Thursday, October 25, 2007
Renaissance
for Hilary
She curls up into herself
thinking of this shape and position;
something of a more comfortable state.
She remembers the dark,
the slurred sounds and warmth
in another time, other place.
She is struck with a bright light, fire
and cry, the first loud sound of her voice
and opens bright eyes into a new world.
Birth and renaissance aren't too different;
in one you have no volition and in the other
you are of ashes building into feathers.
2007
She curls up into herself
thinking of this shape and position;
something of a more comfortable state.
She remembers the dark,
the slurred sounds and warmth
in another time, other place.
She is struck with a bright light, fire
and cry, the first loud sound of her voice
and opens bright eyes into a new world.
Birth and renaissance aren't too different;
in one you have no volition and in the other
you are of ashes building into feathers.
2007
Albatross
In september he found a bird floating
upon the ocean's winds in a distant place.
It had a heart so distant with strings
tied to the vessels of his soul.
There was a wandering soul
looking at cold seas but hoping
a warmth within and beneath.
He lifted letters, assembled words,
sewed them together and made a flag.
He flew the flag for the bird to see,
for the distant wandering albatross.
He plucked at hairs, assembled brushes,
wetted paper with pigment.
He held up longing images against his window,
wishing for the bird to find his beacon.
One day the bird came to earth, placed its feet down,
wrapped its wings around him and
he felt a movement beneath his ribs
for the first time in ages.
He touched its feathers,
his fingers always trembling,
he looked in its eyes,
it held stories and lives.
He tried to tell it everything that was him,
he wanted to confess the good and the bad,
he was still wrapped in a gossamer of fear
stronger than steel and older than rocks.
One morning came,
he woke entangled in the gossamer,
it was changing, he was changing.
He could not finish his whole story
so his voice was lost.
Stories yet untold, seeped out on their own,
turned into betrayal, turned into pain.
His hands; what were once covered in skin
now turned feathery;
His human form lost to silence,
he fell out of the window;
found the cold sea's wind.
Looking behind, she was curled up and folded in,
still with those depths in her eyes;
with such sadness in her eyes.
Looking below, he saw a string tied to his breast
but he knew it was not a miracle thread
to find the window again nor return.
October, 2007
upon the ocean's winds in a distant place.
It had a heart so distant with strings
tied to the vessels of his soul.
There was a wandering soul
looking at cold seas but hoping
a warmth within and beneath.
He lifted letters, assembled words,
sewed them together and made a flag.
He flew the flag for the bird to see,
for the distant wandering albatross.
He plucked at hairs, assembled brushes,
wetted paper with pigment.
He held up longing images against his window,
wishing for the bird to find his beacon.
One day the bird came to earth, placed its feet down,
wrapped its wings around him and
he felt a movement beneath his ribs
for the first time in ages.
He touched its feathers,
his fingers always trembling,
he looked in its eyes,
it held stories and lives.
He tried to tell it everything that was him,
he wanted to confess the good and the bad,
he was still wrapped in a gossamer of fear
stronger than steel and older than rocks.
One morning came,
he woke entangled in the gossamer,
it was changing, he was changing.
He could not finish his whole story
so his voice was lost.
Stories yet untold, seeped out on their own,
turned into betrayal, turned into pain.
His hands; what were once covered in skin
now turned feathery;
His human form lost to silence,
he fell out of the window;
found the cold sea's wind.
Looking behind, she was curled up and folded in,
still with those depths in her eyes;
with such sadness in her eyes.
Looking below, he saw a string tied to his breast
but he knew it was not a miracle thread
to find the window again nor return.
October, 2007
Virgil
It is that feeling again,
It is like being on that edged hold,
The rock cutting into your flesh
And the last solid saviour is six meters down.
You are on heaven's precipice.
It kills you to stay but you won't let go;
Better to die smashing all below you
Than to avoid pain.
Better to slash open your heart
And give it to the sky, thinking
There must me a star there that wants you.
Blood can't hold heart,
Muscles can't hold life
So you become best friends with Virgil.
October 24, 2007
It is like being on that edged hold,
The rock cutting into your flesh
And the last solid saviour is six meters down.
You are on heaven's precipice.
It kills you to stay but you won't let go;
Better to die smashing all below you
Than to avoid pain.
Better to slash open your heart
And give it to the sky, thinking
There must me a star there that wants you.
Blood can't hold heart,
Muscles can't hold life
So you become best friends with Virgil.
