Monthly Archives: September 2017

Tree, Ice, Window (December 13, 2000)

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Tree, Ice, Window (December 13, 2000)

I.

This doubling of age,
increments gained, like a shadow’s

flesh, ever flowering, ever diminishing,
consuming all.

And having gained stature,
what of the syllables lost in the blur,

the fecund process
unnoticed, unheard.

Reciprocity of motion, the leaf’s descent.

II.

Bent under the hour’s weight, it
departs untouched,

aloof,
yet watched and not alone,

enduring its slow release
as the morning deepens.

III.

The eyelid droops, then opens,
defying gravity and those things heavier than air,

and opening, rescinds
all notion of secrecy.

Somewhere the voice expends its energy
and lies fallow,

like a storm awaiting the perfect
moment, then appears

in all its arterial splendor,
tunneling through the night’s long reach

and the transparent dream.
Or a hand draws the shade.

 

An older poem, from the “vault.” I barely remember writing it.

More on the Ghazal

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A little more on the ghazal from the Academy of American Poets. I’ve become enamored with the form. We’ll see what comes of this latest enthusiasm!

 

 

Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

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Self-Portrait with Umeboshi

Our resemblance strengthens each day.

Reddened by sun and shiso,
seasoned with salt,

we preside, finding
comfort in failure. Or does
the subjugation of one’s flavor for another’s

define defeat? The bitter, the sour, the sweet
attract and repel

like lovers separated by distances
too subtle to see.
Filling space becomes the end.
What do you learn when you look through the glass?

Knowing my fate, I say fallen. I say earth.

 

Ah, simplicity! When I was a child my mother would occasionally serve rice balls in which a single mouth-puckering umeboshi rested at the center. These have long been a favorite, but I admit that umeboshi might be an acquired taste. Commonly called “pickled plums,” ume aren’t really plums but are more closely related to apricots. I cherish them.

“Self-Portrait with Umeboshi” first appeared in the Silver Birch Press Self-Portrait Series (August 2014), was included in the subsequent print anthology, Self-Portrait Poetry Collection, and also appears in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

 

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Ghazals

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Steph Burt writes about the ghazal form, in particular Agha Shahid Ali’s “Tonight.” An illuminating article.

And here’s a link to Kazim Ali discussing the poem: Poetry Off the Shelf

John Ashbery: Life is a Dream

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From reading Ashbery I learned that linear narrative is just one possibility, that one might find meaning in the tangential, at the edges, in the unspoken.

Vox Populi's avatarVox Populi

A talent for self-realization
will get you only as far as the vacant lot
next to the lumber yard, where they have rollcall.
My name begins with an A,
so is one of the first to be read off.
I am wondering where to stand – could that group of three
or four others be the beginning of the line?

Before I have the chance to find out, a rodent-like
man pushes at my shoulders. “It’s that way,” he hisses. “Didn’t they teach you anything at school? That a photograph
of anything can be real, or maybe not? The corner of the stove,
a cloud of midges at dusk-time.”

I know I’ll have a chance to learn more
later on. Waiting is what’s called for, meanwhile.
It’s true that life can be anything, but certain things
definitely aren’t it. This gloved hand,
for instance, that glides
so securely into mine…

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Being Neither End nor Beginning, I Look to the Earth

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Being Neither End nor Beginning, I Look to the Earth

Or the sky’s red haze, scattered in past particles,
enhanced. The goings, the matters. The truest lies.

May we roll in reverse towards the future?
This ladder curves into the horizon, blending faith

with history, with solid and liquid. With gas.
I have bled on her rails and taken myself

hostage. I have returned rain to air. I am rendered
like never-turning wheels, fixed in space,

guided by friction and soured prayer; oxidation
consumes me. Sleepless among evergreens,

we pledge vigilance and note the absence of candor.
Somewhere water flows, but not here, today.

“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)

The last of three poems launched from this painting.

Sam Hamill: Poetry, Politics, and Zen

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Sam Hamill knows!

Vox Populi's avatarVox Populi

If only we could touch the things of this world at their center, if we could only hear tiny leaves of birch struggling toward April, then we would know.

—

Nothing will change until we demolish the “we-they” mentality. We are human, and therefore all human concerns are ours. And those concerns are personal.

—

The only thing we all agree on, virtually every poet in this country, is that this Administration is really frightening, and we want something done about it.

—

Poetry transcends the nation-state. Poetry transcends government. It brings the traditional concept of power to its knees. I have always believed poetry to be an eternal conversation in which the ancient poets remain contemporary, a conversation inviting us into other languages and cultures even as poetry transcends language and culture, returning us again and again to primal rhythms and sounds.

—

My ethics, my sense of morality…

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Trains

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Trains

1

In the marrowbone of night,
your song parts the fog.

I never knew the secrets entrusted there.

I never knew that cinders and steel
could lie so passionately

and still believe that the watchman’s hours
would evaporate and leave us scratching for more.

I have stolen time.

The windows remain closed and shuttered.
Even the wind turns away.

The track narrows.

You call.

Again.

2

Sometimes song seems the only respite,
the rhythm of clashing cars

and moments stretched beyond the next bend
to that point where light winks out.

We both know this lonely tunnel.

Payment is due.

I have always exited alone.

3

Another evening, and red smoke completes the horizon.

Your ribs stretch for distance,
and while I cannot see their end,
I know by sound
their lot.

Sing for me.
It is not
too close.

 

“Trains” was originally published in Lightning’d Press (Issue 8) in Spring of 2014, was reprinted on Aubade Rising in April, 2015, and was posted here in June 2016. It is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.

track

To That Dismal Train Somewhere Near Banff

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To That Dismal Train Somewhere Near Banff

Forgotten, you settle into the earth,
naming stones for each destination missed –
Kamloops, Jasper, Lake Louise – which is worth
each open-mouthed coin laid on the rail, kissed

and reformed into altered currency
no longer capable of carrying
debt or a tourist’s sense of urgency,
only dying days and the wearying

plight of the unmoved. If vines caress your
body, who’s to blame for accepting their
advances? When green subsumes rust, deplore
that too, but enjoy the moments you share,

leaf on metal and glass, the raspy light
tonguing your throat through those long, whistling nights.

The Loneliness of the Last

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The Loneliness of the Last

Always exposed, never sharing the comfort
of between, you see only the departed

diminishing with each second’s passage, blurring,
shrinking, and finally blinking out, all points

erased in the null, an eye closing in the tunnel.
Or, inhaling the fragrance of an unseen orange

grove filtered through coal and thick, black
coils, you accept the limits of possibility,

known only by edges flowing past, lost
to touch and forever beyond reach in the draft

of the inadmissible. Departure defines
you. What lies ahead is not yours to embrace.

* * *

“The Loneliness of the Last” was published as a mini-broadside by ELJ Editions in February 2017.

Loneliness

“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)