When in the ‘spanse of time I would recall
A silly-rhym-ed symphony of words-
Worth nothing 'midst the clamor of the bells,
I'd walk through familiarity
Of emerald grasses sweet and soft to touch.
A gentle kiss of wind against my breath
And vivid hues of violet light the way
Back from the house. My footsteps would not fail
And I, once more, would be with-out those walls.
The brickwork, dubbed by years of soil, wear
The temp'rate trials of a life -- a monument,
Colossus, giant form, cemented sure
Against the rocky fundamentals. Then,
Escaping through the rooms towards the door
To scurry to the lighted windowsill
From which the brilliant light, emanating
And clear, poured crystal rainbows all along
The rug. I sit serene against the glass.
My clawing eyes searched ev’ry inch of earth
To find a fault. No problems seen, I stepped
Across the threshold, regal and composed
To meet the raindrops searching for the warmth
Of human skin. Pleased to concede, I’d go,
And ev’ry day her eyes would search for mine.
I would dance for her and sing a song
To chase away the pain within her bones.
A romance born of bare-foot promenades
And kumquat trees with aloe interspersed.
Amongst the scent of myrrh-like breath, I see
With elephantine eyes the murky lake.
I feel with recollections strong the cool,
Soft wind composing milky-water rips
And tears. I taste the end-of-summer sweat.
I hear my idle voice raised to the doors
Of heav’n itself to touch the ear of God
Or anyone who’ll listen.
Now I hear
A voice, more agéd and repulsed by sound,
Attack the throne of pearl and glassy sea
Which mimics that most perfect and ideal
Mirage. The agate tears of sky and wind
Returned to earth to quench the crying ground;
And I, alone against the rage, am still
Along the waters edge, toes deeply damp.
I owe to you my sanity. I dream
Of you in moments of despair –
To look upon a skyline mixed with steel,
You are the only grace to ransom me.
How sweet your leaves, how kind your tender branch
To hold my swinging legs and weary head.
Would I were there to once more sit alone.
Would I were there to dip my toes in deep.
11.28.2007
11.26.2007
White Flowers
I have grown quite tired of white
Flowers: always celebrated in mourning,
Or in weddings. I am in need of color,
A spell of bright swirling sparkling
To brighten up the gloomy world.
What there is of Fall
Is beautiful while it lasts—
The colors are sparks against the low gray clouds
Until they fall and leave us gaps up to them.
The winter, too, sparkles—
And though white, still it covers
A great host of colors and histories:
Choleric babies and warm fireplaces and fallen leaves turned into some dirt.
But these white flowers cover not.
These white flowers are funeral dirges
Or songs of great white mirth.
I grow quite tired of breaks in color
For a solemn affair.
I want for one wash of color, unbroken.
26 November 2007
Flowers: always celebrated in mourning,
Or in weddings. I am in need of color,
A spell of bright swirling sparkling
To brighten up the gloomy world.
What there is of Fall
Is beautiful while it lasts—
The colors are sparks against the low gray clouds
Until they fall and leave us gaps up to them.
The winter, too, sparkles—
And though white, still it covers
A great host of colors and histories:
Choleric babies and warm fireplaces and fallen leaves turned into some dirt.
But these white flowers cover not.
These white flowers are funeral dirges
Or songs of great white mirth.
I grow quite tired of breaks in color
For a solemn affair.
I want for one wash of color, unbroken.
26 November 2007
Monday 26 November
I wonder at all the other 26 Novembers—
The todays for some and the yesterdays for some.
I wonder at the other Monday 26 Novembers
That felt quite like this one—
And did a child play in fallen leaves
Or in fallen snow?
Did a hard, cold rain fall
Or did the sun fall like a great beacon?
And did a young man, ages ago or yesterdays ago,
Sit down at his desk,
Pen or quill in hand,
Ink smudges lining the beds of his fingernails
(from whence came all those funny words,
Until, good God, some oil was struck,
Making rich the writer, making rich his
Sons)? Or did a young man
Yawn and turn over once more,
Escaping the incessant drones of some similar bells?
I recall one such 26 November—sacred and bleak
Where a great hush fell with the avocados
Down to the earth with a whisper.
Children played in the murky waters, splashed
As though only an ant might have died,
Squashed beneath their fumbling feet
As they padded towards the shore and the waves.
