Word Play

The Depths

2012-01-28T11:22:00.001-05:00

You can swim in
and out of your depths
more easily now,
and willingly, and with
purpose. It’s not that
you deserve this,
because the mere
idea of dessert is
foreign to the way
fate operates. But this
ability you now possess
was bought at a price,
even though it feels
like grace. And the lake
of fire you swam through
has refined you, so that
added to your pain is
a joy born neither of
rebellion nor resignation.

In the Land of Sun and Seven Lakes

2012-01-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

In this wide land of seven lakes,
level land of sparsely-placed
starchy palms, no one is invisible
to storied Phoebus’ piercing eye,
nor his feathered avatar’s ceaseless
soaring and searching (an osprey,
hovering, then plunging down
beneath the gleaming surface of things
to seize an unwary prize, thus
earning his undoubtable renown).
Here and there a scrawny lizard or
a mousy rodent discovers a respite
underneath a scanty cypress canopy,
an oval of shadow within a cone
of coolness and momentary safety.
Life can sometimes seem just such a
scorched wasteland, where unrelenting
desolation and unremitting nausea
comprise the whole order of each day,
though life also has a certain way
of creating pockets of convalescence
and redoubt, however fleeting they may be,
however long they let us work things out.

The Shape of Fate

2012-01-28T11:08:00.001-05:00

Not a flight from but a plunge
down into is what is needed,
even while knowing that neither
our love nor our hate can change it,
impossible to know in advance
it’s shape or the extent of its
influence. Indeed, it's indifferent to
any histrionic beseeching or
long-winded speeches. In fact,
to call it an it at all is to simply
mistake fiction for incontestable fact.
But that’s the way we are, we
stubborn primates, superchimps,
as it were, with an incurably chronic
modus operandi - believing we can
bend events to our will, but then
pitch a fit when we trip and take a spill.

Crows

2011-09-17T11:40:00.005-04:00

In the infamously
fickle ebb and flood
of life's delicately
undulating web, one finds
that crows are both
wary and bold in the whole
economy of it all. Rarely
does an inky Corvus
make any pivotal blunder,
even when the fortuitous
vicissitudes of life
threaten to sunder
life from limb.

Flux and Fire

2011-08-27T18:57:00.008-04:00

If all there is is flux and fire, then dire
though it may seem, the chance to perceive
so many worlds unfurl before one's very eyes
is like a Koothanic dance into which one is
lucky enough to be sucked, irretrievably -
and thus able to rise. This surprising flood,
this staggering eruption of forms, propels one
beyond the norm, dislodging whatever gets
stuck or suppressed, and lets one's spirit again
conjure and devise, because this endless
succession of dies, each cast as a deviation
from the preceding, releases a pent-up force
to begin the putrefaction of the petrified.

The Magus in His Cell at Night

2011-06-29T19:02:00.008-04:00

The brooding magus scrawlshis sigils across the floor,while crawling on calloused kneesand palms rubbed raw. Madnesshas steadily crept into the mind of the magus. The obtrusive beams of moonlight illuminate his scribblings, these doodlings that issue forth like the voluminous effluvium from his pores. A vision he tasted once but couldn't quite capture haunts his every hour. The sigils alleviate his need to approach, to translate this dubious image quartered in his heart.This is his daily art, his meansnot to sublimate but to evade his heart.

Canis Solus

2011-05-14T19:48:00.000-04:00

It’s been said they’re
stuck in time, stuck

like a repetitious rhyme
droning on and on.

Fixed, cordoned off,
insulated from

worry and regret, neither
impassive nor effete,

never disconsolate, never
in need of condolences

or an opiate, perpetually
sentenced to isolation

from both self and separates.
Who knows what the future holds?

Who cares what the past foretold?
All that matters is the present tense,

all that matters is the present mold.

Heights of the Soul

2010-12-15T18:29:00.008-05:00

There are heights of the soul
from which even tragedy
ceases to look tragic.

It's not magic, because magic
suggests being removed from
existence, a disconnect

between cause and effect,
and that would be fantastic -
in the literal sense.

How can this be? From whence
comes this appearance of
an insouciant ambience?

Is it awareness of separateness,
a distinctive trajectory propelling
one beyond the mediocre mob?

Is it the attainment of objectivity,
a necessary space and perspective,
a proclivity for originality?

Whatever it is, it's a maverick
sensibility, but not frantic;
more like a measured, disciplined

rigor to one's character, a restraint
placed upon one's nature, not
to negate or to enervate but

to mobilize, to organize a
hierarchy of drives, a mise en place
indicative of sublime panache.

Animals

2010-12-13T19:33:00.006-05:00

Animals, we are,
at bottom.

There are channels,
grooves

dug deep into our brains -
love, for instance,

suggests the persistence
of the carnal

inheritance of our
bestial existence.

A Kiss

2008-12-15T05:40:00.012-05:00

There's just nothing
like a kiss. When four
lips coalesce, then
there's so much more than
the parts or even the
sum of the parts. The arts
come close to that dance
of open and close, open
and close, because just
being fixed isn't what
the arts are about. And like
the arts, all lovers flout
the static state, disavow
neat oppositions like
sweet and tart, opting for
a protean equilibrium,
trying to prolong it so long as
their muscles hold out.

First Love

2008-12-14T06:32:00.011-05:00

The first love is the one
you never forget, they say,
or at least the one you regret
the most anyway, though
not in an opportunity cost
kind of way, it's more like
opportunity lost. This kind of
love never congeals, it's never
susceptible to frost. And though
the years roll down the road,
your ever-recursive mind goes
panning back through the past,
seeking the precious ore, trashing
the dross that's accrued.