October 24, 2007
In Morning Light
Pu-erh greets me in morning light
Her scent pulls emotions deep in darkness
Her scent give pulse to a dying muscle
She comes to me from a thousand leagues
She brings to me scents of mist laden havens
She touches me in a scant moment;
Thousands of years have longed for touch.
October 24, 2007
Her scent pulls emotions deep in darkness
Her scent give pulse to a dying muscle
She comes to me from a thousand leagues
She brings to me scents of mist laden havens
She touches me in a scant moment;
Thousands of years have longed for touch.
October 24, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
October
It is like a bass line
That thumps in your chest.
It won't go away,
Its rhythm won't quit.
It is like an aria in your heart;
It sings until exasperation.
It is like a long drawn chord
From Jacqueline's hands.
It feels like dusk at mid-afternoon.
You find the moon where
She should not be, so many leagues
Before she will give you light.
October 24, 2007
That thumps in your chest.
It won't go away,
Its rhythm won't quit.
It is like an aria in your heart;
It sings until exasperation.
It is like a long drawn chord
From Jacqueline's hands.
It feels like dusk at mid-afternoon.
You find the moon where
She should not be, so many leagues
Before she will give you light.
October 24, 2007
Cauldron
And yes I do miss you.
Yes I miss you...
I would be telling an honest lie
If I said differently.
I know I miss you.
But the pearls of my words
Have turned into coal to you,
Even if they are shiny.
And yes I do miss you,
Yes I miss you.
The summer strands in autumn;
How strange you are,
How your colors stayed true
Through all the torment.
How you made me feel
(earth's magma in my heart)
And how I disappointed you.
Yes I still feel you.
Now I sit with a cauldron of molten tears,
Molten past and it is my function
To let all melt all into one.
October 24, 2007
Yes I miss you...
I would be telling an honest lie
If I said differently.
I know I miss you.
But the pearls of my words
Have turned into coal to you,
Even if they are shiny.
And yes I do miss you,
Yes I miss you.
The summer strands in autumn;
How strange you are,
How your colors stayed true
Through all the torment.
How you made me feel
(earth's magma in my heart)
And how I disappointed you.
Yes I still feel you.
Now I sit with a cauldron of molten tears,
Molten past and it is my function
To let all melt all into one.
October 24, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Swords and Cups
Write some words,
Make them soothing;
It's only morning.
Flip some cards, toss some stones,
Light the incense, inhale the smoke.
Drink the tea, it's much too hot;
Scalds the tongue but doesn't hurt
As much as what lingers.
There's the eight of swords
And three of cups;
The magician is so out of place.
Write some words,
Make them soothing,
Make them healing.
October 23, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
Weighing
That red lump of flesh
It wants the freedom to go past
The fragile threshold of comfort
It wants to wander the Gobi sands
To find a warmth it lost because of words
Because it never really owned its vessel
That red lump of flesh
It wants to break the invisible line
The numbing threshold of pain
It wants stray on Antartic sheets
To cool its fiery furnace of longing
Because this body never knew moderation
It never could leave love for logic
Nor find logic in love's reasoning
October 22, 2007
It wants the freedom to go past
The fragile threshold of comfort
It wants to wander the Gobi sands
To find a warmth it lost because of words
Because it never really owned its vessel
That red lump of flesh
It wants to break the invisible line
The numbing threshold of pain
It wants stray on Antartic sheets
To cool its fiery furnace of longing
Because this body never knew moderation
It never could leave love for logic
Nor find logic in love's reasoning
October 22, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Outside the window the night is still cold
Stray
From another point of view
perhaps the truth looks different;
perhaps the hues will be warmer.
Outside the window the night is still cold.
Sky hides the stars from me
so my thoughts don't stray to her.
Sky tells me, "Find the warmth in clouds
and I'll cleanse you with morning's rain."
October 17, 2007
Monday, October 15, 2007
Sky
Tip tip, tap tap, splat sputter, tap,
Sky pulls a grey cover over her pretty
blue face to hide her sadness.
She works to stay quiet but her crying
lets loose tears to earth sounding like
plucked harp strings or a struggling brook
in the midst of Winter's ice.
I feel the cold in her hands reaching
toward my face and into my blood.
She says, "I ask for little, just a little verse,
just a momentary touch as it is so distant
and cold up here. So ethereal is this
existence and I want to feel, for once,
something warm besides a shower
of fiery meteors caught in my hair."
October 15, 2007
Sky pulls a grey cover over her pretty
blue face to hide her sadness.
She works to stay quiet but her crying
lets loose tears to earth sounding like
plucked harp strings or a struggling brook
in the midst of Winter's ice.