Then from the west, with the falling light,
Came the sound of some similar bells—
They called out, like fireworks splitting the sky,
A death knell.
And all at once, there came a hush,
Soft as the crushing of the life of some ant.
I wonder at how they used every 26 Novembers—
A lifetime of Monday 26 Novembers.
How did the lady tidy each stray hair
Before approaching the aisle?
And how did the son creep up beside the lizard
To catch it before it ran off?
And how did the oil monger carry home his wealth
In dirty handfuls with stained fingernail beds?
And how did some similar bells sound
In all of the other 26 Novembers?
The todays for some and the yesterdays for some.
I wonder at the other Monday 26 Novembers
That felt quite like this one—
And did a child play in fallen leaves
Or in fallen snow?
Did a hard, cold rain fall
Or did the sun fall like a great beacon?
And did a young man, ages ago or yesterdays ago,
Sit down at his desk,
Pen or quill in hand,
Ink smudges lining the beds of his fingernails
(from whence came all those funny words,
Until, good God, some oil was struck,
Making rich the writer, making rich his
Sons)? Or did a young man
Yawn and turn over once more,
Escaping the incessant drones of some similar bells?
I recall one such 26 November—sacred and bleak
Where a great hush fell with the avocados
Down to the earth with a whisper.
Children played in the murky waters, splashed
As though only an ant might have died,
Squashed beneath their fumbling feet
As they padded towards the shore and the waves.
Then from the west, with the falling light,
Came the sound of some similar bells—
They called out, like fireworks splitting the sky,
A death knell.
And all at once, there came a hush,
Soft as the crushing of the life of some ant.
I wonder at how they used every 26 Novembers—
A lifetime of Monday 26 Novembers.
How did the lady tidy each stray hair
Before approaching the aisle?
And how did the son creep up beside the lizard
To catch it before it ran off?
And how did the oil monger carry home his wealth
In dirty handfuls with stained fingernail beds?
And how did some similar bells sound
In all of the other 26 Novembers?
10.25.2007
An Unquiet Life
You’ll quietly go to see the Almighty—
A shocking end for an unquiet life.
Your hands are frailer and far less mighty
And as soft on my hands as they were on your wife.
Your face is now rigid as though set in stone,But your voice kind of shakes when you say “How pretty.”
You may say aloud, “Oh, just leave me alone,”
But eye glimmers beg us to lend you some pity.
Y’looked up in a tree
And met your dame.
She looked like me
And we talked the same.
She wore her braids
As I wear these.
That’s what you get paid
For looking up trees.
Your ring, like a hammer, fell from your finger
When you moved away from the beloved city.
You grew up a giant, and you grew up a singer,
And you grew up some members of some great committee.
You grew up a poet, and you grew up a saint,
A church man, a barkeep, a wandering fool.
You watched them work as you watched them paint
Their first family picture on their first day of school.
You worked your four jobs, you brought in the meat,
And you lived with your woman who never complained,
Who cooked up your dinner, and always smelled sweet,
And longed for companions, but always remained.
Now tell me your truths
And I’ll tell you mine.
We have our youths
And plenty of time.
We’ll take our crusade
On down to the Keys—
You’ll throw a parade
That celebrates me.
Off to the Orient, holding your hats,
You cruised on the streets and bought your cheap things.
You held her hands, held back your spats,
And lived out your lives as the pauperest kings.
Your children were born. Your parents all died,
The knights of religion that set us ablaze.
Your brother was dead. And then was your bride.
Your life still continued, and so did your ways.
Front porches now shelter your leathery hands
Until you are called to do your grand work:
Quiet, you swing until one commands
That you wash up your fingers and set out the forks.
To suppertime talk,
Do you prefer woods?
We’ll take us a walk
With trees as our hoods.
‘Fore eating, they prayed
And so did we
But after, we stayed
Safe under the trees.
In Autumn, you went to cathedral tents—
The people were wailing for joy or for grief.
And whether they went to praise or lament,
Mostly they went to find some relief.
So thus you were waiting when winds blew through.
They ruffled your hair and rustled your shirt,
Which billowed away from the sticky stew
Of sweating and weeping and dollops of dirt.
You left the great cauldron and went toward the sun
That set in the sky like a blazing white horse.
It lit up the trees like a harbinger’s gun
And split from the clouds like an awful divorce.
And do you recall
The way that you met?—
The trees in the Fall.