Spiel

2008-12-13T16:16:00.004-05:00

Some are and
some are not
good at telling
spiely things.
You have to get
a certain feel
for the crowd
if you're going to
engage in a bit
of spiel. Repartee
and a repertoire
are both a must
if you're not to feel
like a heel and lose
the crowd's trust.
Too much booze
and you might
just as well leave -
unless you've got
a glockenspiel
up your sleeve.

The More We Learn

2008-11-30T08:10:00.004-05:00

The more we know the less
we understand - as if that
were equal to the sage advice
of a bird in the hand.
But facts are facts and they're
just a stack of inventory,
the result of an over-eager
appetite. But we need some
mental bile and certain other
juices of digestion before
insight can be sent flashing
down the brain's fatty sluices
into the gaping vats of mastery.

Morning

2008-11-29T06:22:00.003-05:00

Gray light grows
lighter as morning
draws nearer, and dawn
swells greater and greater
as the first forms become clear.

Poetry

2008-11-28T11:13:00.010-05:00

Poetry is a many-feathered creature.
The supple frame on which it all hangs is
language: hollow word-bones, through which
breath and voice resound; sinews of syntax,
out of which grows such gleaming plumage,
each line becoming another barb of the vane,
and its resplendent hues of color all depending
on how the light reflects back into the eye -
and then the shudder when it wings and sings.

Crows in Air

2008-11-27T14:42:00.005-05:00

Four sable crows
all in a row plow
snow-laden air,
yet remain wisps
of shade making
haste with stealth.

Dare Fatis Vela

2008-11-26T08:52:00.008-05:00

To give the sails to Fate is what you decide.
With your wide eyes you size up the hull
and measure the tide. The mast is upright,
and the mooring ropes are all cast aside.
You may sail far away - or maybe not at all!
Just remember there's no recourse to any
police force when you're committed to
such wanton caprice. And if you had just
known the price beforehand, you simply
wouldn't have handed your only destiny
over to the Fates, to sail both charted and
uncharted Deeps, or wander near fords, or
negotiate fjords, eluding Scylla only to be
ruined by Charybdis. And oh, how you see
that the Fates can't be lured or implored.

Nectar

2008-11-25T10:56:00.004-05:00

A hummingbird, its
thrumming mandible
docked deep inside
the nectary, is filling
its ruby-colored reliquary
with saccharine sustenance.
Its figure is engaged in
some kind of dance, as the
paper-thin wings elicit a
stabilizing trance, a rolling,
imperfect oscillation around
the vertical, while the
peristaltic movements of
the slender, glinting throat
keep the ambrosial nectar
coming and coming.

The Devil's Wine

2008-11-18T14:04:00.005-05:00

Poetry is the devil's wine, they say,
and that's just fine because
no one can deny his cosmopolitan style.
But the cons of devil's wine may in fact
outweigh the pros if you're
vehemently opposed to what some consider
the defining traits of both
poetry and wine: that is, ecstasy.
Intoxication and exhilaration may well top
the list of pros of the divinest verse
whether it's long or terse or
hard to get at at first. And the one that flows
down long-dry spiritual furrows
awakens a heretofore unknown thirst.

The Brain

2008-11-16T09:06:00.008-05:00

1.

Can the brain
change the brain,
ending the latter's
tyrannous reign?
The incorrigible
gene needn't feign
mastery over every
act or lofty thought
because its power,
strong as gravity,
goes unnoticed
and is all too easy
to maintain.

2.

But if the brain is
the brain, then
who or what is
doing the shaping?
It's true the brain
looks like clay, but
better minds know
taking hands to that
fatty mass will mess
with all its delicate
circuits and relays.

3.

Maybe the brain
can change
the brain.
It's undeniable that
the brain
gains both mass and
insight by
running the gauntlet
of life (hopefully
with a
resilient helmet).

4.

Without being
the same, umpteen
trains of thought
worm their way
adroitly through
gray matter as if
it were an apple.
And just as worms
burrow into fruit,
words and forms
enter the brain,
blending and then
coalescing until
they reach a final
amalgamation.
But then there's
no way to tell
what's what, and so
that just adds to all
the mystification.

5.

Some say thoughts
are what train
the brain - but
then where do
thoughts come from?
Do they float
idly through the ether,
drifting toward
a webbed encephalon?
Or do bits seep
out of dense marrow,
condense into
an intense nodule
unable to wait for
tomorrow, embedding
itself into the brain
with earnest compulsion?

6.

Is the brain for us or
against us? Is there
even an us separate from
soma, axon and dendrite
multiplied a billionfold
in an organ whose folds
are home to neurons
more fecund than that
pump house of sperm?
Speaking of tails, there's
a clue that may help us
sift through this whole
mess. Myth may come to
our aid, provide context for
what appears to be a
conundrum for some. The
ouroboros is an ancient
serpent depicted devouring
its own tail, and yet it lives,
eternally. It's a primitive
cybernetic feedback loop.
Our brain may be like this,
even though at times it
gets frenetic and can make
one of your eyelids droop.
But the brain is not behind
an Iron Curtain, and the
ouroboros contains no
bits that are ferrous...

7.

Some will still assert
that because we don't know
what makes neurons start
or ideas flow, there must be
a ghost somewhere in the machine.
Some won't even dare to flirt
with the can of worms, preferring
to stay mum or even inert.
Another side is less harmless,
those who confidently insist
that empiricism is best, and so
even dare to tell us there is no us.

