News, August 15, 2012
Moses 6-7
Because we have opened our mouths
and they are not filled, and we have, from
Grandpa's Dentist, a gorgeous smile, and did not
have to pay twenty thousand dollars for it, and because
we can't afford not to hear, yet our ears
are dull of hearing
we have foresworn ourselves, and by our oaths
have brought death
and because Syrian warplanes leveled
a poor neighborhood, burying scores of people,
among them women and children, under piles
of rubble, a hell was prepared for them,
and the killings took place under a late spring sun,
and the people who tried to remove the bodies
were shot,
all flesh is in his hands, and he will do
as seemeth him good.
And in Mexico, students pondered
their next step, to build
a human fence.
The mountains did not flee before them,
and the rivers turned not from their course,
and the economic recovery is the weakest
since WWII, the consumers are feeble and exhausted,
and their pay checks are shrinking, and they are broke
and nearly homeless, and
Enoch went forth among the people
and cried with a loud voice, and all men
were offended because of him, and said:
there is a strange thing in the land, a wild man
hath come among us
and anti-nuclear critics are crying that executives
on the board that regulates radioactive waste is akin
to having the fox guard the henhouse,
(a wild man hath come among us)! And the Lord
has cursed the land with much heat, and the barrenness
shall go forth forever.
Of course, there is Global Warming, the melting
of icebergs, the rise of oceans, the withering of corn,
and the price tag for wildfires has hit $50M.
Does it matter? Does it matter? Does it matter?
Does any of this matter? Do you have any
of the following symptoms? No Woman
Should Have To Suffer The Way You Do.
Why haven't we been told, generation upon generation?
It came to pass that the God of heaven
looked upon the residue of the people, and
he wept; and shed forth tears as the rain
upon the mountains. Were it possible
to number the particles of the earth, yea,
millions of earths like this, it would not be
a beginning to the number of thy creations
from eternity to eternity. How is it
thou canst weep?
In their son's room, they found a sandwich bag
full of oxycodone and acetaminophen pills. The problem
is now more deadly than car crashes. You can read
all about it in the papers: Our beloved, our dearly beloved
brother, uncle, friend, passed away at his home, died
as a result of being stubborn and "stirring the pot"
for six decades, died, and the garden's been watered,
the lawns are mowed, and dad's gone fishing. His ashes
will be placed in Wise River, Montana, at the flumes.
I have passed life's greatest test and I'm home again,
after a long and valiant struggle....
Enoch knew, and wept, and stretched forth
his arms, and his heart swelled wide
as eternity; and all eternity shook.
There will be a viewing.
Teach your children. Amen.
--Deseret News, August 15, 2012
Moses 6-7
Wednesday, August 08, 2012
Be Water
Be Water
I teach my sighs to lengthen into songs,
Yet, like a tree, endure the shift of things.
--Theodore Roethke
Look,
among things invisible
yet seen, water
is but one thing invisible,
but real,
taking the shape
of everything it touches:
cups and pools, barrels, throats,
fishbowls, seabeds....
Look,
you cannot imagine it,
even in sleep, when dreaming
gives a shape and color,
a weight to ghosts
that have not color nor shape
nor any measurable mass
but a mind gone wild.
Look,
can you imagine: what becomes
the field and the tree, yet is neither
field nor tree? What fills the pot
that boils the rice,
yet is neither pot nor grain
is a shape-shifter
that might as easily
itself, take on
the body of the cup,
the blood of the dreamer.
Look,
even science, in all its halls
and universities, measuring velocity,
weighing mass, discerning temperature
(all things as invisible themselves
but real as curiosity or love, as courage,
wind, or breath)
cannot tell how a thing invisible,
of no describable boundaries, remains
itself, unseen as a spirit
in a mirror, assuming the face
of everything.
I teach my sighs to lengthen into songs,
Yet, like a tree, endure the shift of things.
--Theodore Roethke
Look,
among things invisible
yet seen, water
is but one thing invisible,
but real,
taking the shape
of everything it touches:
cups and pools, barrels, throats,
fishbowls, seabeds....
Look,
you cannot imagine it,
even in sleep, when dreaming
gives a shape and color,
a weight to ghosts
that have not color nor shape
nor any measurable mass
but a mind gone wild.
Look,
can you imagine: what becomes
the field and the tree, yet is neither
field nor tree? What fills the pot
that boils the rice,
yet is neither pot nor grain
is a shape-shifter
that might as easily
itself, take on
the body of the cup,
the blood of the dreamer.
Look,
even science, in all its halls
and universities, measuring velocity,
weighing mass, discerning temperature
(all things as invisible themselves
but real as curiosity or love, as courage,
wind, or breath)
cannot tell how a thing invisible,
of no describable boundaries, remains
itself, unseen as a spirit
in a mirror, assuming the face
of everything.
Saturday, August 04, 2012
Sola Gratia,
for I wrote it with disappearing ink,
and afterwards
I could not read what I had written.
And it was as if a great cloud
had drifted over the place
where you laid me,
and the skin from my body
flew like flags
from your fingertips,
for this is what I remember
as if it happened yesterday.
This is what I remember:
that gravity is a sad thing, a thing
that is always holding other things down,
is a cloud that drifts
both inside and outside our brains
like thoughts, that might be
real, until you think to observe them,
and they disappear at once,
and at once the Word
that is God begins to appear
and disappear like something else
that might be real.
Sola gratia.
Sola gratia.
We bathe ourselves in Holy Water
and it becomes our flesh, we drink of it
and it becomes our blood.
2
Once we were sparks
blown apart
by a tornado, a solar cyclone
of smoke and ashes,
the stardust of our own creation,
and every wave of every particle
that we are remains in this world
forever, and those electromagnetically
charged particles, every vibration
will go on forever
(but which may, in fact,
be as near to us as
our own skin).
We crave forgiveness as if it were a drug, we
need to be fixed,
like old bicycles or broken lawnmowers,
mi perdoni, mi perdoni, mi perdoni,
all of us falling like dominoes,
men, trees, and animals, all
swallowed down the Black Throat
at the center of every galaxy
to become, ultimately, angels,
each in our own light
stored in tiny coded Planckian bits
of precisely coded information
waiting on the boundaries of grace
to be reconstructed
as stars, planets, and people.
I think I remember now
that what I wrote was a prayer,
or something like a prayer:
mi benedicta,
for we are risen, and rising,
and whole again, risen from the abyssal
plains and muddy sea beds
like Phoenix, the salt of the earth
clinging to our wet backs
and shining.
and afterwards
I could not read what I had written.
And it was as if a great cloud
had drifted over the place
where you laid me,
and the skin from my body
flew like flags
from your fingertips,
for this is what I remember
as if it happened yesterday.
This is what I remember:
that gravity is a sad thing, a thing
that is always holding other things down,
is a cloud that drifts
both inside and outside our brains
like thoughts, that might be
real, until you think to observe them,
and they disappear at once,
and at once the Word
that is God begins to appear
and disappear like something else
that might be real.
Sola gratia.
Sola gratia.
We bathe ourselves in Holy Water
and it becomes our flesh, we drink of it
and it becomes our blood.
2
Once we were sparks
blown apart
by a tornado, a solar cyclone
of smoke and ashes,
the stardust of our own creation,
and every wave of every particle
that we are remains in this world
forever, and those electromagnetically
charged particles, every vibration
will go on forever
(but which may, in fact,
be as near to us as
our own skin).
We crave forgiveness as if it were a drug, we
need to be fixed,
like old bicycles or broken lawnmowers,
mi perdoni, mi perdoni, mi perdoni,
all of us falling like dominoes,
men, trees, and animals, all
swallowed down the Black Throat
at the center of every galaxy
to become, ultimately, angels,
each in our own light
stored in tiny coded Planckian bits
of precisely coded information
waiting on the boundaries of grace
to be reconstructed
as stars, planets, and people.
I think I remember now
that what I wrote was a prayer,
or something like a prayer:
mi benedicta,
for we are risen, and rising,
and whole again, risen from the abyssal
plains and muddy sea beds
like Phoenix, the salt of the earth
clinging to our wet backs
and shining.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Finding Grace at Waikiki
Male and female,
a rib, a little dust.
I almost can not tell
the sound of your sleeping breath
from the sound the surf makes,
wave upon wave, outside our door.
A rib, a little dust, a lone gull on the beach,
and I know again, as i have known before,
that this bird and every bird
will someday lay his feathers down
in some secret place, as will
the beachcomber who every morning
greets the sun with thanks, lay down
his rubber sandals, leaving
his ephemeral footprints on the shore,
as will the Ohio banker sipping coffee
by the pool, and the little Japanese girls,
who with joyful cries, chase the gull to flight:
every single one of us now breathing
in and out this fine salt air
of early morning
someday will lay ourselves down
in our own secret place.
7-2012
a rib, a little dust.
I almost can not tell
the sound of your sleeping breath
from the sound the surf makes,
wave upon wave, outside our door.
A rib, a little dust, a lone gull on the beach,
and I know again, as i have known before,
that this bird and every bird
will someday lay his feathers down
in some secret place, as will
the beachcomber who every morning
greets the sun with thanks, lay down
his rubber sandals, leaving
his ephemeral footprints on the shore,
as will the Ohio banker sipping coffee
by the pool, and the little Japanese girls,
who with joyful cries, chase the gull to flight:
every single one of us now breathing
in and out this fine salt air
of early morning
someday will lay ourselves down
in our own secret place.
7-2012
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Night Traveler
Night Traveler
Something happens that
unravels me from myself, unties me,
sets me free. I do not, in fact,
sleep. I fly.
REM is absent, my brain alert.
My dream body lifts, and falls
with each breath.
Inhale. Exhale.
Beneath me in darkening pastures
flatulent cows chew and belch and fart.
Highways flow with automobile lights rushing
like red and white cells through arteries.
I fly over the rooftops of cities, I leave
this world I love behind. I fly
until there is nothing but air.
Inhale. Exhale.
When the sun has set, stars appear
on my left and on my right, above me,
below me, and I pass a boundary.
On the other side, I am the only thing moving,
and the sun is just another star.
Something happens that
unravels me from myself, unties me,
sets me free. I do not, in fact,
sleep. I fly.
REM is absent, my brain alert.
My dream body lifts, and falls
with each breath.
Inhale. Exhale.
Beneath me in darkening pastures
flatulent cows chew and belch and fart.
Highways flow with automobile lights rushing
like red and white cells through arteries.
I fly over the rooftops of cities, I leave
this world I love behind. I fly
until there is nothing but air.
Inhale. Exhale.
When the sun has set, stars appear
on my left and on my right, above me,
below me, and I pass a boundary.
On the other side, I am the only thing moving,
and the sun is just another star.
One Story
One Story
In our bed
my old cat purrs softly
in the bend of my body,
the sound coming
from some plaintive internal tunnel.
Her eyes are cancers.
They have shaved her to the skin.
Her sad pink body gives off
a kind of light.
She shudders with the explosions
of her own sound, claws working,
heart beating. The wave of it
climbs and then plunges her
into cat-dreams.
In the white shimmer
of early morning we sleep,
my cat and I,
our heads together, filled
with winged things:
slow, incautious sparrows,
cabbage white moths,
and archangels.
This is one story.
I hate knowing the ending.
In our bed
my old cat purrs softly
in the bend of my body,
the sound coming
from some plaintive internal tunnel.
Her eyes are cancers.
They have shaved her to the skin.
Her sad pink body gives off
a kind of light.
She shudders with the explosions
of her own sound, claws working,
heart beating. The wave of it
climbs and then plunges her
into cat-dreams.
In the white shimmer
of early morning we sleep,
my cat and I,
our heads together, filled
with winged things:
slow, incautious sparrows,
cabbage white moths,
and archangels.
This is one story.
I hate knowing the ending.
Friday, June 08, 2012
Stone
Stone
My stone
Sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its mossy back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of bare feet
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
My stone knows my name
Understands cemeteries
Knows grief
Talks to God
My stone
Sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its mossy back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of bare feet
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
My stone knows my name
Understands cemeteries
Knows grief
Talks to God
Genesis
Genesis
1
I am from light, yes, a spark
from the Great Intelligent Light
that set the universe afire,
from love, both spirit and matter, yes,
and from the green living body
of the earth: oceans and saltgrass,
rain and roots. I am from amoeba,
invertebrate to vertebrate,
from Lucy.
2
I am from Ephraim, from ancient Celts
breathing haze rising from peat bogs.
I am from tassled cornfields in Cornwall.
from the fires and peppered spices
of Spain, from El Cid.
I am from salt miners on salt barges of Cheshire,
I am from their empty bellies, and of
the porridge and buttermilk that filled them.
3
I am from sailing ships and steamboats.
I am from children walking behind handcarts
crossing the vast American prarie.
I am from their frozen feet wrapped in
gunnysacks, from weary feet dancing polkas or
Fylde waltzes and Virginia reels. I am from
fiddles and string bands.
I am sego lily and lumpy dick and
bread 'n with it, from white salamanders
and the Three Nephites, and funeral potatoes.
4
I am from gold miners and lumberjacks.
I am from red-headed women.
I am white beans and pot roast,
macaroni and cheese.
I am from books, from the undying omniscience
of Wordsworth and Keats, from Burns and
Steinbeck and Bradbury, I am from pleasure
and pain. I am paper and ink, and a perfect
brightness of hope. I am from wings.
1
I am from light, yes, a spark
from the Great Intelligent Light
that set the universe afire,
from love, both spirit and matter, yes,
and from the green living body
of the earth: oceans and saltgrass,
rain and roots. I am from amoeba,
invertebrate to vertebrate,
from Lucy.
2
I am from Ephraim, from ancient Celts
breathing haze rising from peat bogs.
I am from tassled cornfields in Cornwall.
from the fires and peppered spices
of Spain, from El Cid.
I am from salt miners on salt barges of Cheshire,
I am from their empty bellies, and of
the porridge and buttermilk that filled them.
3
I am from sailing ships and steamboats.
I am from children walking behind handcarts
crossing the vast American prarie.