It is hard to forget.
A masquerade
Of loving me
When memories fade
With pictures you see.
The sound of a foot on the creaking old stair
Alarms of a child or a weightless young girl.
It lets in her presence and lets in some air
And her skirts fly up like the air in a twirl.
Her face like the picture you keep by your bed,
But younger and stronger and darker of brow.
You try to remember the words that she said;
She looks just the same, but she’s different somehow.
Shorter than yesterday, and sharper last year,
She spins through the kitchen and sweeps up the floor,
Puts flowers in tea cups and tea in the rear—
Her scent floats around while she does every chore.
You cut your eyes sharply to her every move.
Her hands are less graceful. Her feet are too small.
Her hair is too short, and you’ll never approve.
You’d rather her leave you with nothing at all.
Her eyes from that picture
Burn under your skin.
You cast down your strictures
Like ‘riginal sin.
They move through the glade
Just like a disease
That eats up the maid
And curdles the cheese.
When you were still dashing, you held out your hand.
She took it with modesty urging her forth.
Her youth was too pretty to then understand
Until you laid quiet and looked to the North,Where lovely she stood with the sun to her back
And twirled like an angel beside the still trees.
You stayed by her side ‘til the sky turned black
And mourned when her youth was turned into disease.
If you could go back, would you meet your Christ?
Would you kill all the Hitlers? Give peasants some bread?
According to you, it’s unevenly priced,
For you’d rather be lying beside her in bed.
You held her hands
As you hold mine.
We have no more plans.
We have no more time.
Her serenades
Were much like these—
The benefits paid
For looking up trees.
You moved to the forest
To put you at ease,
But now you’re just searching,
Looking up in the trees.
A shocking end for an unquiet life.
Your hands are frailer and far less mighty
And as soft on my hands as they were on your wife.
Your face is now rigid as though set in stone,But your voice kind of shakes when you say “How pretty.”
You may say aloud, “Oh, just leave me alone,”
But eye glimmers beg us to lend you some pity.
Y’looked up in a tree
And met your dame.
She looked like me
And we talked the same.
She wore her braids
As I wear these.
That’s what you get paid
For looking up trees.
Your ring, like a hammer, fell from your finger
When you moved away from the beloved city.
You grew up a giant, and you grew up a singer,
And you grew up some members of some great committee.
You grew up a poet, and you grew up a saint,
A church man, a barkeep, a wandering fool.
You watched them work as you watched them paint
Their first family picture on their first day of school.
You worked your four jobs, you brought in the meat,
And you lived with your woman who never complained,
Who cooked up your dinner, and always smelled sweet,
And longed for companions, but always remained.
Now tell me your truths
And I’ll tell you mine.
We have our youths
And plenty of time.
We’ll take our crusade
On down to the Keys—
You’ll throw a parade
That celebrates me.
Off to the Orient, holding your hats,
You cruised on the streets and bought your cheap things.
You held her hands, held back your spats,
And lived out your lives as the pauperest kings.
Your children were born. Your parents all died,
The knights of religion that set us ablaze.
Your brother was dead. And then was your bride.
Your life still continued, and so did your ways.
Front porches now shelter your leathery hands
Until you are called to do your grand work:
Quiet, you swing until one commands
That you wash up your fingers and set out the forks.
To suppertime talk,
Do you prefer woods?
We’ll take us a walk
With trees as our hoods.
‘Fore eating, they prayed
And so did we
But after, we stayed
Safe under the trees.
In Autumn, you went to cathedral tents—
The people were wailing for joy or for grief.
And whether they went to praise or lament,
Mostly they went to find some relief.
So thus you were waiting when winds blew through.
They ruffled your hair and rustled your shirt,
Which billowed away from the sticky stew
Of sweating and weeping and dollops of dirt.
You left the great cauldron and went toward the sun
That set in the sky like a blazing white horse.
It lit up the trees like a harbinger’s gun
And split from the clouds like an awful divorce.
And do you recall
The way that you met?—
The trees in the Fall.
It is hard to forget.
A masquerade
Of loving me
When memories fade
With pictures you see.
The sound of a foot on the creaking old stair
Alarms of a child or a weightless young girl.
It lets in her presence and lets in some air
And her skirts fly up like the air in a twirl.
Her face like the picture you keep by your bed,
But younger and stronger and darker of brow.