Fallen Leaves in Fall

2008-11-12T15:51:00.006-05:00

Again the time comes when
the tearing wind and thrashing rain
denude the icons of the season.
And we love their audacious gold,
gold being the desideratum and
esteem of our race across space
and time. In the still-green yard
the scattered members of what was
a brilliant whole lie noiseless
and still. Some are lying adjacent,
others overlap. What was radiant gold
wreathed around each tree is now
faded yellow on the ground. Gold
represents what human sentiment may
arbitrarily assigns to elements. Gold
rings, gold trees. All is as it must be.
The yellow leaves are merely debris.

The Double

2008-11-11T21:00:00.003-05:00

In Dostoevsky's
The Double, the hero
is a split self. But
things are much more
knotty than that, not
as clearly discrete,
not a neat and tidy
dissection, cut up
into two chunks. In fact,
persons are splintered,
like thousands of
iron filings skirting the
sticky edges of a
permanent magnet,
crowding around
their respective poles.
So maybe now we have
the whole notion.

Treading Water

2008-11-03T10:00:00.043-05:00

Treading water, fatigue
and foaming spatter can
make you falter. And an
undulating plane is all that
separates you from two
worlds: one where some
hope is clung to like
barnacles to a hull. The other
we could call surrender,
the willful softening of all
long-taut muscles, thanks
to a cascade of chemicals
deep inside your brain.
And no one will ever know
about the throes of anguish
in your little pixel of ocean,
once you've seamlessly slipped
beneath the plane with barely
a blip or a detectable ripple.

Wracked with Worry

2008-10-21T16:53:00.002-04:00

Wracked with worry.
Of course no one willingly
gives himself to the rack.
But it's a fact that the world
will work hand in glove
with his wound up mind
when it won't slacken or even
change tack. Such a crafty
racket, he thinks, as he feels
the steel-like threads of his
white jacket slowly contract.

Foundation

2008-09-28T19:39:00.003-04:00

When one's foundation stones
reveal the slightest disposition
toward unhitching, the faintest
pulsation can yield the subtlest
listing - a quavering cascade
riding unwaveringly down the
side of a compromised façade.

Counterpart, Counterpoint

2008-09-26T11:24:00.015-04:00

Most want their counterpart,
which is another way of saying
a counterpoint - the heart
being the fixed intersection
between the two. To start
with the counterpoint seems
inimical to any connection
two may seek to create.
But when both movements
play their own imperfect,
uniquely unrefined tune,
that fused union is a melody
secure as the most coveted alloy.

Winter Spindrift

2008-09-24T17:30:00.003-04:00

Spindrift gems of only
sand-grain size
will soon be sandblasting
whatever they can
across the sweep of the land;
and the open face
trying to brave the cold
without any cries,
has no option but to try
to keep the wind at bay,
wrapped up or even
shut in, having no say
in all the ways of the wind.

Hanker or Hunker?

2008-09-23T18:28:00.006-04:00

To hanker or hunker - that's
the fundamental question mark.
To hanker is to embark, to go after,
to thrust oneself like a hawk
towards an oblivious thrush, for instance.
To hunker is to lay low. Instead of
blazing flames you favor the slow
smolder of embers. It's not that you spurn
the whole community or any
of its members; you just request immunity
from the upward-lifting, the
outward-pulling you think you're not
ready for or not willing to submit to.
Maybe you are made to be sunk
deep in your well, another funk always
waiting just around the corner.
And so down you hunker into your deep,
dark, dank, fortified bunker. But others
hanker after anything not anchored,
affirming both the grandeur and the rancor.

Dogs Don't Like Hugs

2008-09-23T10:20:00.004-04:00

Dogs just don't like hugs. It's true; and you can't
simply shrug it off, as much as you might want to.
You can't force their hand for fear of breaching
the bond that took thousands of years to form.
When forlorn humans get lost in an emotional fog,
they crave nothing more than an embrace or a
soft caress to chase away the encrusting frost.
But all hope is not gone - while dogs may not like
blunt hugs, they still speak in their singular tongue
and we in ours; and we can wish for a requited trust,
a prodigious and lasting love, no matter what language
we speak or gestures we make. We do what we must.

The Dark Nightsea

2008-09-22T18:51:00.004-04:00

The forces of life constantly unite and diverge
by the laws of love and strife and quirk,
forging tenuous coalitions or durable bonds.
But we can fashion a refuge from the surge,
a seaworthy ship both monumental and strong.
We can embrace the beauty of sweet fortuity,
rolling together fluently in the dark nightsea.

Stele

2008-09-22T11:00:00.005-04:00

An obdurate monolith sits
at the center of our lives,
an obelisk round which
we course. A mute, faceless
slab of monochromatic
inscrutability. Each of us
faces it, there's no escaping it.
We may even run aground
when we bash against it,
gashed so deeply we could
founder unless we found
the source of our wound.
It's our center of gravity
whether we grasp this fact
or not. Its adamantine essence
and unmatched density
draw us eternally into its
holding pattern of endeavors.
Our lives are bound to it,
our natures are governed by it,
even though we may never
really perceive or understand it.

The Ruminant

2008-09-21T17:14:00.006-04:00

The bison, the sheep, the cow -
each one stands alone in its field:
no happenings, no excitement,
only the smell of stale excrement
scattered all over the here and now.

The only thing an old ruminant knows,
alone in its field, is chewing its cud
over and over, though the rain falls
and the wind blows, or a far-off thud
tells of a dead tree felled in the woods.

But the vitreous, expressionless eyes
veil the supple machinery that's inside:
apparatuses with reckonings so precise
that even the most indurated impressions
get ground down into the finest powder,
glittering like galaxies of minute stars.

But the only thing an old ruminant knows,
alone in its field, is chewing its cud
over and over, though the rain falls,
and the wind blows; or a far-off thud
tells of a dead tree felled in the woods.