I am from their frozen feet wrapped in
gunnysacks, from weary feet dancing polkas or
Fylde waltzes and Virginia reels. I am from
fiddles and string bands.
I am sego lily and lumpy dick and
bread 'n with it, from white salamanders
and the Three Nephites, and funeral potatoes.
4
I am from gold miners and lumberjacks.
I am from red-headed women.
I am white beans and pot roast,
macaroni and cheese.
I am from books, from the undying omniscience
of Wordsworth and Keats, from Burns and
Steinbeck and Bradbury, I am from pleasure
and pain. I am paper and ink, and a perfect
brightness of hope. I am from wings.
Monday, June 04, 2012
A Kinship with Water
A Kinship with Water
"If the millions of women who haul water
for long distances had a faucet by their door,
whole societies could be transformed."
-- Tina Rosenberg
There are poems that tell us how water rises
as mist, and returns again to rivers and rooftops
as music, or as a white calligraphy of snow.
Shapeshifter, water fills our glassware
and our gutters alike, disguising itself as birds,
or dogs, or elephants and tigers drinking
from the same shallow pool. It manifests
as boys on a soccer field, as coffee in cups,
in wadis and in gardens.
There are words that say: sweet water,
bad water, holy water, words that whisper of
water flowing into baptismal fonts, where our sins
float away like fat turds, or where hidden water
runs under cities in sewers, or as ice-sheets
melting at 0.7 millimeters per year, warming
the currents of our rising oceans.
Are we not, ourselves, made of water,
our cells swollen and wet, our blood
a red tide that follows the moon, knowing
kinship with desert women hauling water
long distances, thirsting, measuring, each drop?
jed 6-2-12
"If the millions of women who haul water
for long distances had a faucet by their door,
whole societies could be transformed."
-- Tina Rosenberg
There are poems that tell us how water rises
as mist, and returns again to rivers and rooftops
as music, or as a white calligraphy of snow.
Shapeshifter, water fills our glassware
and our gutters alike, disguising itself as birds,
or dogs, or elephants and tigers drinking
from the same shallow pool. It manifests
as boys on a soccer field, as coffee in cups,
in wadis and in gardens.
There are words that say: sweet water,
bad water, holy water, words that whisper of
water flowing into baptismal fonts, where our sins
float away like fat turds, or where hidden water
runs under cities in sewers, or as ice-sheets
melting at 0.7 millimeters per year, warming
the currents of our rising oceans.
Are we not, ourselves, made of water,
our cells swollen and wet, our blood
a red tide that follows the moon, knowing
kinship with desert women hauling water
long distances, thirsting, measuring, each drop?
jed 6-2-12
Monday, May 21, 2012
My Brother's Blindness
My Brother's Blindness
"When I consider how my light is spent..."
--John Milton, On His Blindness
I think of that first morning
when you wake blind,
that one short moment, a split-
second that will linger for years,
and everything in me softens to tears.
I see how my closed eyelids are a wash
of moving color,
and lose focus.
Although the sun still rises,
the splintered stars still come out, and
each night street lamps are lit,
this world will never again be
a place you can visit.
You will be patient. Like Milton,
you will only stand and wait.
Wherever you are now, even though
you've stepped away from your body,
a ghost of yourself, I hope
in some other galaxy, in another
dimension, you may yet see
the light of other suns, other stars,
illuminating everything.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The Earth as Body
The Earth As Body
More than stone and mortar will be found
in the process of excavation, retrieval of evidence,
and recovery: a restoration of loss—
a half-cent piece, a toy dog, a hinge,
buttons of many shapes and colors,
a hair-pin, a glove, a shoe...
from top to bottom, from known to unknown.
a wall, a bone needle, a horn spoon,
a hatchet, a fish hook, ground water.
When all this detritus of hunger, thirst, lust, pulse,
and breath is squeezed out, wrestled away, evaporated,
and finally re-invented, once all the grubbing's
done, what's the prize? New obsessions:
the rare stillness, the perfect freedom,
the lighted window. Life.
—Joyce Ellen Davis
More than stone and mortar will be found
in the process of excavation, retrieval of evidence,
and recovery: a restoration of loss—
a half-cent piece, a toy dog, a hinge,
buttons of many shapes and colors,
a hair-pin, a glove, a shoe...
from top to bottom, from known to unknown.
a wall, a bone needle, a horn spoon,
a hatchet, a fish hook, ground water.
When all this detritus of hunger, thirst, lust, pulse,
and breath is squeezed out, wrestled away, evaporated,
and finally re-invented, once all the grubbing's
done, what's the prize? New obsessions:
the rare stillness, the perfect freedom,
the lighted window. Life.
—Joyce Ellen Davis
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
To Catch a Young Moon
To Catch a Young Moon
"If you live in Northern Hemisphere...you might
be able to catch an exceedingly young lunar crescent..."
-- EarthSky, April 22, 2012
The almanac portends weather, seed-time and harvest,
and all phases of the moon like a book of poetry.
But there will be no catching of a young moon.
Time counts. And the moon never looks away.
Night after night after night in its never-looking-away,
its not-so-young face is counterfeit in all earth's mirrors.
It was matched on the waves of ancient seas, before
the swarming ammonites perished, before
the herds of hadrosaurs were lost. It was there
in the dew of Cretaceous forests, when mammoths
roamed the grasslands of Colorado.
Its dry seas were reflected upon the farther shores
of the Colosseum, in the drowning eyes of
Naiumachiari in their sinking battleships,
and in the dream-blinded eyes of Jeanne d'Arc
crying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
The same moon. The same moon broken in the
moving ripples of Bull Run. The same moon
luminous as a spotlight over the naked bodies
of a million Jews who died in ditches, with their
eyes open. The same moon caught in the sleepless
eyes of lovers, lustrous on their naked shoulders
and thighs, their long limbs touching. The same moon
flashing on their smiles. The band plays,
Pink Floyd breathes: If your head explodes
with dark forebodings I'll see you on the dark side
of the moon. Their lips whisper in it's fettered light,
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
JED 5-1-12
"If you live in Northern Hemisphere...you might
be able to catch an exceedingly young lunar crescent..."
-- EarthSky, April 22, 2012
The almanac portends weather, seed-time and harvest,
and all phases of the moon like a book of poetry.
But there will be no catching of a young moon.
Time counts. And the moon never looks away.
Night after night after night in its never-looking-away,
its not-so-young face is counterfeit in all earth's mirrors.
It was matched on the waves of ancient seas, before
the swarming ammonites perished, before
the herds of hadrosaurs were lost. It was there
in the dew of Cretaceous forests, when mammoths
roamed the grasslands of Colorado.
Its dry seas were reflected upon the farther shores
of the Colosseum, in the drowning eyes of
Naiumachiari in their sinking battleships,
and in the dream-blinded eyes of Jeanne d'Arc
crying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
The same moon. The same moon broken in the
moving ripples of Bull Run. The same moon
luminous as a spotlight over the naked bodies
of a million Jews who died in ditches, with their
eyes open. The same moon caught in the sleepless
eyes of lovers, lustrous on their naked shoulders
and thighs, their long limbs touching. The same moon
flashing on their smiles. The band plays,
Pink Floyd breathes: If your head explodes
with dark forebodings I'll see you on the dark side
of the moon. Their lips whisper in it's fettered light,
Jesus. Jesus. Jesus.
JED 5-1-12
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
the wonderful syncopated robot pig
is born in the basement, birthed
of brother allred's restless dreams
his pig iron heart opens wide
when his master calls
the great man who framed him
moves him forward
with a wave of his thumb
the merest flick of a switch
he waits for the electric circuit
that completes him
some invisible beam of joy
he stirs, lurches, shuffles
and spins, his shoulders and
hind quarters of fasteners
sockets and set-screws
gyrate and whine and his fine
metal bones begin to meander
with an electric grace
in a semblance of life itself
here boy, brother allred calls
come! and the pig comes
knowing in the marrow of his
riveted bones that of all the rare
creatures brother allred has made
with all their bright voltaic
tesla bolts and ball-bearings
brother allred loves him best
and deep in his soul of
threaded gauges and clamps
he knows that he will dwell
in the tender mercies of
his maker forever and forever
amen
.
of brother allred's restless dreams
his pig iron heart opens wide
when his master calls
the great man who framed him
moves him forward
with a wave of his thumb
the merest flick of a switch
he waits for the electric circuit
that completes him
some invisible beam of joy
he stirs, lurches, shuffles
and spins, his shoulders and
hind quarters of fasteners
sockets and set-screws
gyrate and whine and his fine
metal bones begin to meander
with an electric grace
in a semblance of life itself
here boy, brother allred calls
come! and the pig comes
knowing in the marrow of his
riveted bones that of all the rare
creatures brother allred has made
with all their bright voltaic
tesla bolts and ball-bearings
brother allred loves him best
and deep in his soul of
threaded gauges and clamps
he knows that he will dwell
in the tender mercies of
his maker forever and forever
amen
.
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Unraveling the Magic
Unraveling the Magic: Lift, Drag, & Gravity
"There are books that describe all this
and they are useless" ~ Adrienne Rich
1
Do fish dream of safety in numbers,
a synchronized clockwork?
Do they sleep, eyes wide,
moving in a telepathy of group soul?
In their fishy dreams, do they always
elude the shark in his oblivious hunger,
his machine of death, turning
in their shoals and shadows,
a watery chorus line recital of
swim left now, swim right, lift, drag,
repeat, repeat, repeat?
2
And those black swarms of birds
we watched on video, turning over
olive groves in early autumn evenings,
wave upon wave, casting
their dark nets now left, now right,
expanding and contracting, diving into
some place of knowing,
loving one another, their gregarious chatter
loud enough to drive kings mad.
3
We dream of dark matter, of the knowing silence
of fishes. We dream of flight. Then we thank God,
measuring our maneuvers and aerobics against
what there is, and why there is anything,
saying, Imagine that!
Om mani padme hmm
.
"There are books that describe all this
and they are useless" ~ Adrienne Rich
1
Do fish dream of safety in numbers,
a synchronized clockwork?
Do they sleep, eyes wide,
moving in a telepathy of group soul?
In their fishy dreams, do they always
elude the shark in his oblivious hunger,
his machine of death, turning
in their shoals and shadows,
a watery chorus line recital of
swim left now, swim right, lift, drag,
repeat, repeat, repeat?
2
And those black swarms of birds
we watched on video, turning over
olive groves in early autumn evenings,
wave upon wave, casting
their dark nets now left, now right,
expanding and contracting, diving into
some place of knowing,
loving one another, their gregarious chatter
loud enough to drive kings mad.
3
We dream of dark matter, of the knowing silence
of fishes. We dream of flight. Then we thank God,
measuring our maneuvers and aerobics against
what there is, and why there is anything,
saying, Imagine that!
Om mani padme hmm
.
Friday, March 09, 2012
The Clock of the Long Now
The Clock of the Long Now
"Time is what clocks measure." ~ A. Einstein
"Time...is what keeps everything from happening at once." ~ Ray Cummings
but there are those who'd have you believe
everything does happen at once,
that time is incarnate and of one substance, Divine Trinity,
Past, Present, and Future, Maker
of all things visible and invisible.
The world grows old by a series of geologic
accretion of facts. Time is a cyclical event
powered by gravity.
The scripture of numbers is large,
the seconds and minutes adding up to years,
to thousands of years, ticking away like
frames in a film strip, and what you must remember
always, is what you have left behind.
What you learn is holy. It is bread and sleep. It will rise like dough
to wonder, as if its words were stored
like names in a mountain vault, kept dry, accessible
for ten thousand years, waiting to be called forth
like Lazarus, each by his own ineffable tag.
And that thing you must remember from dreams
each millenium when the cuckoo (the last great voice)
calls, is this: the little boat you came in on;
the river becoming a sea; the undertow; the taste
of salt on your tongue; the sweet ache
of that apple, the soft fruit that fell
into your still-young throat as knowledge,
it's seeds and skins (what you must leave behind)
discarded with your uninhabited and mostly irreducible
mortal bones. Remember:
Lazarus.
.JED 3-9-12
"Time is what clocks measure." ~ A. Einstein
"Time...is what keeps everything from happening at once." ~ Ray Cummings
but there are those who'd have you believe
everything does happen at once,
that time is incarnate and of one substance, Divine Trinity,
Past, Present, and Future, Maker
of all things visible and invisible.
The world grows old by a series of geologic
accretion of facts. Time is a cyclical event
powered by gravity.
The scripture of numbers is large,
the seconds and minutes adding up to years,
to thousands of years, ticking away like
frames in a film strip, and what you must remember
always, is what you have left behind.
What you learn is holy. It is bread and sleep. It will rise like dough
to wonder, as if its words were stored
like names in a mountain vault, kept dry, accessible
for ten thousand years, waiting to be called forth
like Lazarus, each by his own ineffable tag.
And that thing you must remember from dreams
each millenium when the cuckoo (the last great voice)
calls, is this: the little boat you came in on;
the river becoming a sea; the undertow; the taste
of salt on your tongue; the sweet ache
of that apple, the soft fruit that fell
into your still-young throat as knowledge,
it's seeds and skins (what you must leave behind)
discarded with your uninhabited and mostly irreducible
mortal bones. Remember:
Lazarus.
.JED 3-9-12
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Behold the Jumping Spider
CIRCLE OF BEING
"Come into my parlor," said the spider...
Knowing how these things happen, she
drops a lifeline, and carpets the bare floor
of her parlor with a fine gauze
of her own making. Sometimes,
she lies in wait all morning for
her breakfast, the bacon and eggs,
the warm croissants and jam of flies.
Knowing these things must happen
before the dusty zodiacal light of dusk,
the flies forgive her broken promise
of a quick death. She is so beautiful,
with her eight hydraulic limbs, her colors,
her droll little four-eyed face,
her chelicerae, as she leaps forward
and forward into one long
anointed circle of being.
"Come into my parlor," said the spider...
Knowing how these things happen, she
drops a lifeline, and carpets the bare floor
of her parlor with a fine gauze
of her own making. Sometimes,
she lies in wait all morning for
her breakfast, the bacon and eggs,
the warm croissants and jam of flies.