You try to remember the words that she said;
She looks just the same, but she’s different somehow.
Shorter than yesterday, and sharper last year,
She spins through the kitchen and sweeps up the floor,
Puts flowers in tea cups and tea in the rear—
Her scent floats around while she does every chore.
You cut your eyes sharply to her every move.
Her hands are less graceful. Her feet are too small.
Her hair is too short, and you’ll never approve.
You’d rather her leave you with nothing at all.
Her eyes from that picture
Burn under your skin.
You cast down your strictures
Like ‘riginal sin.
They move through the glade
Just like a disease
That eats up the maid
And curdles the cheese.
When you were still dashing, you held out your hand.
She took it with modesty urging her forth.
Her youth was too pretty to then understand
Until you laid quiet and looked to the North,Where lovely she stood with the sun to her back
And twirled like an angel beside the still trees.
You stayed by her side ‘til the sky turned black
And mourned when her youth was turned into disease.
If you could go back, would you meet your Christ?
Would you kill all the Hitlers? Give peasants some bread?
According to you, it’s unevenly priced,
For you’d rather be lying beside her in bed.
You held her hands
As you hold mine.
We have no more plans.
We have no more time.
Her serenades
Were much like these—
The benefits paid
For looking up trees.
You moved to the forest
To put you at ease,
But now you’re just searching,
Looking up in the trees.
July 15, 2007
A Drink
He gambled and drank and cursed away
His days that seemed to him so vile.
He wished for a day
In Prague and Bombay,
And soon, he said, in just a while.
His voice grew hoarse from all of his liquor
And his squalor and pinkish riddles.
The church bells flicker,
And he grows sicker
As he slept to the sound of fiddles.
Vibrant, he wakes to the chiding
Of his woman, his lover-girl.
His children are hiding
And she is abiding,
Awaiting her piece of the world.
The world, all—he promised her all:
The moonbeams straight down from the sky,
The cherries in fall
The whippoorwill’s call,
And he promised her never to lie.
He scorned all his bad luck, and grace,
And God, and the whole world, and booze.
He hated her lace
As she hated his face,
Because, God, how he hated to lose.
His days that seemed to him so vile.
He wished for a day
In Prague and Bombay,
And soon, he said, in just a while.
His voice grew hoarse from all of his liquor
And his squalor and pinkish riddles.
The church bells flicker,
And he grows sicker
As he slept to the sound of fiddles.
Vibrant, he wakes to the chiding
Of his woman, his lover-girl.
His children are hiding
And she is abiding,
Awaiting her piece of the world.
The world, all—he promised her all:
The moonbeams straight down from the sky,
The cherries in fall
The whippoorwill’s call,
And he promised her never to lie.
He scorned all his bad luck, and grace,
And God, and the whole world, and booze.
He hated her lace
As she hated his face,
Because, God, how he hated to lose.
An Autumnal Poem
Does it fall down
Like a leaf, a piece of autumnal grandeur, tumbling in ecstatic winds,
Down from a branch,
Wind-rustled and blooming with the blush of cool air?
Branches can be grasped;
Air will not be climbed—
Grasped like a leaf in my palm,
Climbed like ladders toward a stretch of sky, crisp.
Palms stretch their fingers heavenward,
Crisp leaves branching like my palms—
Heaven; branching veins like my veins,
Palm lining up with my hand,
Veins pulsing with an organic heartbeat.
Hands, tiny and wild,
And heartbeats name romantic bests.
Wildly they together chase after the autumn,
Besting me. Is it the leaf or is it the wind?
Autumn grasps after me with long, cold fingers
Of wind against my cheek, like a forest of branches.
Fingers dance across mine.
Branches may be climbed to higher heights.
Mine are steep.
Height increases with every breath,
Steeping tea leaves in water to be warm.
Breathing is visible this autumn evening,
Warm as steam on my face.
Evening spreads, cool and bright.
My face warms at the sight of such splendor.
Bright attitudes, like a blushing leaf or bride,
With splendor and hidden ecstasy.
Brides blush and fall
In ecstasy down the aisle toward romance.
Fall breathes romance through and through;
Romance that builds you ladders,
Through fallen leaves from branches.
Ladders you fail to climb,
For branches may fall—don’t think it.
Climb; think that it grows.
It does.