The Pull

2008-09-20T19:49:00.002-04:00

It's not easy to pull away, even from a distance.
And when one's so close to the very thing one
wants to pull away from, it reveals such a heavy
insistence, a star-like gravity, that unavoidable
centripetal force nixing one's power of resistance.

Are You Clear?

2008-09-19T18:02:00.004-04:00

Is it now clear inside your head?
Have you put the lolling dead to bed,
to lie in loam with no more dread -
the sum and substance with which
your life was fed? Or how many groans
does your tender throat yet press out
into the lonely evening air, and suppress
the drive to shout, the need to flout
every sinew and strand that up to now
established who you were, defined
who you are? From sodded roots
to sun-kissed crown the distance
can be unconventionally far, but when
your soil's dew recycles again and again,
once more you're back where you were.

The Roll of a Die

2008-09-18T19:30:00.001-04:00

God does not play dice with the universe - Einstein

Round this ancient spire
circling pigeons eternally fly,
like prayers sent up to heaven
into what is only palest sky.
Would you want to wait for God
for a day, a year—your entire life?
Or would you be satisfied to learn
life’s simply been the roll of a die?

From a Photograph

2008-09-13T20:51:00.004-04:00

Lips minutely sinuous,
but giving the appearance
of levelness, revealing
neither delight nor disdain,
just a sardonic seriousness.

From the eyes of the storm
comes a long regard, stoical
and calm, measuring you
with confidence and control;
mastery of matter and form.

A Day Begins

2008-09-12T11:58:00.003-04:00

The day begins with
simple things: coffee rings
on napkins, some
pre-dawn listening.
But when the day's
certain incursion
perturbs the pacific self,
disentangling the
tenuous coalitions of
inner nations prone to
incessant provocations,
then already the day begins
steeped in so many
Machiavellian machinations

He Tames it Who Fetters it in Verse

2008-09-11T19:01:00.004-04:00

He tames it who fetters it in verse,
though it remains fixedly fierce
and coarse, like a senescent horse
chomping and chafing, incapable of
reining in such unshakable strength.

Flies

2008-09-08T18:12:00.003-04:00

I.

Maybe the flies have it right.
Like stealth fighters at night
they appear out of nowhere just
when the dogshit hits the dust.
Not before, not minutes after,
but at the moment of defecation,
as if they had mastered teleportation -
that instantaneous communication
indispensable for world domination.

II.

Or maybe they haven't really mastered time travel,
but instead have mustered such an army that can be
imperceptible to our only pair of eyes. They may have
a spy on every wall: a veritable sleeper cell of secrecy
watching every possible trajectory of human whim,
while dogs and humans have become almost one form.
Its simplicity is genius - tail one and you can then retrieve
what the other's left. And we humans need the decency
to live and let live (all the while being on the qui vive).

III.

Just in case.

The World Is Curled

2008-08-31T19:40:00.009-04:00

You know the world is curled
up inside itself, within the minutest
labyrinthine caverns, much as
the nautilus conceals hidden halls
within its rigid shell. No one can tell
but the most sensitive, seeking souls.
Most of our life is simply hurled
helter-skelter at this or that goal,
flung along the landlines and wireless
streams of the banal and the tasteless.
But all of life, the whole sweep of life -
not just the visible, the detectable
or the easily experienceable - but all those
thoughts, feelings, ecstasies and mysteries,
all that's lost, forgotten or trashed:
now only the most delicate taste can detect
and trace, only the most assiduous can replace,
only the most nimblest fingers unfurl.

Some really, really old poems

2008-08-31T10:17:00.012-04:00

Some go back nearly 14 years.

Everything Flows

Now observe a Cooper’s hawk flying, slipping
seamlessly through a rift in the row of pines,
moving brilliantly through air, the turbulence
from his wings exciting the air in the atmosphere.

Though standing still, at your most basic level
you are moving, too. The earth is turning, the galaxy
wheeling. Everything’s in the mood of movement.

Today, this thing you call I is just an oscillation
between two opposing poles...

Lodestar

When you lose all attachments to the world
(and not of volition, more like undertow, where
the moment you turn your back on it, you realize
you're already in its grip), when you disregard
the tender gaze or the coy smile, that treasured
currency of human intercourse, you become like
heavy ore slipping back down into dark depths, back
into the fold of the mother lode. But when you finally
submit, you don’t have to be thrown into the scales;
you don't have to be weighed and found wanting.
And so this seems to be a turning point - what once was
the despair of emptiness in you has now become
a nascent universe full of vast swathes of opulent nebula
gleaming in the inner spaces of your being where stars
continually coalesce, die, and are reborn. Slowly
you begin to perceive, in your far-inward distances,
the tremulous shimmering of your lodestar.

Advice

Hey, you, up in the tower,
alone with your glass of wine
and your books, your mind
clenched into an iron-fisted grip,
you who does not relinquish
control so easily - come down,
come outside, don’t fix your hair
or your clothes. Go run in the wind
and blowing rain. Slide and roll
in the gritty mud. Take a walk
or a stroll—let yourself bleed
into the countryside. Crouch down
by creek-side or pond, wade
thigh deep into the secretive waters,
letting your forearms get slimy
with protozoan life. Learn to live
through your body again.

The Crow

Atop a large maple, a solitary crow
lands almost falling off the fragile
topmost twigs. Not knowing he’s arrived
somewhat awkwardly, he nevertheless
proceeds to squawk and squawk,
disregarding his lack of dexterity.
That squawk, that hoarse cry, is what
sets him apart - defiant amidst
the sounds of church bells and
laughing children, the innumerable
passing cars and other birds. It must be
passion: a pure, dark, imperfect,
inchoate desire to be known, to be heard
among the multitude, ruffled feathers
shining iridescently in a flash of spring sun.