Knowing these things must happen
before the dusty zodiacal light of dusk,
the flies forgive her broken promise
of a quick death. She is so beautiful,
with her eight hydraulic limbs, her colors,
her droll little four-eyed face,
her chelicerae, as she leaps forward
and forward into one long
anointed circle of being.
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
ECLIPSE
Eclipse
So it was, the fallen
Samael, from the dark fringe of heaven
would have eaten the moon for lunch, like a leg of lamb,
with a side dish of stars, but for the holy
army of its queen Asariel, who rules it.
Deep in the river of battlement, she spread her
banners in a bright sheet of splendor across
its deep gutters and ditches.
Asariel, the watchdog, before Samael
with his sassy lips watering for just one more
bite, and another, and still one last morsel,
told himself so everyone's a critic now, saying
it would've tasted like ragweed.
And soon invited the seven sisters
of the Pleaides to feast with him for dinner
upon the the sun's warm brew.
words: fringe, moon, leg, loud, river, sheet, critic, ragweed, dinner, lunch
So it was, the fallen
Samael, from the dark fringe of heaven
would have eaten the moon for lunch, like a leg of lamb,
with a side dish of stars, but for the holy
army of its queen Asariel, who rules it.
Deep in the river of battlement, she spread her
banners in a bright sheet of splendor across
its deep gutters and ditches.
Asariel, the watchdog, before Samael
with his sassy lips watering for just one more
bite, and another, and still one last morsel,
told himself so everyone's a critic now, saying
it would've tasted like ragweed.
And soon invited the seven sisters
of the Pleaides to feast with him for dinner
upon the the sun's warm brew.
words: fringe, moon, leg, loud, river, sheet, critic, ragweed, dinner, lunch
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Grace
Grace is
the night that is light upon us
the world that is spared
the firstborn of everything
the sum of specified order
flawless in every moment
the excellence and beauty of chance
the immanent reconciliation
of power and glory
the bitter experience
the urgent agenda of the elements
and the four forces of nature
the hiding place
the nearness of green pastures
the unified field
the flute by itself
the holiness of wild things
the short list of mortal entitlements
the humane door of sleep
a pardoned death
the night that is light upon us
the world that is spared
the firstborn of everything
the sum of specified order
flawless in every moment
the excellence and beauty of chance
the immanent reconciliation
of power and glory
the bitter experience
the urgent agenda of the elements
and the four forces of nature
the hiding place
the nearness of green pastures
the unified field
the flute by itself
the holiness of wild things
the short list of mortal entitlements
the humane door of sleep
a pardoned death
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Old Oranges
Old Oranges
And so it was
on a Sunday before sunrise
with the moon in the Lion's House,
the Maker of Moons watched the world,
told a story: In the beginning
were old oranges
round as moons, thick skins waxy and pitted
as the thick hides of pigs
that squeal and roll among
acorns and table scraps,
curled peelings of potatoes
bread ends
and carrot tops --
soft, decaying moons,
secondaries, rolling
like the nine moons of Saturn,
the twelve moons of Jupiter,
the two moons of Mars,
in the beneficent slops
where their primaries, the pigs
did paw and root.
And they saw
that it was good.
And so it was
on a Sunday before sunrise
with the moon in the Lion's House,
the Maker of Moons watched the world,
told a story: In the beginning
were old oranges
round as moons, thick skins waxy and pitted
as the thick hides of pigs
that squeal and roll among
acorns and table scraps,
curled peelings of potatoes
bread ends
and carrot tops --
soft, decaying moons,
secondaries, rolling
like the nine moons of Saturn,
the twelve moons of Jupiter,
the two moons of Mars,
in the beneficent slops
where their primaries, the pigs
did paw and root.
And they saw
that it was good.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Saint Francis Preaches to the Rats
for they are the fastidious Brotherhood
of Long-tailed Rodents of the genus Rattus.
He gathers them in a social equivalent
of Congregation. He speaks
but words do not matter. He leaves them
a simple message of breathing: Noble Brothers,
Blessed Sisters, you Nation of Rats,
Give thanks.
And he walks among them, touching
their heads and their tails
with his tunic. He leaves them
his testimony of fallibility, commitment,
and co-operative behavior.
He asks nothing for his sermon. In return
they give him nothing.
On occasion they look back upon
their vulnerable selves
with no clue what is going on but
a wish: escape and a quick lunch
of malt from the miller's bags.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
LIST
Don't ask, "Are you afraid?"--
everyone is afraid. Ask, Where
can we find to run?"
-William Stafford
More than Words Can Tell
"Where to run?" Stuck here
in our five-dimensional lives
enfolded in a multi-dimensional universe
we run, eat, sleep, make love,
and wonder. We lie in our beds
and watch the light creep in
illuminating cracks on the walls and the
maculate ceilings as continents, faces,
emblems, and chronicles, interpreting them
as Signs. We hear dogs barking,
touch one another, cry, say goodbye, run, pray,
write poems, ask questions, make lists,
and run, as if any of these things might suggest
true exploration of what really is,
as if they might be messages
from some far star
that will help us understand Where?
And Why?
.
everyone is afraid. Ask, Where
can we find to run?"
-William Stafford
More than Words Can Tell
"Where to run?" Stuck here
in our five-dimensional lives
enfolded in a multi-dimensional universe
we run, eat, sleep, make love,
and wonder. We lie in our beds
and watch the light creep in
illuminating cracks on the walls and the
maculate ceilings as continents, faces,
emblems, and chronicles, interpreting them
as Signs. We hear dogs barking,
touch one another, cry, say goodbye, run, pray,
write poems, ask questions, make lists,
and run, as if any of these things might suggest
true exploration of what really is,
as if they might be messages
from some far star
that will help us understand Where?
And Why?
.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Things Seen From A Great Height
THINGS SEEN FROM A GREAT HEIGHT
So I sit at the window of the
tenth floor looking down at a city like a jewel
in the middle of a desert so ordinary in daylight
it might be anywhere in the world. Palm trees,
birds running along the edges of rooftops below,
not afraid of falling because they are birds,
men walking, and taxi's in the streets. I have
a fear of falling from high places. Even if
I had wings I would be afraid. I know the sound
the wind makes, rushing past my ears as I fall
faster every second. But not today. They say
when you fall in a dream you never reach the
bottom, but simply disappear down the gullet of
some sucking Black Hole. Some night, maybe
soon, I will fall in a dream and not wake up.
Sometimes I fly in dreams. Maybe on that night
I will just fly away like a bird, these things seen
from a great height engraved on the inside
of my skull, things past, things present, and
things veiled at the margins, yet to be.
.
So I sit at the window of the
tenth floor looking down at a city like a jewel
in the middle of a desert so ordinary in daylight
it might be anywhere in the world. Palm trees,
birds running along the edges of rooftops below,
not afraid of falling because they are birds,
men walking, and taxi's in the streets. I have
a fear of falling from high places. Even if
I had wings I would be afraid. I know the sound
the wind makes, rushing past my ears as I fall
faster every second. But not today. They say
when you fall in a dream you never reach the
bottom, but simply disappear down the gullet of
some sucking Black Hole. Some night, maybe
soon, I will fall in a dream and not wake up.
Sometimes I fly in dreams. Maybe on that night
I will just fly away like a bird, these things seen
from a great height engraved on the inside
of my skull, things past, things present, and
things veiled at the margins, yet to be.
.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Postcard from the Edge
POSTCARD FROM THE EDGE
So I began to write on this thin scrap of narrow paper that said: Love's Texaco #220 Cheyenne, WY Date 07/25-05 Time 05:23 PM, wishing I had a real piece of paper to write on, but glad for this scrap. Much later I sat at the window of the tenth floor looking down at a city like a jewel in the middle of a desert so ordinary it might be anywhere in the world. Palm trees, birds running on the edge of rooftops of buildings below, not afraid of falling because they are birds, men walking, and taxis in the streets. I have a fear of falling from high places. Even if I had wings I would be afraid. I know the sound the wind makes, rushing past my ears as I fall, faster every second. But not today. They say when you fall in a dream you never reach the bottom, because if you do reach the bottom you will die in your sleep. Some night, maybe soon, I will fall in a dream and not wake up. Sometimes I fly in dreams. Maybe on that night I will just fly away, like a bird. I am out of paper. Having a great time! Wish you were here!
So I began to write on this thin scrap of narrow paper that said: Love's Texaco #220 Cheyenne, WY Date 07/25-05 Time 05:23 PM, wishing I had a real piece of paper to write on, but glad for this scrap. Much later I sat at the window of the tenth floor looking down at a city like a jewel in the middle of a desert so ordinary it might be anywhere in the world. Palm trees, birds running on the edge of rooftops of buildings below, not afraid of falling because they are birds, men walking, and taxis in the streets. I have a fear of falling from high places. Even if I had wings I would be afraid. I know the sound the wind makes, rushing past my ears as I fall, faster every second. But not today. They say when you fall in a dream you never reach the bottom, because if you do reach the bottom you will die in your sleep. Some night, maybe soon, I will fall in a dream and not wake up. Sometimes I fly in dreams. Maybe on that night I will just fly away, like a bird. I am out of paper. Having a great time! Wish you were here!
Straying From Your Star/ No Return
STRAYING FROM YOUR STAR
This early snow is deep and heavy
It clings to the trees like new sashes and scarves
Last night I heard the F-16's
practicing their 30 Code sorties
It was not like a car going over my house
or hearing any number of cars
There is a lot of stress in these things they say
and I wonder: for whom
If it's not the Afghans it's the Chechens
The children of the Afghans look a lot like
my grandchildren in Oregon, and the children
of the Chechens like my little ones in Jordan
and all their sons, like mine, are Adam
and all their daughters, Eve (which are many)
We lie quietly together, loving one another
and when they are fast asleep in bliss
I lose my fears, looking for a loving touch
I would not burden them with my sadness
which is part of my punishment for being a poet
because, when you are making something beautiful
of words, everyday words that could become hymns
or plans or even prayers or blessings
layer by layer, with consummate care
a mistake could be disastrous
because, if you are not careful and precise
with their structure, the metaphors
running beneath their surface might crack
If you crack them your forgiveness is uncertain
because you know that gravity gets weaker
the farther you stray from your star
NO RETURN
You will feel nothing until
you get to the point of no return
And you know that heavy objects
make the water ripple, and no one's life
is ever safe. Forces attract
and are repelled, and bodies move
and you know what Dante said
at the entrance to Hell
and you go about speaking words
or writing them. It is rumored
that Our Lord Jesus Christ will rise
again. I have given up sweets for Lent
except for chocolate, which is after all
only a bean. Hosanna
Then I think I am Light wading through
a kind of Light I can barely remember
I see my mother is in the kitchen
making hot cross buns
And this Light tastes
like cinnamon and raisins
My brother pours syrup on pancakes
stacked to the moon
his favorite thing. A perfect storm of broken cells
took him, elegant neurons, a billion units
of blown away DNA. I listen
to Mahler's Eighth, the Symphony
of a Thousand, and I wonder
Will I ever sleep again
.
This early snow is deep and heavy
It clings to the trees like new sashes and scarves
Last night I heard the F-16's
practicing their 30 Code sorties
It was not like a car going over my house
or hearing any number of cars
There is a lot of stress in these things they say
and I wonder: for whom
If it's not the Afghans it's the Chechens
The children of the Afghans look a lot like
my grandchildren in Oregon, and the children
of the Chechens like my little ones in Jordan
and all their sons, like mine, are Adam
and all their daughters, Eve (which are many)
We lie quietly together, loving one another
and when they are fast asleep in bliss
I lose my fears, looking for a loving touch
I would not burden them with my sadness
which is part of my punishment for being a poet
because, when you are making something beautiful
of words, everyday words that could become hymns
or plans or even prayers or blessings
layer by layer, with consummate care
a mistake could be disastrous
because, if you are not careful and precise
with their structure, the metaphors
running beneath their surface might crack
If you crack them your forgiveness is uncertain
because you know that gravity gets weaker
the farther you stray from your star
NO RETURN
You will feel nothing until
you get to the point of no return
And you know that heavy objects
make the water ripple, and no one's life
is ever safe. Forces attract
and are repelled, and bodies move
and you know what Dante said
at the entrance to Hell
and you go about speaking words
or writing them. It is rumored
that Our Lord Jesus Christ will rise
again. I have given up sweets for Lent
except for chocolate, which is after all
only a bean. Hosanna
Then I think I am Light wading through
a kind of Light I can barely remember
I see my mother is in the kitchen
making hot cross buns
And this Light tastes
like cinnamon and raisins
My brother pours syrup on pancakes
stacked to the moon
his favorite thing. A perfect storm of broken cells
took him, elegant neurons, a billion units
of blown away DNA. I listen
to Mahler's Eighth, the Symphony
of a Thousand, and I wonder
Will I ever sleep again
.
Tuesday, March 09, 2010
Volta
Sixty miles per hour
along the Pacific Coast Highway
beside you, and you say: I wish that
you would lay your hand upon my thigh,
and so I do. The sea is gray with rain,
and no perceptible horizon reveals
saltwater to sky.
Now that I am old, ad patres as it were,
and you are older still, I regret
that yours was not the first
my hand had touched.
Friday, February 26, 2010
The Doppler Effect
"Uber das farbige Licht der Doppelsterne"
("Concerning the colored light of double stars and other stars of the heavens.")
--Christian Doppler
Centered in the doorway, you stand where a window
Looks two ways: one way the hours swarm into blue,
Colliding like dominoes, piling up like old newspapers
On the porch. The other way the minutes retreat
Like beads on a broken string. Even the seconds
Are strangers speeding ahead, shifting toward red.
As you wait, entire universes are conceived and destroyed.
There, on the blue side, your mother's body
Has swallowed a seed, and shaped you from air.
A girl with freckles on her lips.
There, on the red side, your eight grandchildren
Hustle toward a future you cannot begin to imagine.
And you. You touch with care wherever the pain is worst:
Your eyes, your neck, your heart. You notice only now
That the window has become a mirror, and the doorway
Is a shelter. Shifting now into red,
Your mother walks up behind you, slips you a chocolate
As she passes by. Your grandchildren's soft,
Unfinished baby skeletons tumble faster and farther
Away. And this moment, the Present melting in your mouth,
Is all you need.