I feel the cold in her hands reaching
toward my face and into my blood.
She says, "I ask for little, just a little verse,
just a momentary touch as it is so distant
and cold up here. So ethereal is this
existence and I want to feel, for once,
something warm besides a shower
of fiery meteors caught in my hair."
October 15, 2007
Silentium Amoris
As often-times the too resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
Oscar Wilde
--
This poem was sent to me as a share by an acquaintance. I don't think she had any idea how close this is to the roilings of my insides as of late...
Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only instrument of song,
So my too stormy passions work me wrong,
And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
Oscar Wilde
--
This poem was sent to me as a share by an acquaintance. I don't think she had any idea how close this is to the roilings of my insides as of late...
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Shedding
The measure of depth in the season
is how low the morning shadows
are upon my neighbor's wall when I wake.
Even this far past sunrise the angles are low,
slanted, seemingly sharp. They remind me
of the sometimes sharp lines made by
light and shade cutting into Scottish fog
in early winter. The visuals take me
to another place; momentarily,
I escape the scraping feeling in my chest
(like a stingray's tail being removed).
I am still here and the angles are changing,
the day's light transforms as I am transformed.
bit by bit, the fleshy parts of memory
are removed and when I turn to the mirror
I begin to recognize myself less and less.
Soon, all those live cells with living memory
will fade and like a serpent I will have shed
my skin and be fresh to inherit another set
of this experience in each and every
moment of beauty, madness, joy and pain.
October 14, 2007
is how low the morning shadows
are upon my neighbor's wall when I wake.
Even this far past sunrise the angles are low,
slanted, seemingly sharp. They remind me
of the sometimes sharp lines made by
light and shade cutting into Scottish fog
in early winter. The visuals take me
to another place; momentarily,
I escape the scraping feeling in my chest
(like a stingray's tail being removed).
I am still here and the angles are changing,
the day's light transforms as I am transformed.
bit by bit, the fleshy parts of memory
are removed and when I turn to the mirror
I begin to recognize myself less and less.
Soon, all those live cells with living memory
will fade and like a serpent I will have shed
my skin and be fresh to inherit another set
of this experience in each and every
moment of beauty, madness, joy and pain.
October 14, 2007
Saturday, October 13, 2007
The bird being a medium of song
Song
Air an instrument of the tongue,
The tongue an instrument
Of the body. The body
An instrument of spirit,
The spirit a being of the air.
The bird a medium of song.
Song a microcosm, a containment
Like the fresh hotel room, ready
For each new visitor to inherit
A little world of time there.
In the Cornell box, among
Ephemera as its element,
The preserved bird–a study
In spontaneous elegy, the parrot
Art, mortal in its cornered sphere.
Robert Pinsky
Friday, October 12, 2007
Fuyu
In the dim fall light
At the window eating
A fuyu persimmon
Thinking of one that I
Might have shared with
October 12, 2007
At the window eating
A fuyu persimmon
Thinking of one that I
Might have shared with
October 12, 2007
roiling dreams
i spent the night in endless roiling dreams.
in the dreams i rolled and tumbled like one she told me of once and she kept entering my presence, my existence. i found myself curling up like a millipede or pretending to be a shut nautilus to push her presence out. each time stung like a centipede's bite but i could not bear the allure and pain of her presence, her touch.
i wrapped her up in an imaginary membrane and tied it shut to rid her from my mind.
in the dream, i wept. when i woke, my pillow was damp and smelled of salt.
in the dreams i rolled and tumbled like one she told me of once and she kept entering my presence, my existence. i found myself curling up like a millipede or pretending to be a shut nautilus to push her presence out. each time stung like a centipede's bite but i could not bear the allure and pain of her presence, her touch.
i wrapped her up in an imaginary membrane and tied it shut to rid her from my mind.
in the dream, i wept. when i woke, my pillow was damp and smelled of salt.
Like Gunpowder
Below a splotched sky
He needs tea like gunpowder
To hold against images
Lingering from last night's
Dreams like she lingers
In his consciousness
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Feeling flighty
Early morning
Chill of autumn
Tea grows cold fast
Feeling flighty
Feeling nomadic
Images of deserts
Turquoise then shells
Some place to find
Warmth for the heart
October 11, 2007
Pu-erh & Persimmon
I had my first persimmon
of the season today; another
sign of autumn's presence.
Its sweet, bitter taste
demanded a tea worth
its depth. So I made a
pot of Pu-erh and gazed
at its dark liquor. Its drifting
fragrance like a longing for a
lover walking beyond one's vision.
October 1o, 2007
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