The Moment

Father, a man can build up layer upon layer of lives around him,
so easily slipped into, to which he clings relentlessly like a raptor,
burying his true self deeper and deeper. Yet when he's pierced
by the sharpest anguish, something like a star shines through,
emanating out of his turbulent, guarded center: the moment
all poets and mystics long for—a chance to see one’s true life
unfold like a flame-emblazoned lotus. It’s like some mythical
treasure that rises out of the sun-scorched desert once every thousand years—and, if missed, sinks back down whence it came.
That inner vision for which Jesus and all the prophets would have
torn down Jerusalem’s golden wall, stone by holy stone.

The Stone

In that hollow place
deep inside me, where,
occasionally, a river
floods its dry riverbed,
bringing life to the
vineyard surrounding it,
an enormous stone slows
the river’s flow, and some
carefully cultivated words
hanging in grape clusters
swell with passion only to
drop down onto this cold stone,
lying there half-broken or
split open, never tasting
of that river which comes
and then goes.

Words

Words have a way of working on you, or some part of you anyway, suffusing their way into the labyrinthine roots of your hidden life, transforming something primeval deep within you, eventually burgeoning through all your undiscovered corridors, filling
the very air that envelops your being with a foreign fragrance.

Wanting More

I don’t want to be stranded in some soulless profession,
don’t want to be left floating in some tidal pool, waiting,
evaporating, until nothing is left but traces of sea salt,
indistinguishable grains of sand—a vague memory.
That’s why, when I feel the sun tapping my shoulder,
and the moon, which pulls the oceans’ tides, pulling
mine also, I’d rather walk right over the barren sand,
walk waist-deep into the dark sea, plunging into the
opaque waves, peering into the hidden places.

Walking Around

Walking around in daylight my entire being seems
infinitesimally small, discreet, knowable, too easily
accessible – as if I had suddenly appeared, carved
out of air and embellished with abundant light:
a shiny object a bird might use in its nest, or a
plaything a child might discover but soon discard.
But alone, in solitude as in utter darkness, my whole
existence becomes boundless, like an expanding universe.
I become darkness: whatever darkness once covered,
my flesh absorbs; the anonymity darkness once
gave to things, I claim for my own, endowed with
unplumbed depths, unknown, illimitable, unimaginable
possibilities—an original mystery once again restored.

Concerto

2008-08-18T17:50:00.006-04:00

A solo instrument playing against an orchestra

The instrument is not a mere implement
or a tool, nor even a more delicate utensil.
It's not dancing before chords discordant,
nor is it just counterpoint or a complement.
Only a novice discerns what's indispensable:
the gliding, serpentine fluidity so essential
for transcendence, helping to dispense with
the notion of oneself - even for an instant.

Growing

2008-08-13T18:06:00.007-04:00

As you grow you become
more of what you already are
or were - a nascent germ
biding time, waiting for fire
to scorch the fertile earth.
Not something altogether
different, like a new birth,
the twice-born metanoia
of the persecutor suddenly
turned into the persecuted.

Fate

2008-08-11T17:54:00.008-04:00

Just when you think you have so much
more than you can handle, instead of rising
you sink, and your slowly trickling candle
continues to shrink. The solace you crave is
never a true salve - it can never truly save.
And what you vow to abjure will never keep
at bay the grimness and grandeur of fate.

Storm

2008-08-08T11:40:00.005-04:00

Can you carry my storm
without so much alarm,
weathering the vagaries
of such a splintered form?
Can you endure being torn?

Zones both cold and warm
swirl round more and more
than ever imagined before.
Can you abide such swarms,
treading the years with aplomb?

Lost in the frosty heart of the herd,
have you heard my plaintive voice,
or my sweet but fractured verse?
Caught me gulping down the entire sea?
Wondered if we all are as we must be?

Impulse

2008-08-05T17:05:00.005-04:00

When following an impulse,
there's a danger that by
pulling too hard on its string
you may begin to unfurl
the very thing you intended
to hold onto and explore.

The Highs & The Deeps

2008-08-05T11:01:00.007-04:00

Some people live their lives horizontally,
looking both forward and backward,
tidally advancing and receding, contingently.

And some people live their lives only vertically,
being yanked down until sunk in a well,
or propelled into the rarefied air of fancy.

Yet some souls can live along both axes,
not just merely in the holes or the heights.
There's a compulsion to their oscillation.

Like mercury sealed in its slender glass cylinder,
the pressure within starts an irrepressible quiver;
and when the internal weather begins to dominate,
the delicate conduit is then destined to splinter -
inescapably spilling onto the horizontal plane.

And this is when these horizontal livers
become alarmed and may again tidally recede,
because weathering the highs and the deeps
may just give some of these types the creeps.

Walking the Floor

2008-08-03T11:28:00.003-04:00

When walking the floor
one eyes all the doors,
and maybe even the windows -
though rarely do people
come in through those.

The Point

2008-08-01T09:29:00.007-04:00

To get one's point across...

Across what, you may ask? A vast,
unbridgeable gap?

But what if you tried too hard
and overshot, using an arrow
or spear, not aiming to maim or kill
but merely convince the other fellow?

Yet the point in getting one's
point across is, ostensibly, for two
to reach consensus, a sort of détente,
instead of a senseless folie à deux.

The Task

2008-02-27T20:52:00.002-05:00

Dull is the armor, cold is the day.
Hard was the journey, dark was the way.
Spent is the steed, trembling his frame.
Steadfast is the name, grim the terrain.