.
("Concerning the colored light of double stars and other stars of the heavens.")
--Christian Doppler
Centered in the doorway, you stand where a window
Looks two ways: one way the hours swarm into blue,
Colliding like dominoes, piling up like old newspapers
On the porch. The other way the minutes retreat
Like beads on a broken string. Even the seconds
Are strangers speeding ahead, shifting toward red.
As you wait, entire universes are conceived and destroyed.
There, on the blue side, your mother's body
Has swallowed a seed, and shaped you from air.
A girl with freckles on her lips.
There, on the red side, your eight grandchildren
Hustle toward a future you cannot begin to imagine.
And you. You touch with care wherever the pain is worst:
Your eyes, your neck, your heart. You notice only now
That the window has become a mirror, and the doorway
Is a shelter. Shifting now into red,
Your mother walks up behind you, slips you a chocolate
As she passes by. Your grandchildren's soft,
Unfinished baby skeletons tumble faster and farther
Away. And this moment, the Present melting in your mouth,
Is all you need.
.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
A Letter to Cecil B. DeMille
Remember me,
Ipana Pearlywhites:
bit moviestar
from the Forties
who might've played
opposite Bogart
and George Raft,
but didn't?
Thirty-two
pillars of ivory
once graceful
now gone to dentures,
whose especially talented
agility of lips
and imaginative tongue
taught men a new language,
whose willing flesh
became a garbage dump
fpr every twobit producer
west of Bakersfield?
To look at me now
who'd ever guess
this chaste rhythm
of breath under breasts
that used to rise
like helium balloons
but sag tonight
like used condoms
once fired little crimson
cherry-sucker syllables of sugar?
No one.
I am become a history book
of refrigerated kisses
preserved on celluloid
between the pages.
Who's Afraid Of ...
I'll remember ya, honey
think of this note as a gift
I was lucky
yer a lucky bastard
yer the one that got away
in an empty and amorphous space
it became confusing
the lighting was different
windows, things like that
it had an almost documentary feel
of new things and old things
because you have new tools
and you always want to explore
everybody couldn't help but notice
it's the kind of journey
you go on by yourself
*laughter*
in those days everything was very exciting
they did everything before my time
unfortunately there was a lot of night
day, night, I learned, so now
I will pray for you
just know that once we began to shoot
everything was dirty for whatever reasons
and done with something you might find in the streets
I just simply
pictured things a different way.
(Joyce Ellen Davis is Ipana Pearlywhites)
8/25/09
THE FORCE
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower...
--Dylan Thomas
This is how the story goes:
There is a light that only leaves can see,
green cells whose sugar-yellow receptors, like retinas
down the length of their veins, recognize day breaking.
The light is sovereign
as the Father's rituals, as the Son's relics.
The field is white with flowers:
the force is in the flower, and in the field, and in the rain.
The Holy Spirit is light disguised as water.
Will you recognize the glory as it falls before your face,
and on your right hand, and on your left?
Cleanse your feet with water, pure water.
Come on, brother, come on, sister.
Kick off your shoes! For as long as there is light,
the light becomes a cool river in the heat of day;
fill your arms, fill your skirts with flowers growing down
to the water's edge. We are saved
for such a time as this! For verily, thus saith.
Remember me,
Ipana Pearlywhites:
bit moviestar
from the Forties
who might've played
opposite Bogart
and George Raft,
but didn't?
Thirty-two
pillars of ivory
once graceful
now gone to dentures,
whose especially talented
agility of lips
and imaginative tongue
taught men a new language,
whose willing flesh
became a garbage dump
fpr every twobit producer
west of Bakersfield?
To look at me now
who'd ever guess
this chaste rhythm
of breath under breasts
that used to rise
like helium balloons
but sag tonight
like used condoms
once fired little crimson
cherry-sucker syllables of sugar?
No one.
I am become a history book
of refrigerated kisses
preserved on celluloid
between the pages.
Who's Afraid Of ...
I'll remember ya, honey
think of this note as a gift
I was lucky
yer a lucky bastard
yer the one that got away
in an empty and amorphous space
it became confusing
the lighting was different
windows, things like that
it had an almost documentary feel
of new things and old things
because you have new tools
and you always want to explore
everybody couldn't help but notice
it's the kind of journey
you go on by yourself
*laughter*
in those days everything was very exciting
they did everything before my time
unfortunately there was a lot of night
day, night, I learned, so now
I will pray for you
just know that once we began to shoot
everything was dirty for whatever reasons
and done with something you might find in the streets
I just simply
pictured things a different way.
(Joyce Ellen Davis is Ipana Pearlywhites)
8/25/09
THE FORCE
"The force that through the green fuse drives the flower...
--Dylan Thomas
This is how the story goes:
There is a light that only leaves can see,
green cells whose sugar-yellow receptors, like retinas
down the length of their veins, recognize day breaking.
The light is sovereign
as the Father's rituals, as the Son's relics.
The field is white with flowers:
the force is in the flower, and in the field, and in the rain.
The Holy Spirit is light disguised as water.
Will you recognize the glory as it falls before your face,
and on your right hand, and on your left?
Cleanse your feet with water, pure water.
Come on, brother, come on, sister.
Kick off your shoes! For as long as there is light,
the light becomes a cool river in the heat of day;
fill your arms, fill your skirts with flowers growing down
to the water's edge. We are saved
for such a time as this! For verily, thus saith.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
What I Should Have Done
I should have cut a hole in the ceiling
to let my prayers out, words
like smoke from incense pots,
unable to rise above that bloody altar.
Look: here is where you should have slept,
your ear only an inch above my heart.
See: this field of stars above the watchtower
that we might have counted, bye and bye.
Now the sky is full of dark matter,
and though I were rich as Herod,
the baby-killer of Bethlehem
(who was richer than Caesar), I can
not get you back, even though
I would rub salt upon your infant body
and powder you with mustard seeds,
and wrap you up with swaddling bands
embroidered with your genealogies.
Here is the singing bird I'd give you,
the pony, here the toy soldiers,
their cannons in flames.
Here angels play, out of sight
lest they terrify us, though we lie
prostrate, trembling on the ground,
we eaters of entrails, we breakers of bones.
The first to bring an offering
and the first to be offered,
like a burning ram, I continue
to follow your lead
like Nahshon followed Moses, loving him
too much, walking out before him into the sea,
walking out until the water was
all the way up to his nose
before the sea finally parted.
.
I should have cut a hole in the ceiling
to let my prayers out, words
like smoke from incense pots,
unable to rise above that bloody altar.
Look: here is where you should have slept,
your ear only an inch above my heart.
See: this field of stars above the watchtower
that we might have counted, bye and bye.
Now the sky is full of dark matter,
and though I were rich as Herod,
the baby-killer of Bethlehem
(who was richer than Caesar), I can
not get you back, even though
I would rub salt upon your infant body
and powder you with mustard seeds,
and wrap you up with swaddling bands
embroidered with your genealogies.
Here is the singing bird I'd give you,
the pony, here the toy soldiers,
their cannons in flames.
Here angels play, out of sight
lest they terrify us, though we lie
prostrate, trembling on the ground,
we eaters of entrails, we breakers of bones.
The first to bring an offering
and the first to be offered,
like a burning ram, I continue
to follow your lead
like Nahshon followed Moses, loving him
too much, walking out before him into the sea,
walking out until the water was
all the way up to his nose
before the sea finally parted.
.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
THE FORGETTING
"Our birth
is but a sleep
and a forgetting."
--William Wordsworth
I am
before my mother carried me,
tethered me to earth
with a silver cord,
before I flew prayer feathers
at my Father's knee,
there, where a million moons roll
like black-glass marbles
into the curved valleys of space
before I ever dreamed of earth,
or things of earth: fish
or rocks or bread,
before the luminous waters
of my birth washed me clean,
I am
I always am
THE FORGETTING
"Our birth
is but a sleep
and a forgetting."
--William Wordsworth
I am
before my mother carried me,
tethered me to earth
with a silver cord,
before I flew prayer feathers
at my Father's knee,
there, where a million moons roll
like black-glass marbles
into the curved valleys of space
before I ever dreamed of earth,
or things of earth: fish
or rocks or bread,
before the luminous waters
of my birth washed me clean,
I am
I always am
Friday, August 01, 2008
praise
and even if you haven't asked
the ferocity I see in your eyes is really praise
the left eye overflowing with a compassion of tears
the right eye damned where the Father stands archived and
disguised the promise is that the hand that gives
takes away nor bird nor snake nor fish can stay it
nor ringed fingers nor hard stones nor veils
nor things visible or invisible nor words
nor the blackened silences of things half-formed
nor oaths nor obligations of a thousand years
of clouded windows and passing lovers or strangers
it is there in the etcetera of praise in ruined newsprint
lifted by the wind and blown and dissolved in a sea
of rain water and even if you haven't looked
it is there in both the promise and the praise
it is there in all of these and none of these
it is Alpha and Omega it is the Beginning and the End
thank you thank you thank you oh thank you
the ferocity I see in your eyes is really praise
the left eye overflowing with a compassion of tears
the right eye damned where the Father stands archived and
disguised the promise is that the hand that gives
takes away nor bird nor snake nor fish can stay it
nor ringed fingers nor hard stones nor veils
nor things visible or invisible nor words
nor the blackened silences of things half-formed
nor oaths nor obligations of a thousand years
of clouded windows and passing lovers or strangers
it is there in the etcetera of praise in ruined newsprint
lifted by the wind and blown and dissolved in a sea
of rain water and even if you haven't looked
it is there in both the promise and the praise
it is there in all of these and none of these
it is Alpha and Omega it is the Beginning and the End
thank you thank you thank you oh thank you
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
ALICE THROUGH THE GLASS
Try
contemplating
these marvels,
today being another
ordinary Wednesday. You study this
group of ordinary objects: seashells, flowers, curling leaves,
until your eyes burn, your heart nailed to these visions like ripe metaphors
rattling to get free. Like Leonardo of Pisa, you have an abacus, that just might move you down the rabbit's hole
with Alice. Lewis Carroll knew the Secret: add the previous two to find the next. The Farey Tree, Goedel, Escher, Bach and Mandelbrot are famous now as Mother Nature, with her eternally born again
chambered nautilus, her dandelions and daisies, chronicled teeth, swarms, cellular automatons, algorithms, fractals, black holes, dark matter to the very ends of observation, seeds growing through your floorboards and out your windows, rearranging chaos into immaculate order, the world rich with order, the Hindu mathematics of it all: Fib's rabbits hopping toward infinity, like Pi.
(The Fibonacci Sequence: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 ... etc. Syllables or words. Add the previous two numbers to find the next. Like Pi, it could go on forever. Remember that old campfire song that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends....)
.
Try
contemplating
these marvels,
today being another
ordinary Wednesday. You study this
group of ordinary objects: seashells, flowers, curling leaves,
until your eyes burn, your heart nailed to these visions like ripe metaphors
rattling to get free. Like Leonardo of Pisa, you have an abacus, that just might move you down the rabbit's hole
with Alice. Lewis Carroll knew the Secret: add the previous two to find the next. The Farey Tree, Goedel, Escher, Bach and Mandelbrot are famous now as Mother Nature, with her eternally born again
chambered nautilus, her dandelions and daisies, chronicled teeth, swarms, cellular automatons, algorithms, fractals, black holes, dark matter to the very ends of observation, seeds growing through your floorboards and out your windows, rearranging chaos into immaculate order, the world rich with order, the Hindu mathematics of it all: Fib's rabbits hopping toward infinity, like Pi.
(The Fibonacci Sequence: 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 ... etc. Syllables or words. Add the previous two numbers to find the next. Like Pi, it could go on forever. Remember that old campfire song that never ends, it just goes on and on, my friends....)
.
EARLY HOURS
So, what did Asaph and Chloe speak of in their early hours, over breakfast, heads together, the eggs and oatmeal congealing in the bowls, coffee cooling, toast growing cold? Did he mention, in passing, how he had discovered this tiny Martian moon, a mere
eighteen or so kilometers across? Did he mark its triaxial shape with his inkpen upon a napkin, and did she respond by calculating how its mere 27 x 22 x 19 kilometers were equal to 17 x 13 x 12 miles, and did she wonder aloud, if one were standing on the surface of such a tiny world, and gave a great leap, would one escape its gravity and simply keep on going to some far planet of one's own? Did he wonder if a woman in society should avoid education, and concur with the great Doctor Clark of Harvard, whose study concluded that the intellectual development of females would proceed only at the sacrifice of their reproductive organs? When Asaph turned away to butter his cold toast, did she spit in his cold coffee, and go upstairs to stand at the window, looking out?
(NOTE: Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars. Chloe Angeline Stickney, a professor of mathematics, gave up her career when she married him. He had been a student of hers, and he and his classmates made a game of devising questions and problems they were convinced she could never solve, yet she never failed to solve them. After their marriage, when he refused to pay her "a man's wage" for assisting him, she refused to continue her work. Three cheers for Chloe!)
.
So, what did Asaph and Chloe speak of in their early hours, over breakfast, heads together, the eggs and oatmeal congealing in the bowls, coffee cooling, toast growing cold? Did he mention, in passing, how he had discovered this tiny Martian moon, a mere
eighteen or so kilometers across? Did he mark its triaxial shape with his inkpen upon a napkin, and did she respond by calculating how its mere 27 x 22 x 19 kilometers were equal to 17 x 13 x 12 miles, and did she wonder aloud, if one were standing on the surface of such a tiny world, and gave a great leap, would one escape its gravity and simply keep on going to some far planet of one's own? Did he wonder if a woman in society should avoid education, and concur with the great Doctor Clark of Harvard, whose study concluded that the intellectual development of females would proceed only at the sacrifice of their reproductive organs? When Asaph turned away to butter his cold toast, did she spit in his cold coffee, and go upstairs to stand at the window, looking out?