25 October 2007
Like a leaf, a piece of autumnal grandeur, tumbling in ecstatic winds,
Down from a branch,
Wind-rustled and blooming with the blush of cool air?
Branches can be grasped;
Air will not be climbed—
Grasped like a leaf in my palm,
Climbed like ladders toward a stretch of sky, crisp.
Palms stretch their fingers heavenward,
Crisp leaves branching like my palms—
Heaven; branching veins like my veins,
Palm lining up with my hand,
Veins pulsing with an organic heartbeat.
Hands, tiny and wild,
And heartbeats name romantic bests.
Wildly they together chase after the autumn,
Besting me. Is it the leaf or is it the wind?
Autumn grasps after me with long, cold fingers
Of wind against my cheek, like a forest of branches.
Fingers dance across mine.
Branches may be climbed to higher heights.
Mine are steep.
Height increases with every breath,
Steeping tea leaves in water to be warm.
Breathing is visible this autumn evening,
Warm as steam on my face.
Evening spreads, cool and bright.
My face warms at the sight of such splendor.
Bright attitudes, like a blushing leaf or bride,
With splendor and hidden ecstasy.
Brides blush and fall
In ecstasy down the aisle toward romance.
Fall breathes romance through and through;
Romance that builds you ladders,
Through fallen leaves from branches.
Ladders you fail to climb,
For branches may fall—don’t think it.
Climb; think that it grows.
It does.
25 October 2007
8.12.2007
Free Verse
Everything now is sacred: Ambivalence;
A traveling troubadour troupe
Holding tongues of fire and gospels
Of white lilies in their hair;
The weathered logs of antiquity’s past,
Flowered over with rhinestone buttons
Of discolored saplings;
A shuffle of static rustle through the tree branches
As a visible treachery is shattered
And veritably missed;
An extremity newly cleansed with water
And wreaking of peppermint soap;
The sunset blooming like flower petals
Over the encroaching skyline of
Pizzerias and bank tellers;
The waves of laughter in quiet tones;
The flaming colors of blinded followers;
A hand to hold with trust down the hill.
A meandering grasp grabs, grapples through the darkness
Of trees surrounding and blinders secure.
A gentle hand to guide or beguile
Moves over the soft arms of questioning.
The squeals of tires and excitement
Fill the air with joy and odors of candor
As the blinds stay closed
On the trusting faces that entreat the silent darkness
For but a moment’s light.
They are entangled in an embrace
Of tree branches and shoulders and hair.
They are breathing the scent
Of insecurity and laughter,
And they stare blankly ahead with uncertainty,
Awaiting a quiet fate or a bang or whisper.
Everything now is clothed, bathed in poignancy.
Everything cries out its uncertain importance.
The noonday rises as the moon fades
And the knowing travelers welcome the uncertainty
With arms outstretched.
A fragment calls out from the edge of the wood
To remember the plucked lilies and peppermint
And the sensation of newly washed feet in the darkness.
A traveling troubadour troupe
Holding tongues of fire and gospels
Of white lilies in their hair;
The weathered logs of antiquity’s past,
Flowered over with rhinestone buttons
Of discolored saplings;
A shuffle of static rustle through the tree branches
As a visible treachery is shattered
And veritably missed;
An extremity newly cleansed with water
And wreaking of peppermint soap;
The sunset blooming like flower petals
Over the encroaching skyline of
Pizzerias and bank tellers;
The waves of laughter in quiet tones;
The flaming colors of blinded followers;
A hand to hold with trust down the hill.
A meandering grasp grabs, grapples through the darkness
Of trees surrounding and blinders secure.
A gentle hand to guide or beguile
Moves over the soft arms of questioning.
The squeals of tires and excitement
Fill the air with joy and odors of candor
As the blinds stay closed
On the trusting faces that entreat the silent darkness
For but a moment’s light.
They are entangled in an embrace
Of tree branches and shoulders and hair.
They are breathing the scent
Of insecurity and laughter,
And they stare blankly ahead with uncertainty,
Awaiting a quiet fate or a bang or whisper.
Everything now is clothed, bathed in poignancy.
Everything cries out its uncertain importance.
The noonday rises as the moon fades
And the knowing travelers welcome the uncertainty
With arms outstretched.
A fragment calls out from the edge of the wood
To remember the plucked lilies and peppermint
And the sensation of newly washed feet in the darkness.
May 10, 2007
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