Untethered is the heart, turbulent is the mind.
Nascent is the seeker, priceless is the prize.
Sisyphean is the task, irresolute the Will.
Forgotten is the past, occluded the future still.

The Terroir of Existence

2008-01-29T23:11:00.007-05:00

Only from the richest loam can we grow. Down below
our grubby roots bestow the strength of their scaffold
from which our manifold drives unfold and evolve.
Having once been thrown into the world, on our own,
through untold terrors we may groan, but with what
insistence we still lean toward an essence that's purified
and honed, a more refined sense for delight, a more
joyful persistence in the Janus face of verity or error,
wringing our hands or singing our chants while being
planted securely in the magnificent terroir of existence.

Artists

2008-01-29T23:11:00.006-05:00

Each of us is an artist; that is to say, a liar.
Or at least when trying our hardest we betray
an ignorance intense as fire, yet concealed
deep beneath an earth-like mantle. Or if not
ignorance, then a denial of what is bitter,
a desire for things to be better, to caress as if
from a distance, to possess a more discerning
fashion sense, believing scrutiny will reveal
impurity, the way gemology tends to arouse
the tendency of refusing to inspect too closely.

Molly

2008-01-28T16:31:00.001-05:00

Dear Molly - a mode of Mary - truth is, once thrown
into the world of color and form, it doesn't matter
whether your name's meaning is known or unknown.
What matters, Molly, is that not even a fool in his folly
could mistake the map for the territory, while knowing
that the best paths lead straight and deep into the very
heart of mystery, bringing us always back to a fresh start.
Through solstice and equinox, year stacked upon year,
through slow ticks of the clock and hours steeped in
bitterness or fear, may your days shine brightly and
unalloyed, bright enough to lighten any load or mollify
any dark and lonesome night. Savor your mysteries,
Molly, knowing that mysteries can lead to such
elegant discoveries and, sometimes, even to grace.

The Politician

2008-01-21T16:30:00.000-05:00

The politician is never clear - though he may be bright
thanks to the reflected light of those with might, or those
adept at instilling fright. This secondhand brilliance
bathes him with a kaleidoscopic shine beneath which
we can only guess as to the uprightness of his plight
as he continually whirls in the wind of wrong and right.

Worn down for so long, he was no longer a singularity.
Underneath the polished finish the politician was finished;
or at least whatever in him that was worthy to anoint
became, under popularity, a mere extension-less point.
And his inviolable niche - with its ever-diminishing cache -
where genuine tomes of conviction could be unleashed,
consisted of nothing more than some fiction and pastiche.

When at last he falls from grace and loses his station;
when he looks inside himself for some final consolation,
expecting to find left some authentic bits and specks;
within his mind he's surprised to find that his original text
wholly disappeared under the prevailing interpretation.

The Edges of Abysses

2007-12-30T10:07:00.001-05:00

When we finally swing round and gaze back
over our own geography, no longer mistaking
the map for the territory, we realize how much
we've skirted our abysses, ignorant of all those
fluky near misses. Conspicuous fissures were
easy enough to eschew, unless of course they
just appeared out of the blue. We should treasure
such close shaves; and what's more, dance
and play over them, allay all dizziness at the
edges of all abysses, being remiss if we didn't
deepen our bliss by digesting our own dangers.

The Good Shepherd

2007-12-29T22:27:00.003-05:00

Those pricked ears!
As if a switch
had been instantly
flipped. So quick!
And his frame
so suddenly stiff.
Amazing, how he can
pick up a whiff or
catch a glimpse before
your heart can skip,
or your face flinch.

Sotto Voce

2007-12-27T14:13:00.001-05:00

Words overused lose their gravitas.
When they resound too loudly they reach
escape velocity, becoming ungrounded,
unbound from any bona fide attitude,
propelled beyond all reasonable altitudes.
Thus denuded of sense, theses lose all thrust,
lacking soundness or sufficient defense.

Hark

2007-12-24T16:11:00.001-05:00

Not sparks
from a central fire -
really more akin
to meadowlarks,
feathered beings not
tethered to sin -
that invention of
one god's fiery ire.

A Cocksure Crow

2007-12-23T22:05:00.002-05:00

A coal-black crow squats atop a fence post,
croaking his taunts down upon the dogs
sequestered in the yard. It must be hard,
between all the barking and the braying,
to not know what each other is saying.

The Sparrow Hawk

2007-12-08T08:05:00.005-05:00

A murder of crows batters a small sparrow hawk -
who seems madder than they, and better at evading.
It only craves its prey in order to survive another day.
It's always been this way. The hawk can't betray
its abiding nature any more than they. Each day it
has its role to play in the everlasting ebb and spate;
while the human looks on in awe, wonder, and dismay.
But in that same moment all human concerns fall away.

Riddles

2007-11-28T18:14:00.004-05:00

All those riddles with which we fiddle
can trap us in philosophical muddles
or topical nettles. We can try to start
with the end, like some backwards art -
always a tough nut to crack; or we can try
the beginning, working toward the heart,
while being careful not to veer off track.
Where we can't begin is in the middle,
because then everything just falls apart.

When Shibboleths Become Monoliths

2007-11-18T09:48:00.001-05:00

When so many shibboleths become monoliths,
it's time to break the stones, then sit and think.
Call back the ships, the armies spread to the winds;
time to reappraise the foundations on the brink
of cracking and crumbling under such lumbering faith
that waits on a future when all the world will sink
into the depths of the bones of the faithless apostates.
But before the chosen have a chance to seal our fate,
we sleepers must awake throughout our peerless estate;
begin clearing the soil of all rot and filth and stink;
and set out to fabricate, beneath the heaviest weight,
a more resilient chain bending out of clearest sight,
toward an unknown future without needless fright -
and no chink through which a god might slink.