(NOTE: Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars. Chloe Angeline Stickney, a professor of mathematics, gave up her career when she married him. He had been a student of hers, and he and his classmates made a game of devising questions and problems they were convinced she could never solve, yet she never failed to solve them. After their marriage, when he refused to pay her "a man's wage" for assisting him, she refused to continue her work. Three cheers for Chloe!)
.
Rescue the Princess
Oh, do not try.
She is bought and sold, and
smells of old cheese.
She has lost her story
and does not want
to be rescued.
She is what she is,
will never arrive, never
depart, be welcomed,
or suffer. She is
what she needs: a bed,
a cigarette, a coffee pot.
She is blue, a sort of mold
grows where it takes
getting used to, but she will.
You cannot give her anything.
She is all on her own.
This is her career.
People go by, and
mention her name, but
save your breath--
this Princess will never
be fixed. Do not
defend her. Do not
resusitate.
Oh, do not try.
She is bought and sold, and
smells of old cheese.
She has lost her story
and does not want
to be rescued.
She is what she is,
will never arrive, never
depart, be welcomed,
or suffer. She is
what she needs: a bed,
a cigarette, a coffee pot.
She is blue, a sort of mold
grows where it takes
getting used to, but she will.
You cannot give her anything.
She is all on her own.
This is her career.
People go by, and
mention her name, but
save your breath--
this Princess will never
be fixed. Do not
defend her. Do not
resusitate.
The Charmer
The Charmer
You found the story
telling how the Indians
put a fish
under the planted corn
the adventure illustrated
in your third-grade reader
It happens now somewhere
everywhere everyday that this boy
plants rice
while they watch
he bends over
the bewitched rice or corn
the red or white beans
the potatoes and melons
the squash
like the angel
who whispers grow
grow
Maybe he simply charms
the fish to leap out
of the water
into his hands
in the red dawn
Tatay's white umbrella red
under the fairweather red sky
washing them all
with morning light
Nanay and Nanay Gurang
the Very Old hesitate
studying how he bends over
the grains
how the earth and water
closes over them
like a blessing
The fish is for dinner
The Charmer
You found the story
telling how the Indians
put a fish
under the planted corn
the adventure illustrated
in your third-grade reader
It happens now somewhere
everywhere everyday that this boy
plants rice
while they watch
he bends over
the bewitched rice or corn
the red or white beans
the potatoes and melons
the squash
like the angel
who whispers grow
grow
Maybe he simply charms
the fish to leap out
of the water
into his hands
in the red dawn
Tatay's white umbrella red
under the fairweather red sky
washing them all
with morning light
Nanay and Nanay Gurang
the Very Old hesitate
studying how he bends over
the grains
how the earth and water
closes over them
like a blessing
The fish is for dinner
Thursday, May 22, 2008
What They Said To Him
You can see him there, a boy among the banyan roots, with light falling like coins through the leaves, his book stirring with dragons and spotted leopards. They are taking him where he'll never again, with shoes and suitcases and boarding passes, travel. Turning a page, he finds yellow-eyed wolves and their pups, the bones of rabbits. See how his bare toes curl when the animals talk, turn up when they lift their large, rough paws, their lacquered claws, their roars, off the paper and up into his body, as wild as theirs, and his fingernails and toenails grow long and tough and curved. He roars. He feels the ground shake as they pass out of his body into the jungle, past the snake that winds through the highest branches of the banyan tree, past the fixed white-eyed stare of parrots looking at the August moon. Someday, before the winterfall, before he is old and spread thin, and the book is dust, and the black owl of night overtakes him in his heavy shoes, he will remember what they said to him: Follow our tracks: we are still your people. He will remember all their names, and what they said to him.
What They Said To Him
You can see him there, a boy among the banyan roots, with light falling like coins through the leaves, his book stirring with dragons and spotted leopards. They are taking him where he'll never again, with shoes and suitcases and boarding passes, travel. Turning a page, he finds yellow-eyed wolves and their pups, the bones of rabbits. See how his bare toes curl when the animals talk, turn up when they lift their large, rough paws, their lacquered claws, their roars, off the paper and up into his body, as wild as theirs, and his fingernails and toenails grow long and tough and curved. He roars. He feels the ground shake as they pass out of his body into the jungle, past the snake that winds through the highest branches of the banyan tree, past the fixed white-eyed stare of parrots looking at the August moon. Someday, before the winterfall, before he is old and spread thin, and the book is dust, and the black owl of night overtakes him in his heavy shoes, he will remember what they said to him: Follow our tracks: we are still your people. He will remember all their names, and what they said to him.
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Blessed Be
There, high in the tree hangs a paper-wasp nest like an over-ripe fruit.
Beside the wasp's nest, linnets have built a nest of their own: strange neighbors.
Something about those two windblown nests reminds me of lions and lambs.
Beside the wasp's nest, linnets have built a nest of their own: strange neighbors.
Something about those two windblown nests reminds me of lions and lambs.
Unlovely In His Bones
Unlovely In His Bones
I know a woman lovely in her bones
--Theodore Roethke
I know a man unlovely in his bones
by any simple human measures, still
of ill health, with body parts and passions
as rotted as the pistons of an old
Plymouth, yet, sweet in his pure and tender
soul, who would be raised from his sickbed by
angels, sharp-edged but in no great hurry,
spinning on their graceful harpy wings like
falling-down galaxies. He raises his
obscene middle finger toward the coat-rack
in the corner, in the half-light, spinning.
I know how it is, how space flight is a
risky business. I wonder why in a
universe where angels dance with ions
in a hundred visions and revisions,
Prufrock-like, why is this final, deadly
apparition not an angel? Would not
an angel, any angel, even an
unlovely one be better than this per-
verse revolving coat-rack in the corner?
With Love,
Pepek
I know a woman lovely in her bones
--Theodore Roethke
I know a man unlovely in his bones
by any simple human measures, still
of ill health, with body parts and passions
as rotted as the pistons of an old
Plymouth, yet, sweet in his pure and tender
soul, who would be raised from his sickbed by
angels, sharp-edged but in no great hurry,
spinning on their graceful harpy wings like
falling-down galaxies. He raises his
obscene middle finger toward the coat-rack
in the corner, in the half-light, spinning.
I know how it is, how space flight is a
risky business. I wonder why in a
universe where angels dance with ions
in a hundred visions and revisions,
Prufrock-like, why is this final, deadly
apparition not an angel? Would not
an angel, any angel, even an
unlovely one be better than this per-
verse revolving coat-rack in the corner?
With Love,
Pepek
LEGENDS AND HEROES
There are a hundred paths
through the world that are
easier than loving. But
who wants easier?
-Mary Oliver
Wasn't it good, though? Wasn't it good,
all of us there together, awash
in Mr. Richard's California light, awash
in color from your bold hand, wild
as the Day the Yankees Lost the Pennant?
Alive, and racing Kije's Troika through
a white shower of strings and little bells
toward a sky and an ocean as blue
as a Carolina day?
Now you are a prayer, or what a prayer
should be, knowing you may have
closed your eyes, but this is no dream.
It comforts us. The God you met waits.
God--a figure like the sun, a face
of copper, of gold, with the merciful grace
of the little girl in red stockings who also waits
to take your hand. It comforts us
that whatever it Was,
Is.
There are a hundred paths
through the world that are
easier than loving. But
who wants easier?
-Mary Oliver
Wasn't it good, though? Wasn't it good,
all of us there together, awash
in Mr. Richard's California light, awash
in color from your bold hand, wild
as the Day the Yankees Lost the Pennant?
Alive, and racing Kije's Troika through
a white shower of strings and little bells
toward a sky and an ocean as blue
as a Carolina day?
Now you are a prayer, or what a prayer
should be, knowing you may have
closed your eyes, but this is no dream.
It comforts us. The God you met waits.
God--a figure like the sun, a face
of copper, of gold, with the merciful grace
of the little girl in red stockings who also waits
to take your hand. It comforts us
that whatever it Was,
Is.
LIES IN NOVEMBER
My stone has hands
It sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands,
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its silky back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of boots
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white,
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
Understands cemeteries
Is flexible
.
My stone has hands
It sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands,
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its silky back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of boots
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white,
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
Understands cemeteries
Is flexible
.
Why I Love Poetry
You know, the number of people who love poetry is about the same as the number of people who love to wear Davy Crockett hats. So we are a rare and wonderful people!
I think I was, maybe 9 or 10 when I discovered poetry let you say things you could say no other way, and when I was 15 or so, I found that poetry offered a way of understanding things I never understood before. Poetry sparked a new way of feeling, of insights and images I had never imagined: that someone could write The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/ Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees/ Is my destroyer moved me to tears.
Edna St Vincent was my first love. Dylan Thomas was my second. After that there were suddenly too many to count, like stars on a good night, after the first one or two.
Mary Oliver writes of praying in words I think apply to poetry as well:
It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but a doorway
into thanks, and a small silence in which
another voice may speak.
Like Abbe Joseph says in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, stretching his hands toward heaven, his fingers like ten lamps of fire, "If you will, you can become all flame." And we all understand what that is like, don't we? And we've all come through the doorway into thanks, and most of us have found the silence in which another voice may speak....
And if this isn't clear enough to be useful to you, stick around. Hopefully one day it will be, and you can become "all flame."
Just pay attention.
You know, the number of people who love poetry is about the same as the number of people who love to wear Davy Crockett hats. So we are a rare and wonderful people!
I think I was, maybe 9 or 10 when I discovered poetry let you say things you could say no other way, and when I was 15 or so, I found that poetry offered a way of understanding things I never understood before. Poetry sparked a new way of feeling, of insights and images I had never imagined: that someone could write The force that through the green fuse drives the flower/ Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees/ Is my destroyer moved me to tears.
Edna St Vincent was my first love. Dylan Thomas was my second. After that there were suddenly too many to count, like stars on a good night, after the first one or two.
Mary Oliver writes of praying in words I think apply to poetry as well:
It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but a doorway
into thanks, and a small silence in which
another voice may speak.
Like Abbe Joseph says in The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, stretching his hands toward heaven, his fingers like ten lamps of fire, "If you will, you can become all flame." And we all understand what that is like, don't we? And we've all come through the doorway into thanks, and most of us have found the silence in which another voice may speak....
And if this isn't clear enough to be useful to you, stick around. Hopefully one day it will be, and you can become "all flame."
Just pay attention.
ON MURDERING HER HUSBAND IN FRONT OF HIS MISTRESS
Love, she murmurs
under her breakable manners
to the special jockstrap,
counting wins and losses,
finding new delicacies
under each heavy-handed syllable.
She knows the score:
it's nip and tuck
before the final round
where, unmannerly,
she pulls the trigger,
smokes a screaming bullet
disguised
as a breadloaf
into his gut,
a second into his groin.
The afternoon
churns red and white
as Robintino's checkered tablecloth
and the red pasta on white china.
His wineglass tips,
spills onto his trim
and familiar white vest.
It is a long joke
with no ending but
a ruined vest.
(That's about enuf to piss off the good humor man! Understand, she never intended to kill him, just wanted to put a scare into him, which she did. She knows he has more moves than a bowl of jello--when he saw her there, face red as a tomato, you could've knocked him over with a feather he was so surprised. Too bad. He was on a roll, you might say, and he was stumped for about a second when she started pitching bread loaves at him--thought she was crazy as a loon--but then again, she might've come at him with the bread knife! He knew she'd caught him between a rock and a hard place, but hell, life's never all fun and games. Too bad about the vest though. It was almost new.)
Love, she murmurs
under her breakable manners
to the special jockstrap,
counting wins and losses,
finding new delicacies
under each heavy-handed syllable.
She knows the score:
it's nip and tuck
before the final round
where, unmannerly,
she pulls the trigger,
smokes a screaming bullet
disguised
as a breadloaf
into his gut,
a second into his groin.
The afternoon
churns red and white
as Robintino's checkered tablecloth
and the red pasta on white china.
His wineglass tips,
spills onto his trim
and familiar white vest.
It is a long joke
with no ending but
a ruined vest.
(That's about enuf to piss off the good humor man! Understand, she never intended to kill him, just wanted to put a scare into him, which she did. She knows he has more moves than a bowl of jello--when he saw her there, face red as a tomato, you could've knocked him over with a feather he was so surprised. Too bad. He was on a roll, you might say, and he was stumped for about a second when she started pitching bread loaves at him--thought she was crazy as a loon--but then again, she might've come at him with the bread knife! He knew she'd caught him between a rock and a hard place, but hell, life's never all fun and games. Too bad about the vest though. It was almost new.)
They Never Told Me Not To Go There
They never told me not to go there,
and there is a certain holiness in repetition.
I am not innocent:
I know where the body's buried
and what goes down at every streetcorner.
What comes up is always waiting there
pinched and brown as a scroll
of inkstained goatskins, a chant unrolled
upon a stick--the poetry of innocents
awaiting judgement. The left hand
never knows the right hand's doings.
I recall the phrases written there.
The priest intones a litany,
a sort of requiem: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,
Kyrie eleison--filaments of innocence--
the price of repetition, and of waiting
without conscience. But there's a price to pay.
They never told me not to go there,
I am not innocent.
They never told me not to go there,
and there is a certain holiness in repetition.
I am not innocent:
I know where the body's buried
and what goes down at every streetcorner.
What comes up is always waiting there
pinched and brown as a scroll
of inkstained goatskins, a chant unrolled
upon a stick--the poetry of innocents
awaiting judgement. The left hand
never knows the right hand's doings.
I recall the phrases written there.
The priest intones a litany,
a sort of requiem: Kyrie eleison, Christe eleison,
Kyrie eleison--filaments of innocence--
the price of repetition, and of waiting
without conscience. But there's a price to pay.
They never told me not to go there,
I am not innocent.
Friday, May 02, 2008
Facebook
Out there, somewhere
you have real faces, like
or unlike, mine. People
I pass on the street
might be you. They are
all going somewhere. I, too
am going somewhere.
Sometimes our eyes meet
but only for a moment.
Was that you I saw
last month, at the airport
going to Buenos Aires, or Seattle?
Was that you behind me
in line at the supermarket
buying wine and flowers,
oranges from Florida, avocados
from Brazil?
