I’m delighted that the July-August issue of Eclectica includes three of my Scarecrow poems. Last year I bought a book on corvids (crows, ravens, jays), thinking that I’d likely produce a few poems centered on these fascinating birds. But as I started writing the first one, the Scarecrow’s voice eased in and took control. Thus far we’ve collaborated on about a dozen pieces. Such is poetry…
Hummingbird (3)
Arriving from nowhere,
its mouth opens
but what escapes
comes not from within
and is never complete.
Words, too, falter
in this space,
struggling to remain
aloft, challenged yet free,
an exchange
between air and wing,
of sound and thought,
occurring as it must
without design
or desire, simply
there, then gone,
a presence one notices
in its absence.
* * *
“Hummingbird (3) made its first appearance on the blog in December 2014.
Add some peace to the world. We all need it.
image copyright neha 2016
Hello Everyone,
This collaboration is initiated by my talented friend Michael (M. Zane McClellan) from the poetry channel and will be hosted here on forgottenmeadows. Many wonderful bloggers like Marie (https://writingwingsforyou.com/), Kim (https://zipsrid.wordpress.com/) and others have helped in putting this together and spreading the word out. The deadline for contribution is August 31st, 2016! I urge you to help us make this creative effort successful by joining in.Below is Michael’s message:
“In response to the recent unceasing, and, in fact escalating global violence, we have seen and felt a corresponding surge in poetry about it.
We would like to take this opportunity to invite you to share your thoughts and feelings, a piece of yourself, to add to other Poets from around the world. We are hopeful that the combined weight of our collective spirit and wisdom will be felt worldwide as well.
The…
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Hummingbird (2)
It embraces what the mind cannot.
To touch, to be
acquired in the way that light
is drawn to the seed’s
core, one must imagine
silence in the purity of
space – that emptiness between
thought and utterance – filled
with what precedes
intent. The movement
has no end; it is
the breath inhaling us all.
My poem “If We Burn,” which has appeared on the blog twice, is featured on Imperfect Life, an Australian online magazine. It is, sadly, topical.
Mockingbird
Withdrawn, it unfolds
to another
voice, like that
of a child lost in the wind.
Or, lonely, it rises from its place
and sings, only
to return and start again.
The pleasure we accept derives from
the knowledge that we are not alone.
Each morning we walk out and sit
by the stones, hoping to observe some
new patterns in his life. What we
see is an answer. What we hear is no song.
* * *
“Mockingbird” made its first appearance here in January 2015. It was written
in the 1980s, probably around 1987-1989.
In Response to Nadia’s Misdirected Email, I State Exactly What I Am Looking For
Balance. The ability to stand on one foot, on a tightrope, and juggle AR-15s,
ethics and dollar bills, while chanting the U.S. Constitution, in tongues.
Or good health.
Unweighted dreams.
A mechanism for disagreeing without needing to annihilate the opposition.
Doorways without doors, truth without fear.
A simple tulip.
One word to describe that instant between thought and pulled trigger,
intent and wish, the elevated pulse and sense of diminished space and time.
Sanctuary. Regret. Apology. Respect.
A tonic to the bitterness, a foil to the sweet.
Fitted sheets that fold. Uncommon sense.
Love in the abstract. More bacon. Smiles.
A closet that embraces everything you place in it. Everything.
The means of unfiring guns, of reversing wounds to undamaged flesh,
and rounds to their magazines, full and never used.
Self-organizing drawers. Due process.
Mothers who know only tears of joy.
One peaceful day.
Just one.
Hummingbird
The thought makes
trembling so
incomplete, a consequence
of knowledge attained. I look out
and see leaves flitting in the dusk,
the air closing around them
like the mouth of an old well
swallowing light. Such
hunger we find difficult
to comprehend. The wind shivers
through our lives and repeats itself,
though differently each time.
Every departure is a return.
“Hummingbird” made it’s first appearance on the blog in December 2014. I wrote it in the 1980s, probably between 1987-1989.
Forever
Our dogs hide under the bed,
escaping thunder.
But the sun shatters
a cloud and I know
we will live forever.
Each hour is the sky,
every day, another
star. Now the trees
join the wind
in rejoicing. This
is what we make,
they say. Only this.
* * *
“Forever” made its first appearance in July 2015.
Palinode (translation, passway, glass)
(translation)
What falters in translation? The dove’s silhouette resides
on the window three months after the sudden refusal. I
observe wingprints, the skull’s curve, a history of assumptions
angled in the moment of impact. And after, residue. Light’s
incident rests. One body whispers another’s shape and the
next rumbles through the narrowing passway. Traitorous,
I call it fact. I name it truth, and naming it, reverse the coat.
(passway)
I name it truth, but considered denial, root of the renegade’s
term. I have a bird to whistle and I have a bird to sing. Misperception
in flight. Betrayal’s gate, unhinged. What comes next? Sunlight
slants through the window each morning, and departs, bending
in reversal. Stones all in my pass. Dark roads. Another naming,
another transition. Trials waged in the grammar of refraction.
The deflected word.
(glass)
The deflected word reciprocates and the sky opens, outlining
its missing form. I have pains in my heart, they have taken my
appetite. Derived from wind, from eye, from hole. Once through,
what then? Mention archetype, and my world dims. Mention
windows, and I see processions and enemies lined along the way.
Boys, please don’t block my road. We select certain paths, others
choose us. Wingprints on glass.
Notes: italicized selections are from Robert Johnson’s “Stones in My Passway.”
This piece first appeared, in slightly different form, in ditch, in January 2014.
O at the Edges 