Anniversaries

2007-11-17T18:42:00.003-05:00

On anniversaries, some of us compose verses
while others give roses, and still others forget
altogether, inadvertently casting dispersions
on what should really be unperturbed excursions
into amorous depths of ever greater complexity,
as the inexorable outreaching of desire emerges,
perpetually compelling us like a destiny.

A Dog Has No Name

2007-11-17T11:14:00.003-05:00

A dog has no inherent name,
no need of guilt or shame, yet
bears within its bristling frame
a brief, tenuous, solitary flame
arousing it to raucous games
without remorse, without blame.

Starlings

2007-11-09T15:37:00.002-05:00

A starling is a starling is a starling,
with not much variation in the offing,
and hardly any inkling of distinctness.

Between spears of starchy grass
Lilliputian yard-darlings prod and stab,
each bird wrapped in an inky fabric
through which little astral pinpricks peek.

Littering the lawn with feathered automata,
in an otherwise aimless chain of phenomena,
this trilling genus secures its own startling niche
wending tenuously through time and space.

Thoughts

2007-11-08T19:31:00.005-05:00

Just what the hell is a thought?
Is it ethereal, or is it finely wrought
like a steel blade or a Rodin bronze?
Does it have height, width, or weight?
Does it bully its way into your ken,
or can it wait? Is it maybe self-made:
out of nothing, something came?
Or did it have its start, a special fate,
when the cosmos burst and flew apart?
Does it stand in line, one in the queue,
stretching backward until out of view?
Is it possible for any thought to be new,
when countless thinkers have tinkered
with all the riddles they knew to exist
back when the world was still young,
and their mental mill filled with grist?

Passion

2007-11-04T10:46:00.004-05:00

Passion is a perturbation of placidity,
or a disruption in the fluidity of thought.
The mining for meaning grinds to a halt,
and then one's previously shining mind
devolves into a flickering perplexity,
and composure into a lust for closure,
for the consummation of that faint inkling
that preceded this torrent of fiery fervor.

Listening to Jazz with a Blind Student

2007-08-20T17:31:00.002-04:00

Each note is articulated with the utmost brutality,
said the savant, suddenly, with the utmost gravity.
The fabric of reality rent easily as a raggedy coat,
thought I, silently, as each note is blasted irretrievably
into the past, slipping out of being quickly as a quark,
because what is quickly ripened becomes quickly rotten,
and then forgotten. And so we mused about music - sound
and silence expressed through time; about rhythm, pitch,
texture and timbre, about how some pieces just soar
while others seem to clamber. The Adept and the Neophyte:
one a devout devotee, the other a nomadic rambler.

In the Night, the Light of Oneness

2007-07-16T18:31:00.001-04:00

In the night, the light of oneness -
when all is still and bright and focussed,
a quasar blaze in the depths of darkness,
beyond cares and cataloging thoughts.
When home seems everywhere and nowhere,
there's no need to ask why or how or what -
the insight comes without being sought:
something more from nothing but.

poetry

Swallows

2007-07-14T11:56:00.002-04:00

Swiftly-flying swallows must come Air Ride Equipped,
when dipping and swerving and tipping their wings
toward swarms of hovering flies and gnats and things
covering this broad swath of straw and grass clippings.
Flittering with verve while never loitering or lingering
more than fractions of seconds before turning a curve,
the field becomes filled with their electronic twittering
like neurons firing and almost instantly transmitting
only the information that's both felicitous and fitting.

poetry

It Starts Off Like a Murmur, Then it Grows Like Thunder

2007-07-04T14:52:00.004-04:00

It starts off like a murmur, then it grows like thunder;
or it starts off with a blunder, never going ballistic,
where one's life is a compilation of disparate statistics,
and one flounders or maybe even founders in life.
But sometimes we get a glimpse of holistic worth,
a seed that grows and blossoms and hungers for light;
then there's no need for expounding on experience,
or conveying the ineffable through heuristics:
because one who claims to be a mystic is not a mystic.

poetry

The Cooper's Hawk

2007-06-19T12:55:00.010-04:00

As with nature red in both tooth and claw,
out from a bush bursts a brash Cooper's hawk,
pitching and swerving, pursuing a bluish blur,
while from a tree full of jays an eruption is heard.
Juvenile plumage explains his hurried daring,
just as he seems to lose his bearings, assailed
and assaulted by the flock of frantic jays.
But his razor-fine talons and scythe-like beak
evolved to dispatch the unwary and the weak.
And so the hapless prize is carried away.

poetry

A Cardinal Lies by the Roadside, Dead

2007-06-03T15:40:00.004-04:00

A cardinal lies by the roadside, dead:
a male with plumage brightly red. Now
no more tales to tell through his song,
no singular singing among the throng.
From beak to tail rests his delicate frame;
nothing's missing - every feather remains.
His figure is here, but his life is gone.

poetry

Down In the Pits You Go No Lower

2007-05-19T08:23:00.000-04:00

Down in the pits you go no lower,
where time couldn't pass any slower,
where nothing's joyful and nothing's fun,
just futile fits of frenzy over and over.
No sleep in peace when day is done,
just starkly awake, awaiting a call of Fate,
the one you know may never come.
When in no state for a lighthearted gait,
you stare into nothing as if struck dumb.

poetry

A Boat Without Oars

2007-05-10T07:24:00.001-04:00

A boat without oars is what you'll land in,
unless you're standing on firmer ground
than most around, and you're commanding
mental armies withstanding incessant sallies
by the Hounds of Hell abounding in one's life,
all crammed in, full of such discordant sound,
tarnishing one's crown as a matter of course.

poetry

He Knows Peace Who Has Forgotten Desire

2007-05-05T08:21:00.005-04:00

Does he know peace who has forgotten desire?
Who doesn't care if he burns on the funeral pyre,
who has forgotten the gentlest, tenderest nudge
toward tentative love - always a smoldering fire -
or the unrestrained, thunderous rush of passion,
a torrent of euphoria that changes one's stride,
banishing cares as if with wine, after a fashion?
Or the refrain of soft sighs from tremulous depths,
as one blithely slides into the arms of Death,
because in the end one's simply thrown in the fire?