Do I know you?
My face is a keyhole.
Your face is a key.
This little glass contains
the world, unlocked
Out there, somewhere
you have real faces, like
or unlike, mine. People
I pass on the street
might be you. They are
all going somewhere. I, too
am going somewhere.
Sometimes our eyes meet
but only for a moment.
Was that you I saw
last month, at the airport
going to Buenos Aires, or Seattle?
Was that you behind me
in line at the supermarket
buying wine and flowers,
oranges from Florida, avocados
from Brazil?
Do I know you?
My face is a keyhole.
Your face is a key.
This little glass contains
the world, unlocked
HANGING OUT THE CLOTHES
She wears a straw
Sombrero to hang the clothes
On the line
It keeps the sun
From her pale freckled skin
She carries the wooden pins
In a green-flowered bag
Tied at her waist
The wind whips water
From the corners of the spotless
Sheets the long pants and
Endless shirts, figures
Writhing in a blast
Like men afire
Racing like couriers with
Meaningless messages
Her red hair twists around her
Pale freckled face
Like flames
Her tiny white hands fasten
Each pin like a candle
A row of candles
On the trembling line
She bends over the basket of
Wet clothes again and again
Hushing the baby
Who weeps at her feet
Tomorrow she irons
She wears a straw
Sombrero to hang the clothes
On the line
It keeps the sun
From her pale freckled skin
She carries the wooden pins
In a green-flowered bag
Tied at her waist
The wind whips water
From the corners of the spotless
Sheets the long pants and
Endless shirts, figures
Writhing in a blast
Like men afire
Racing like couriers with
Meaningless messages
Her red hair twists around her
Pale freckled face
Like flames
Her tiny white hands fasten
Each pin like a candle
A row of candles
On the trembling line
She bends over the basket of
Wet clothes again and again
Hushing the baby
Who weeps at her feet
Tomorrow she irons
SEEING EVE
I once saw a women,
Call her Isha, heart and bones
Formed, in fact, chosen, like Eve
In Eden, by the breath of His mouth,
By a rib in the sweet dough
Of her flesh. Before she emerged
Was it like a fire, then? Like coming
Out of some great silence
Not dark, not light, but out of some
Infinite blank page set so suddenly
Aflame: No Thing, igniting some dust,
Some tinder, with sparks, bonfires, conflagrations
Of particles created, colliding, decaying,
Like everything she knows as real?
And After Word, under a harmony of
Constellations, after the naming of animals,
Those beautiful beasts in the rumbling seas,and
In the seeded fields, knee-deep in grass, or
Above her, touching the air like God
Walking on water, like men and caribou
In marshes, planting rice, like women
Dancing under trees, like children digging
For treasures, like the painter with his
Oils and brushes, like the doctor with his
Medicine bottles and his pills, like the soldier
With his rifle and his helmet and boots, like the
Boy with his book, like the murderer and
His victim, like the drowned, and the saved.
It is so hard to be chosen; to be
The Beginning of The Rest of the Story
Is to divide and expand forever outward
In a sequence of possibilities, growing greater
With each division. We are mere followers.
As simple as that.
I once saw a women,
Call her Isha, heart and bones
Formed, in fact, chosen, like Eve
In Eden, by the breath of His mouth,
By a rib in the sweet dough
Of her flesh. Before she emerged
Was it like a fire, then? Like coming
Out of some great silence
Not dark, not light, but out of some
Infinite blank page set so suddenly
Aflame: No Thing, igniting some dust,
Some tinder, with sparks, bonfires, conflagrations
Of particles created, colliding, decaying,
Like everything she knows as real?
And After Word, under a harmony of
Constellations, after the naming of animals,
Those beautiful beasts in the rumbling seas,and
In the seeded fields, knee-deep in grass, or
Above her, touching the air like God
Walking on water, like men and caribou
In marshes, planting rice, like women
Dancing under trees, like children digging
For treasures, like the painter with his
Oils and brushes, like the doctor with his
Medicine bottles and his pills, like the soldier
With his rifle and his helmet and boots, like the
Boy with his book, like the murderer and
His victim, like the drowned, and the saved.
It is so hard to be chosen; to be
The Beginning of The Rest of the Story
Is to divide and expand forever outward
In a sequence of possibilities, growing greater
With each division. We are mere followers.
As simple as that.
little david
your smooth soft freckled body
and the quiet fury of those children
in grass up to your knees
that burns like fires in the fields
kites that fly in circles
naked jaws and neckbones of skulls
the shaken joy of snowflakes
crawling lines of blood, and the spit of guns
and the sleeping gift of seeds
a fucking handful of shit
lucid shoals of children's laughter
preserved, a needle in the brain
a bird's egg in the hand
the stone that killed goliath
your soft clinging mouth
exhausted children calling, calling
like the lamb before the lion
the kid goat tied to a tree
like a kiss upon the brow
the tap tap of a drum
a bed that's warmed by love
faraway no thing moves but
the silence of a secret
the blinking of a crow's eye
where church bells thrash the morning
your smooth soft freckled body
and the quiet fury of those children
in grass up to your knees
that burns like fires in the fields
kites that fly in circles
naked jaws and neckbones of skulls
the shaken joy of snowflakes
crawling lines of blood, and the spit of guns
and the sleeping gift of seeds
a fucking handful of shit
lucid shoals of children's laughter
preserved, a needle in the brain
a bird's egg in the hand
the stone that killed goliath
your soft clinging mouth
exhausted children calling, calling
like the lamb before the lion
the kid goat tied to a tree
like a kiss upon the brow
the tap tap of a drum
a bed that's warmed by love
faraway no thing moves but
the silence of a secret
the blinking of a crow's eye
where church bells thrash the morning
Friday, April 11, 2008
PSALTERY
Your hands can smile
With touch
Your pink nails laugh
With their half-moons shining
Smelling of things grasped
And let go: deliveries
And departures
Day after day
Hands are your navigators
Across smoke rainclouds
Starlight leaves ice
Over and over
They tell the story of your life
The left one
The hand God gave you
The right
The hand you make
They are a library
Clapping time
For the rest of your life
.
Your hands can smile
With touch
Your pink nails laugh
With their half-moons shining
Smelling of things grasped
And let go: deliveries
And departures
Day after day
Hands are your navigators
Across smoke rainclouds
Starlight leaves ice
Over and over
They tell the story of your life
The left one
The hand God gave you
The right
The hand you make
They are a library
Clapping time
For the rest of your life
.
ICE PANTOUM
Ice is braided against the air,
curled and roped like the girl's long hair
bright as frost,
in the hands of the boy who could take a dare.
Curled and roped like the girl;s long hair
are the roads that might take them anywhere.
The hands of the boy who could take a dare
are strong and fierce.
But the roads that might take them anywhere
are not straight but forbidden,
and strong and fierce
is the face of the sun, that won't let go.
Not straight, but forbidden,
they go nowhere. The day is cold.
The sun that lies, that won't let go,
turns the ice to a vapor that fogs the air.
They go nowhere. The day is cold.
The girl is gone. The sun is bold,
turns the ice to a vapor that fogs the air
in the hands of the boy who could take a dare.
(Egad this was HARD. But I tried. It's been a long time since I tried to conform--to patterns. I don't even know if this is close to what it's supposed to be. Non-conformist that I am. It's hard to find lines to repeat that hold up and to have the piece as a whole make sense. This was really HARD!)
Ice is braided against the air,
curled and roped like the girl's long hair
bright as frost,
in the hands of the boy who could take a dare.
Curled and roped like the girl;s long hair
are the roads that might take them anywhere.
The hands of the boy who could take a dare
are strong and fierce.
But the roads that might take them anywhere
are not straight but forbidden,
and strong and fierce
is the face of the sun, that won't let go.
Not straight, but forbidden,
they go nowhere. The day is cold.
The sun that lies, that won't let go,
turns the ice to a vapor that fogs the air.
They go nowhere. The day is cold.
The girl is gone. The sun is bold,
turns the ice to a vapor that fogs the air
in the hands of the boy who could take a dare.
(Egad this was HARD. But I tried. It's been a long time since I tried to conform--to patterns. I don't even know if this is close to what it's supposed to be. Non-conformist that I am. It's hard to find lines to repeat that hold up and to have the piece as a whole make sense. This was really HARD!)
WHO'S AFRAID OF ....
I'll remember ya, honey
think of it as a gift
I was lucky
yer a lucky bastard
yer the one that got away
in an empty and amorphous space
it became confusing
the lighting was different
windows, things like that
it had almost a documentary feel
of new things and old things
because you have new tools and you always want to explore
everybody couldn't help but notice
it's the kind of journey you go on by yourself
*laughter*
in those days everything was very exciting
they did everything before my time
unfortunately there was a lot of night
day, night, I learned, so now
I will pray for you
once we began to shoot
everything was dirty for whatever reasons
done with something you might find in the streets
I just simply
pictured things a different way
I'll remember ya, honey
think of it as a gift
I was lucky
yer a lucky bastard
yer the one that got away
in an empty and amorphous space
it became confusing
the lighting was different
windows, things like that
it had almost a documentary feel
of new things and old things
because you have new tools and you always want to explore
everybody couldn't help but notice
it's the kind of journey you go on by yourself
*laughter*
in those days everything was very exciting
they did everything before my time
unfortunately there was a lot of night
day, night, I learned, so now
I will pray for you
once we began to shoot
everything was dirty for whatever reasons
done with something you might find in the streets
I just simply
pictured things a different way
CADAE FOR HSER NAY
Oh, may there
be
bright angels to
bear
you far and may they
sing lullabies in your own tongue. May
you not
remember
that
fierce dark face
of
the man who led you to this fearful
dark place.
Oh, let there
be
a mother, who
will
smother you with mother-kisses, 'til
you wake.
The body of 7-year-old Hser Nay Moo was found last night in the bathroom of a South Salt Lake basement apartment in the complex where she lived. Hundreds of volunteers searched for almost two days before she was found. One of the searchers said, "I'm scared. I'm hoping for the best, but every time I open a Dumpster lid...God forbid."
We are all mourning for this tiny girl who wore her Sunday best, a pink dress, pink shoes, and a pink jacket to her tragic death. Someone has tied a pink sign with pink ribbons to a tree outside the apartments. It says: You are never so Lost that Angels can't find you. Police have arrested a young man for her murder.
God bless Hser Nay and her family.
Oh, may there
be
bright angels to
bear
you far and may they
sing lullabies in your own tongue. May
you not
remember
that
fierce dark face
of
the man who led you to this fearful
dark place.
Oh, let there
be
a mother, who
will
smother you with mother-kisses, 'til
you wake.
The body of 7-year-old Hser Nay Moo was found last night in the bathroom of a South Salt Lake basement apartment in the complex where she lived. Hundreds of volunteers searched for almost two days before she was found. One of the searchers said, "I'm scared. I'm hoping for the best, but every time I open a Dumpster lid...God forbid."
We are all mourning for this tiny girl who wore her Sunday best, a pink dress, pink shoes, and a pink jacket to her tragic death. Someone has tied a pink sign with pink ribbons to a tree outside the apartments. It says: You are never so Lost that Angels can't find you. Police have arrested a young man for her murder.
God bless Hser Nay and her family.
The Idiocy of Trying to Justify a Mortal Position
The Borg says resistance is futile
Amalgams of culture, collective
Hive mind. The stuff of our spirits says
That we all come from the same substance.
What is eternal? Skin color, or
Poverty, or inequality?
Reward is no justification
For suffering what is offensive
Through the birth process, either that, or
Is it just random? Or because they
Were strong? They are all potentially
Dangerous. Lift the veil. Let us see.
The Borg says resistance is futile
Amalgams of culture, collective
Hive mind. The stuff of our spirits says
That we all come from the same substance.
What is eternal? Skin color, or
Poverty, or inequality?
Reward is no justification
For suffering what is offensive
Through the birth process, either that, or
Is it just random? Or because they
Were strong? They are all potentially
Dangerous. Lift the veil. Let us see.
XANADU
I see you everywhere except in dreams
--Karl Shapiro
Someday this poem will be
a memory, like
the ten dollars you got
winning the spelling bee, like
the sweet smell of the tobacco pouch
in your grandfather's pocket,
the grandfather you adored, how
the gold string that tied it vanished
like a coin drawn into a magician's sleeve
amazing the child who watched,
who was you, the child burned
by illusions that turned into dreams,
the child, awake now
to the ruin of old age, but you
cannot heal her, you cannot cry.
You know no words of comfort.
You pronounce her dead
and move to a far country,
sunless, without air.
(Grandpa and me, ca 1942) Xanadu,according to Coleridge, was a vision in a dream, a fragment, a sunny dome built in air, a savage place holy and enchanted, where "the sacred rived ran down to a sunless sea."
I see you everywhere except in dreams
--Karl Shapiro
Someday this poem will be
a memory, like
the ten dollars you got
winning the spelling bee, like
the sweet smell of the tobacco pouch
in your grandfather's pocket,
the grandfather you adored, how
the gold string that tied it vanished
like a coin drawn into a magician's sleeve
amazing the child who watched,
who was you, the child burned
by illusions that turned into dreams,
the child, awake now
to the ruin of old age, but you
cannot heal her, you cannot cry.
You know no words of comfort.
You pronounce her dead
and move to a far country,
sunless, without air.
(Grandpa and me, ca 1942) Xanadu,according to Coleridge, was a vision in a dream, a fragment, a sunny dome built in air, a savage place holy and enchanted, where "the sacred rived ran down to a sunless sea."
A Woman Without Arms
A woman without arms
is still a woman, nonetheless,
given a torso, two good legs, a head.
Without a mirror
she falls in love with herself.
Think: Venus.
Think: Winged Victory.
Think of wings that have been interlocked
so long, folded like an apron, unfolding
now as intricate as a moth's.
She has abandoned rings,
fingers, files, polish, gloves, bracelets,
for these feathers. Yet
she hungers for touch, for the
astonishing grace of nakedness, the endless warmth
of flesh, the chill of water.
She has forgotten how to hold a pencil,
how to play the Tarot. The harp
sits silent in the corner, gathering dust.
How does she eat? Make bread? Who
will feed the mare? Who
will water the fading plants, and gather
sticks for the fire, and turn the pages
of photographs, those foursided pastimes?
And where are other angels,
so long unseen?
A woman without arms
is still a woman, nonetheless,
given a torso, two good legs, a head.
Without a mirror
she falls in love with herself.
Think: Venus.
Think: Winged Victory.
Think of wings that have been interlocked
so long, folded like an apron, unfolding
now as intricate as a moth's.
She has abandoned rings,
fingers, files, polish, gloves, bracelets,
for these feathers. Yet
she hungers for touch, for the
astonishing grace of nakedness, the endless warmth
of flesh, the chill of water.
She has forgotten how to hold a pencil,
how to play the Tarot. The harp
sits silent in the corner, gathering dust.
How does she eat? Make bread? Who
will feed the mare? Who
will water the fading plants, and gather
sticks for the fire, and turn the pages
of photographs, those foursided pastimes?
And where are other angels,
so long unseen?
Thursday, March 27, 2008
PT: Opprobrious Words
I was going to sit this one out, but, what the helk...(my 4-yr-old grandson says "we always say 'what the heck.' Because 'what the helk is BAD.'") I guess I was born to be a rebel.
Opprobrious words
Once said, as courtesies like please
Or thank you, or even
I love you
Will float
Like plastic goldfish
Doing tricks
In a cheap bowl
The first rule of nature: everything
According to its kind;
Opprobrious words can not
Be taken back
Blooming everywhere
Over bare ground, through insects
Gravel, dust, marking intricate trails
One molecule at a time
(LOL! I just looked at the definition: it said "Contumelious reproach." Contumelious! Indeed. It also means "shameful, as 'this dark, opprobrious den of shame'." I found some other neat words nearby: opsimath, opsonic, opsonin, opunyia, oquassa....)
.
I was going to sit this one out, but, what the helk...(my 4-yr-old grandson says "we always say 'what the heck.' Because 'what the helk is BAD.'") I guess I was born to be a rebel.
Opprobrious words
Once said, as courtesies like please
Or thank you, or even
I love you
Will float
Like plastic goldfish
Doing tricks
In a cheap bowl
The first rule of nature: everything
According to its kind;
Opprobrious words can not
Be taken back
Blooming everywhere
Over bare ground, through insects
Gravel, dust, marking intricate trails
One molecule at a time
(LOL! I just looked at the definition: it said "Contumelious reproach." Contumelious! Indeed. It also means "shameful, as 'this dark, opprobrious den of shame'." I found some other neat words nearby: opsimath, opsonic, opsonin, opunyia, oquassa....)
.
THE PENITENT
"Sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within."
--Galway Kinnell, "St. Francis and the Sow"
You bring your problems down upon yourself
free in their error, full of
your own hot air
raising the great gas balloon of you
upward, every time you open your mouth
unstopped by any loving hand
that would tether you to ground
to earth, the greatest good, to sorrow
you don't understand this: things
are not always as they seem
you have to get out of your own way
suddenly you forget yourself you're grateful
for their affection
for keeping you
with all your strings, grounded
infinitely loved, forgiven
then, like a child, innocent
you let it go, because
these are the very hands you trust
you know you can trust, the hands
consecrated to the work
of keeping you safe
and bringing you home
.
"Sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within."
--Galway Kinnell, "St. Francis and the Sow"
You bring your problems down upon yourself
free in their error, full of
your own hot air
raising the great gas balloon of you
upward, every time you open your mouth
unstopped by any loving hand
that would tether you to ground
to earth, the greatest good, to sorrow
you don't understand this: things
are not always as they seem
you have to get out of your own way
suddenly you forget yourself you're grateful
for their affection
for keeping you
with all your strings, grounded
infinitely loved, forgiven
then, like a child, innocent
you let it go, because
these are the very hands you trust
you know you can trust, the hands
consecrated to the work
of keeping you safe
and bringing you home
.
Diaries
I keep diaries in my head
at night I write on sealed pages
in dream codes, a sort
of dot-dot-dash Morse himself
couldn't read, keeps them private
old loves recur, taller than they were
twice as bold
dressed in dimestore suits and ties
I never saw them wear.
And my father
who never heard of Neruda
Gu Cheng or the Cultural Revolution
rocks calmly on the porch
and speaks to me
of bread and milk
I'm sick he says
and wants to say goodbye
as if he were not already dead.
This is a book
my grandchildren will never read
the key is not in my hand
not even in my pocket
never will my children say
Mama tell us of Olden Times
and turn these pages that open upon
old houses, old rooms that suck me in
like Alice through the glass.
This world is mine alone
where the voices and the windows
the old mingling of bodies
and the landscapes are buried
what's here is one raw nerve, exposed
and aching to go where I never can
to grasp the fleeting things
that would disappear.
(This is an old one. Sorry if you have seen it before)
*
I keep diaries in my head
at night I write on sealed pages
in dream codes, a sort
of dot-dot-dash Morse himself
couldn't read, keeps them private
old loves recur, taller than they were
twice as bold
dressed in dimestore suits and ties
I never saw them wear.
And my father
who never heard of Neruda
Gu Cheng or the Cultural Revolution
rocks calmly on the porch
and speaks to me
of bread and milk
I'm sick he says
and wants to say goodbye
as if he were not already dead.
This is a book
my grandchildren will never read
the key is not in my hand
not even in my pocket
never will my children say
Mama tell us of Olden Times
and turn these pages that open upon
old houses, old rooms that suck me in
like Alice through the glass.
This world is mine alone
where the voices and the windows
the old mingling of bodies
and the landscapes are buried
what's here is one raw nerve, exposed
and aching to go where I never can
to grasp the fleeting things
that would disappear.
(This is an old one. Sorry if you have seen it before)
*
Rethabile Masilo, @ Poefrika, an awesome poet from Lesotho, in a recent post of his that asks "who's your hero?" lists (among others) Steven Biko, as a person who "faces injustice and speaks out against it." This is for you, Rethabile. And for Steven.
AFRIC MAPS
Geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
--Jonathan Swift
Biko,
Naked and manacled
In the back of a Land-Rover
Cannot be convinced of
Mankind's essential goodness.
Biko,
The men who have done this
Go out to kill
Believing in the mercy of God,
Biko,
In the music of love.
Biko,
Humankind moves in a celluloid dream,
Subscribes to pain. When we wake,
Your bruised black limbs
Will have pushed out roots
Watered from your blood.
Black women will prepare them
Like gari,
Black men will eat of them,
Biko,
And be strong.
.
AFRIC MAPS
Geographers, in Afric maps,
With savage pictures fill their gaps,
And o'er unhabitable downs
Place elephants for want of towns.
--Jonathan Swift
Biko,
Naked and manacled
In the back of a Land-Rover
Cannot be convinced of
Mankind's essential goodness.
Biko,
The men who have done this
Go out to kill
Believing in the mercy of God,
Biko,
In the music of love.
Biko,
Humankind moves in a celluloid dream,
Subscribes to pain. When we wake,
Your bruised black limbs
Will have pushed out roots
Watered from your blood.
Black women will prepare them
Like gari,
Black men will eat of them,
Biko,
And be strong.
.
MINDSCAPE
(an excerpt)
...
And if the sun
should cool enough to freeze us
or explode to supernova
and thus incinerate us all
what alien ears,
on hearing a concerto of whales
a cry of birds
sent out in orphan Voyager
may celebrate our fragile hope
our itching curiosity
with what in alien delight
may pass for sacramental bread
and wine?
...
*
(an excerpt)
...
And if the sun
should cool enough to freeze us
or explode to supernova
and thus incinerate us all
what alien ears,
on hearing a concerto of whales
a cry of birds
sent out in orphan Voyager
may celebrate our fragile hope
our itching curiosity
with what in alien delight
may pass for sacramental bread
and wine?
...
*
THE BURNING
"In Dreams you are never eighty"
--Anne Sexton
At last, Love,
the girl sighs, melting
into the embrace of the blueberry-
eyed sailor she'll never again
lie down with in this life
except in dreams of
sixty years past, where
her skin on his skin is rosy
and warm with life.
I have waited for you,
she whispers, for so long, so long,
and the sweat beads like silver
on her upper lip.
Her laughter is mild, yet
under her bare feet the stairs
burn, consuming the kitchen
with its frills of daisies and jam,
the study with its tiresome
globes and catalogs,
the bedrooms with their odor
of babies being born,
semen and blood.
All the doors are open
to the burning stairs. She would say
O my God, my Love, at last,
but there are no words because
his lips are on her lips
and the blaze licks at her sleeves,
her skirt curling like a paper doll's.
When she wakes, between her thighs
is a wrinkle rough as woolens,
deep as a pit. Her tongue's a knot.
Her face is gray as a potato
and full of eyes.
*
"In Dreams you are never eighty"
--Anne Sexton
At last, Love,
the girl sighs, melting
into the embrace of the blueberry-
eyed sailor she'll never again
lie down with in this life
except in dreams of
sixty years past, where
her skin on his skin is rosy
and warm with life.
I have waited for you,
she whispers, for so long, so long,
and the sweat beads like silver
on her upper lip.
Her laughter is mild, yet
under her bare feet the stairs
burn, consuming the kitchen
with its frills of daisies and jam,
the study with its tiresome
globes and catalogs,
the bedrooms with their odor
of babies being born,
semen and blood.
All the doors are open
to the burning stairs. She would say
O my God, my Love, at last,
but there are no words because
his lips are on her lips
and the blaze licks at her sleeves,
her skirt curling like a paper doll's.
When she wakes, between her thighs
is a wrinkle rough as woolens,
deep as a pit. Her tongue's a knot.
Her face is gray as a potato
and full of eyes.
*
Pelicans
Imagine
60 miles above Midway
The silica tiles glowing
At 2300 degrees Fahrenheit
With a red light, or white
Or blue like any other early
Star, and somewhere
Off the coast of Florida
The sun rises and a flight
Of pelicans waits inland
For splashdown
36 sunrises after ignition
The blue-flame engines burn
Meteorlike, it falls
The birds fall and rise
Above the blue-green glitter
Of the tide
Imagine
6-tenths of a second after
The last bird dives into a wave
The slight deceleration
The last roll reversal at Mach 2.6
A tail of flame and a double
Sonic boom
Followed by a whir
Of wings
.
Imagine
60 miles above Midway
The silica tiles glowing
At 2300 degrees Fahrenheit
With a red light, or white
Or blue like any other early
Star, and somewhere
Off the coast of Florida
The sun rises and a flight
Of pelicans waits inland
For splashdown
36 sunrises after ignition
The blue-flame engines burn
Meteorlike, it falls
The birds fall and rise
Above the blue-green glitter
Of the tide
Imagine
6-tenths of a second after
The last bird dives into a wave
The slight deceleration
The last roll reversal at Mach 2.6
A tail of flame and a double
Sonic boom
Followed by a whir
Of wings
.
AT NINTH & VAN WINKLE
Who would understand
The satisfaction of
That day the gull
Tipped south
Steered by a north wind away
From whatever was fixed
Light and lacking focus but
Committed to air
Who would understand
The truth of it
But someone arbitrarily reborn
In a stranger's nest
Who would understand
The exhilaration of feathers
Above all the graffiti
Of civilization
Like a soul glimpsed
Leaving the body done
.
Who would understand
The satisfaction of
That day the gull
Tipped south
Steered by a north wind away
From whatever was fixed
Light and lacking focus but
Committed to air
Who would understand
The truth of it
But someone arbitrarily reborn
In a stranger's nest
Who would understand
The exhilaration of feathers
Above all the graffiti
Of civilization
Like a soul glimpsed
Leaving the body done
.
Anniversary: Keep Away
After forty years
Your face is one
I no longer recognize
Among other half-remembered faces
Of children grown
Lovers gone
Friends departed
In your endless rage
I know only
The red wilderness
Of burnt Mercury
I would be glad
For some small thing of Earth
A red carnation
Once keep-away
Was something children played
Now I listen to you breathe
You sleep in pieces
This part of you
That part of you
Awake
I think how as a boy
You hid a pocket knife
In the top of your Commando boots
Had a nosebleed at Grand Canyon
And threw your unsold newspapers
Into gutters
Now you lie buried
Belly down in pillows
Mouth open
The outlines of your dreams
Of Guam, of flight, of Halley's Comet
And the end of the world
A trailing current
Of your death
Leaving no notes behind
No messages
,
After forty years
Your face is one
I no longer recognize
Among other half-remembered faces
Of children grown
Lovers gone
Friends departed
In your endless rage
I know only
The red wilderness
Of burnt Mercury
I would be glad
For some small thing of Earth
A red carnation
Once keep-away
Was something children played
Now I listen to you breathe
You sleep in pieces
This part of you
That part of you
Awake
I think how as a boy
You hid a pocket knife
In the top of your Commando boots
Had a nosebleed at Grand Canyon
And threw your unsold newspapers
Into gutters
Now you lie buried
Belly down in pillows
Mouth open
The outlines of your dreams
Of Guam, of flight, of Halley's Comet
And the end of the world
A trailing current
Of your death
Leaving no notes behind
No messages
,
WI: A Letter
I know a woman lovely in her bones
--Theodore Roethke
Dear Omniscient Whomever,
I know a man unlovely in his bones,
by any human measures, of ill health,
and filled with parasites, with body parts
as rotted as the pistons of an old
Plymouth, still, sweet in his pure and tender
soul, who would be raised from his sickbed by
angels, sharp-edged but in no great hurry,
spinning on their graceful harpy wings like
falling-down galaxies. He raises his
obscene middle finger toward the coat-rack
in the corner, in the half-light, spinning.
I know how it is, how space flight is a
risky business. I wonder why in a
universe where angels dance with ions
in a hundred visions and revisions,
Prufrock-like, why is this final, deadly
apparition not an angel? Would not
an angel, any angel, even an
unlovely one be better than this per-
verse revolving coat-rack in the corner?
With Love,
Pepek
.