Grackles

2007-04-18T18:46:00.002-04:00

A yard full of black glistening grackles emits
a cacophonous chorus of staccato chirps,
clicks and cackles, while packed in perilously
close quarters, grazing over the grass and
hazing any precocious attackers - a torrent
of flits and trips and flinches. The robins
all seem too timid - as do the vigilant finches -
to negotiate this imposing maze of iridescence.
The bravest of the invaders is chased away,
and a few unlucky ones are nearly tackled.
Some of these birds would have hackles, if only
they were a pack of hungry dogs, not grackles.

poetry

Yes, I Believe in an Afterlife

2007-04-08T19:21:00.002-04:00

Yes, I believe in an afterlife, because after life
comes death. And yet, traveling through time
in this timeship of Now with a bow and a stern
and some room in which to move around,
I can solemnly say, with the firmest upper-lip,
beyond any shadow of a doubt, that sometimes
I wish to survive my death like a fish living both
on land and in the sea, no matter how it all turns out.

poetry

Who Hid the Path?

2007-04-02T08:03:00.002-04:00

Who hid the path
that led me to this place,
one filled not with wrath
but with grace - the fragrance
of a singular space - a pleasure
without risk of stain, a state
without fear, guilt, or shame?
Can one even measure the shock
of such a shape? Surely not
by ticks of a clock, nor gestures
of blood or breath encased
within one's transient frame.
Are only fools enslaved
by time and space?

poetry

The Red-tailed Hawk

2007-04-01T12:53:00.005-04:00

The Red-tailed Hawk tucks its broad wings and
plummets sharply to the ground like a stone,
like an arrow, trained on its goal of flesh and bone,
pupils wide as eclipses upon this serendipitous
fix of things, where some movement has caught its
steadfast stare. So it deigns to leave the lofty air
down to cleave the hare with what mere Nature
saw fit to share: razor-fine talons set to tear
tender sinews of flesh wrapped in hoary hair.

poetry

Sparks from a Single Fire

2007-03-30T12:22:00.001-04:00

Sparks from a single fire they are, numerous
and mysterious as quarks: women wink
and blink through one man's life, full of fret,
each another variation on a recurring theme.
There's no need to worry whether you'll achieve
the turbid dream, the one impressed since birth,
the one telling you you're incomplete unless
you're partnered. But be heartened, sparks fade
and so does hurt, and the fire that started it all
remains stalwart and doesn't stall, and one day
you'll be free from all this beguiling thrall.

poetry

Robin Redbreast

2007-03-27T08:09:00.002-04:00

A spring robin sings the sun awake,
as dawn breaks, though not with a quake,
but a quiver of liquid color, a river
of crimson or vermilion. The bird
stakes its claim with verve, but without
thought to maim or hurt, a song
filled not with dread but with mirth.

poetry

Pigeons Suddenly Burst

2007-03-23T15:00:00.006-04:00

Pigeons suddenly burst across the city skyline,
flaunting muscular flight and deft maneuvers
in order to fend off the thirst for feathered flesh
that's been haunting their fidgety pigeon habits:
the strife incited by the chase of this falcon
perturbs the previously halcyon state of the
oblivious pigeons. But it's so obvious, isn't it?
That the difference between life and death can
sometimes depends on only the tiniest smidgen.

poetry

Crows in Snow

2007-03-07T11:36:00.002-05:00

Crows in snow. Immobile they resemble
irregular blocks of coal. When floating on
freezing air, they become like free-flowing
wisps of smoke, without care, anathema
to our earthbound stroke of cosmic bad luck:
we're slotted to plod like a duck but stuck
without a flare for flight, or the easy freedom
bequeathed to those unaware of despair.

poetry

Keep Your Shoulder to the Door

2007-03-04T22:43:00.003-05:00

Keep your shoulder to the door,
which feels like a hefty boulder,
because as you get older you get
weaker, and the world outside
grows colder, and that part of you
that used to be bolder, and a seeker,
returns to what it was before,
and down at your very core
your prospects turn even bleaker.

poetry

Stranger in a Strange Land

2007-02-27T20:24:00.002-05:00

Stranger in a strange land. A stranger even to oneself.
There's always a danger in accepting the distortion
born of the all-too-easy contortions of rationalization,
abundant enough to fill a hangar: believing that one's
reached one's true center when one's merely breached
the outer shell of the Allium, which panders to one's
superficial sway and swagger, never perturbed the way
a strain of music is sometimes disturbed by a flanger.

poetry

Dwell in the Fruit

2007-02-24T12:03:00.003-05:00

Dwell in the fruit, don't flirt with the flower.
In your most eager hour, bent on the scent of
some ecstasy, don't forget the blossoming power
and deep satisfaction in a state of non-action,
the unexpected finesse of apparent disinterestedness,
which nevertheless preserves the treasured fruit,
tempering the intense lust of perpetual pursuit.

poetry