I know a woman lovely in her bones
--Theodore Roethke
Dear Omniscient Whomever,
I know a man unlovely in his bones,
by any human measures, of ill health,
and filled with parasites, with body parts
as rotted as the pistons of an old
Plymouth, still, sweet in his pure and tender
soul, who would be raised from his sickbed by
angels, sharp-edged but in no great hurry,
spinning on their graceful harpy wings like
falling-down galaxies. He raises his
obscene middle finger toward the coat-rack
in the corner, in the half-light, spinning.
I know how it is, how space flight is a
risky business. I wonder why in a
universe where angels dance with ions
in a hundred visions and revisions,
Prufrock-like, why is this final, deadly
apparition not an angel? Would not
an angel, any angel, even an
unlovely one be better than this per-
verse revolving coat-rack in the corner?
With Love,
Pepek
.
LITANY FOR A SNOWMAN
"I have a problem. Everybody I ever loved
I still love." --Alice Morrey Bailey
What I wanted most was
First, a sort of lusty voyerism,
To stare boldly
For a long time,
Neither of us speaking.
Then, for an icebreaker,
I would have touched his hair
Where pale blond had silvered,
Would have taken his eyeglasses in hand
To better gaze on passions
We would not name. Without a word
I'd have taken his coat,
Have taken his hands in mine,
Turned them, looked a long time
At the palms, the nails, the backs,
Would have touched the hairs
Growing there, and touched
His arms. At last,
I would bury my face
Against his chest and breathe of him
Until the inside of my head,
My lungs, my cells, are filled
With the scent of soap, after-shave,
Sun--whatever it is--
That makes me want to cry.
And sometimes, especially with snowmen when the weather has changed, there are NO SECOND CHANCES. True story.
.
"I have a problem. Everybody I ever loved
I still love." --Alice Morrey Bailey
What I wanted most was
First, a sort of lusty voyerism,
To stare boldly
For a long time,
Neither of us speaking.
Then, for an icebreaker,
I would have touched his hair
Where pale blond had silvered,
Would have taken his eyeglasses in hand
To better gaze on passions
We would not name. Without a word
I'd have taken his coat,
Have taken his hands in mine,
Turned them, looked a long time
At the palms, the nails, the backs,
Would have touched the hairs
Growing there, and touched
His arms. At last,
I would bury my face
Against his chest and breathe of him
Until the inside of my head,
My lungs, my cells, are filled
With the scent of soap, after-shave,
Sun--whatever it is--
That makes me want to cry.
And sometimes, especially with snowmen when the weather has changed, there are NO SECOND CHANCES. True story.
.
PSALTERY
Your hands can smile
With touch
Your pink nails laugh
With their half-moons shining
Smelling of things grasped
And let go: deliveries
And departures
Day after day
Hands are your navigators
Across smoke rainclouds
Starlight leaves ice
Over and over
They tell the story of your life
The left one
The hand God gave you
The right
The hand you make
They are a library
Clapping time
For the rest of your life
Your hands can smile
With touch
Your pink nails laugh
With their half-moons shining
Smelling of things grasped
And let go: deliveries
And departures
Day after day
Hands are your navigators
Across smoke rainclouds
Starlight leaves ice
Over and over
They tell the story of your life
The left one
The hand God gave you
The right
The hand you make
They are a library
Clapping time
For the rest of your life
What if Never should come again
I must get a new bird
and a new immortality box.
--Anne Sexton
What if Never should come again
Or Why like kisses should happen along
And shatter the day that Daddy made
And Mama shuddered that you were born?
But what if Ever could happen along
And some like They should come again
To swallow the dark that swallows us all
Before we lie all slithery down?
Then we all would shout for the dark to break
Like mahogany splinters and those dark bowls
Of our eyes our hearts come back like birds
To a Somewhere place more here than gone,
Where Sometime frets in the wings for its cue
And Time that begot us and made us new
Is Father and Mother and Lover and Son
And we all are Many, and we all are Few,
And we're counted, One by One.
.
I must get a new bird
and a new immortality box.
--Anne Sexton
What if Never should come again
Or Why like kisses should happen along
And shatter the day that Daddy made
And Mama shuddered that you were born?
But what if Ever could happen along
And some like They should come again
To swallow the dark that swallows us all
Before we lie all slithery down?
Then we all would shout for the dark to break
Like mahogany splinters and those dark bowls
Of our eyes our hearts come back like birds
To a Somewhere place more here than gone,
Where Sometime frets in the wings for its cue
And Time that begot us and made us new
Is Father and Mother and Lover and Son
And we all are Many, and we all are Few,
And we're counted, One by One.
.
MANZANAR REVISITED
Mid-life I discover
the girl is gone-- the house
she lived in
inhabited by strangers.
Is this the crisis
I was led to expect
would unbury itself
from my mother's flesh
and spread like an infection
in an untended orchard?
My father took fruit
from wild trees, cut out the worms,
sugared the remains in honey.
The knobby red pieces drowned
in his sticky bowl like candy.
I used to think those wild pears
and apples bitter, the shriveled
orchard overgrown. This was a place
where men were kept
like yellow dogs in pens.
Like all things
it was transient. The black-haired
bastard boys who stood
at the wire fences,
the slant-eyed women who cried,
unable to embrace this insanity
are faceless and formless now
as the shadows of those skinny trees
they left behind.
The truth is
old orchards must be burnt
with all their worms, and
new trees planted. The strangers
who plant, mid-life,
luckily may find a girl in the ashes,
raise her. At least
she may have her share.
The sleeves of fire
may make her beautiful again.
Mid-life I discover
the girl is gone-- the house
she lived in
inhabited by strangers.
Is this the crisis
I was led to expect
would unbury itself
from my mother's flesh
and spread like an infection
in an untended orchard?
My father took fruit
from wild trees, cut out the worms,
sugared the remains in honey.
The knobby red pieces drowned
in his sticky bowl like candy.
I used to think those wild pears
and apples bitter, the shriveled
orchard overgrown. This was a place
where men were kept
like yellow dogs in pens.
Like all things
it was transient. The black-haired
bastard boys who stood
at the wire fences,
the slant-eyed women who cried,
unable to embrace this insanity
are faceless and formless now
as the shadows of those skinny trees
they left behind.
The truth is
old orchards must be burnt
with all their worms, and
new trees planted. The strangers
who plant, mid-life,
luckily may find a girl in the ashes,
raise her. At least
she may have her share.
The sleeves of fire
may make her beautiful again.
POETRY THURSDAY--The Body
FLUOROSCOPE
"I will eat you slowly with kisses
even though the killer in you
has gotten out."--Anne Sexton
The pinkchalk dye
marks only wagging strings,
fringed needlepoint tracings
and balloons, pulsing and collapsing
in unseen hurricanes.
It does not reveal
the soft underground place
where pain drums at the bowel's door
like an oiled machine.
It shows how ribs
imprison the black heart
kicking at its bars
like a drunk
raving of the blade,
the blade,
God, the blade.
Annie knows.
She knows the body
is a damn hard thing
to kill.
.
FLUOROSCOPE
"I will eat you slowly with kisses
even though the killer in you
has gotten out."--Anne Sexton
The pinkchalk dye
marks only wagging strings,
fringed needlepoint tracings
and balloons, pulsing and collapsing
in unseen hurricanes.
It does not reveal
the soft underground place
where pain drums at the bowel's door
like an oiled machine.
It shows how ribs
imprison the black heart
kicking at its bars
like a drunk
raving of the blade,
the blade,
God, the blade.
Annie knows.
She knows the body
is a damn hard thing
to kill.
.
A Letter To Cecil B. DeMille
Remember me,
Ipana Pearlywhites:
bit moviestar
from the Forties
who might've played
opposite Bogart
and George Raft,
but didn't?
Thirty-two
pillars of ivory
once graceful
now gone to dentures,
whose especially talented
agility of hips
and imaginative tongue
taught men a new language,
whose willing flesh
became a garbage dump
for every twobit producer
west of Bakersfield?
To look at me now
who'd ever guess
this chaste rhythm
of breath under breasts
that used to rise
like helium balloons
but sag tonight
like used condoms
once fired little crimson
cherry-sucker syllables of sugar?
No one.
I am become a history book
of refrigerated kisses
preserved on celluloid
between the pages.
:)
Remember me,
Ipana Pearlywhites:
bit moviestar
from the Forties
who might've played
opposite Bogart
and George Raft,
but didn't?
Thirty-two
pillars of ivory
once graceful
now gone to dentures,
whose especially talented
agility of hips
and imaginative tongue
taught men a new language,
whose willing flesh
became a garbage dump
for every twobit producer
west of Bakersfield?
To look at me now
who'd ever guess
this chaste rhythm
of breath under breasts
that used to rise
like helium balloons
but sag tonight
like used condoms
once fired little crimson
cherry-sucker syllables of sugar?
No one.
I am become a history book
of refrigerated kisses
preserved on celluloid
between the pages.
:)
No Passion Greater Than the Mind
No Passion Greater than the Mind
Devours the Body or the Soul --
And all I know of Base Desire
By Mind was Body told.
My Soul kept White as Ivory
B'ignoring where the Body's sent --
May drop a Tear and shed a Sigh
Before this Passion's spent.
* * * *
Mind Is A Tiger In A Cage
Mind is a Tiger in a Cage --
Soul is a Desert Flower
That withers for Little Space
And dies a Little Hour.
Mind is a Tiger in a Cage --
But Flesh is Recompense
When Soul so Curiously Fades
For Want of sustenance.
(Two a la Emily Dickinson, who also Lived in Her Head!)
No Passion Greater than the Mind
Devours the Body or the Soul --
And all I know of Base Desire
By Mind was Body told.
My Soul kept White as Ivory
B'ignoring where the Body's sent --
May drop a Tear and shed a Sigh
Before this Passion's spent.
* * * *
Mind Is A Tiger In A Cage
Mind is a Tiger in a Cage --
Soul is a Desert Flower
That withers for Little Space
And dies a Little Hour.
Mind is a Tiger in a Cage --
But Flesh is Recompense
When Soul so Curiously Fades
For Want of sustenance.
(Two a la Emily Dickinson, who also Lived in Her Head!)
Lies in November
LIES IN NOVEMBER
My stone has hands
It sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands,
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its silky back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of boots
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white,
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
Understands cemetaries
Is flexible
My stone has hands
It sleeps in the cradle
Of my hands,
Drinking my fire
My stone grows hair
In wonderful curls
Down its silky back
It loves the ice
That breaks me
More than it loves me
It sings of boots
Of blackbirds dying
Of the cracking of heaven
My stone knows black and white,
Was there at the hour
Of my birth
Understands cemetaries
Is flexible
Friday, October 05, 2007
Swinging Gate
My lover is a dancing bear
Who begs upon his chain.
My husband is a china bull,
All fists and horns, but tame.
My lover plays on zither-strings,
My husband tends the sheep,
And I will lie with each one while
The other is asleep.
My lover is a unicorn
Who leaves me with a baby
My husband thinks is his, and so,
And so it is, well, maybe.
The child has one clean blue eye
Bright as a willow plate.
The other eye is brown as earth
Beneath my swinging gate.
And when my bishop asks the truth
(My innocence cold dead),
I'll tell him naught but this, "Insooth,
I'd rather lie, in bed.
*
Friday, April 13, 2007
Thursday TRIPTYCH
1. TRIPLE EXPOSURE
We come whirling down
like lopsided angels, each of us
a riddle on the family tree.
All our Sunday faces
are strangers to a mother
who cannot remember
the hour of our singular births.
I know we must not show her
how many hearts beat under our ribs
or she will wrinkle
and burn away.
Your computer cannot integrate
our baby parts
with its thin blue lines
or its darting cursor
sewing all night
with a long string from belly to mouth.
Each of me is a basket
filled with bedsheets
& bone flakes
& inkwells.
2. TRIPTYCH
She is three-in-one
A sort of trinity
Observe the three of her
That live here sometime
Sprouting like mushrooms
From a damp cave floor
Innocuous most of them
Most of the time
Fleshy umbrellas
Wild or edible or deadly
These are the two
She calls sister
Thrusting the silver rootlets
Of their lives
Into her body
She would gather them
With her fingers
Long knives
A harvest to be canned
Frozen or dried
Or squeeze them until they burst
Like puffs of smoke
The three of her
Feels everything
Pick one
Eat her with meat
While she is fresh
Before her babies come
She thinks she is real
Steps among the luscious caps
Carefully not to crush
The wild flesh of her
The edible flesh
The poisonous flesh
What are they doing for lunch
Stuff the three of her
Into your brown bag
Tell her to fuck off
Swallow her cold
3. EUTHANASIA WITH PSILOCYBIN
Listen:
Janus had but two heads
For God's sake
And I have three--
One wood, one salt, one fire
Making demands, giving orders
Fire tells wood how to die with grace:
Stretch out under my red hands
Spit out your black widows
Grow daisies.
Salt tells fire:
Observe
I will smother you with crystal hands
Stop your red mouth
Ears, throat and belly with my white rocks.
When I come down
One of us is left.
She is not me. She will dissolve
And leak out with my tears, sweat, and menses
She will not get old
She will never see our skulls.
photo (c)2002 Distinctly France
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About Me
- Joyce Ellen Davis
- 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.
9 Comments:
This is rather intriguing!
*What are they doing for lunch
Stuff the three of her
Into your brown bag
Tell her to fuck off
Swallow her cold*
It quite reminds me of Theodore Roethke.
So I had to print this out so I could read it again. It is so fascinating. I love the imagery in it, its mystery.
Thanks, people!
Hi Pepek. Pretty mushrooms. Makes me think of Fantasia. Did you take this picture?
So - I'm curious. Why did you think I was in Ireland? I'd love to be there but I'm just at home in good old California. **sigh**
Hi again. Got your explanation comment and that certainly explains it. I'm clueless about sitemeter so you are ahead of me. LOL Still wish I was in Ireland.
That's fantastic stuff there!
I, too am printing this out for bedtime reading. Your poem has so many layers, depth, mystery. Your voice comes through loud and clear, too. I love your poems!
So I've read this several times now, and I think it's damn brilliant.
Thanks again. Nice to know you like it!