This Turning
what one says
depends not on
words the wind
begins it does
not end but
lends itself to
an end this
turning may be
an answer the
sound of intent
so concealed a
word displayed is
only a word
not an end
nor the beginning
Another oldie from the eighties. It seems that even my poetry was thinner then.
Patterns
For one who moves in uncertainty, this
flower, the petals of which
gently fade, as if reason
is found in the decline of beauty
and its comforts.
But all you touch remains
touched. If silence reveals the body
of music, what can be said of darkness? Words
appear motionless until they blossom, a
pattern seldom seen yet carried to us in
all manner of conveyance. Listen,
for there is no purer voice.
Let the earth speak.
“Patterns” first appeared here in March, 2015. I wrote it 30-some years ago, placed it in a folder and promptly forgot it.
The Fullness That Precedes
it is not
the moon but
rain that attracts
me to this
place no faint
light no shadow
but the fullness
that precedes its
history that of
magic from nothing
to nothing by
which one may
discern perfection a
cloud the solitary
note of distraction
Written in the 80s, “The Fullness That Precedes” first appeared here in May 2015.
Door Harp
tear-shaped or is
it the inviolable
form of the
candle’s flame ever
changing but constant
in its own
presence that being
momentary or fixed
as a loved
one’s death I
listen and hear
only three notes
each one solitary
and aloof yet
of one purpose
Yet another piece from the eighties. It first appeared here in November 2015.
Self-Portrait with Shadow
Sometimes light reveals our thoughts.
Separate and unequal, we blend.
The predominant sibilant in English,
its pronunciation varies.
Sciaphobia is the fear of shadows. Last
winter the wellhead froze and we
chain-sawed our way to warmth,
synchronized in the fading light.
And which decides the other’s fate?
In the flame I detect new life, a hissing
in the cast iron box. Though ranked only 8th
in frequency of use, more words in English
begin with S, leaving additional questions.
Is hiss the opposite of shh?
The umbra is the darkest part
of the shadow, where light is completely
blocked. Not the serpent, but the bow
and a misperception. Shadows grow
in proportion to the distance
between the object blocking the light
and the projection surface. Resembling
infinity, yet missing the link. Two facets
of one darkness. A faint suggestion. Amphiscians
cast shadows in two directions. Or not at all.
This appeared on the blog in April 2015, and another version appeared in Otoliths in fall of 2013, but it appears that I’m not quite done with it. I’d been exploring our alphabet, tracing letters’ origins from hieroglyphs to present form, and attempting to merge some of those findings with disparate details. One of these days I’ll get back to it…
A Q&A and more successful examples of what I was trying to achieve can be found at Prime Number Magazine:
N Is Its Child
If darkness produces all, from where do we obtain nothing?
As a line becomes the circle, becomes a mouth, becomes identity.
In mathematics, n signifies indefinite; in English, negation.
The no, the non, the withdrawal, the taking away.
A heart with trachea represented zero in Egyptian hieroglyphs.
My mouth forms the void through the displaced word.
Conforming to the absent, the missing tongue serves soundlessness.
Aural reduction, the infinite unclenched: n plus n.
Shiva, creator and destroyer, defines nothingness. As do you.
One and one is two, but zero and zero is stasis.
Pythagoreans believed that all is number, and numbers possess shape.
The letter N evolved from a cobra to its present form.
One may double anything but zero.
Unspoken thought, disorder. The attenuated voice swallowing itself.
* * *
“N Is Its Child” was first published in Issue 4 of Reservoir. I am grateful to editor Caitlin Neely for accepting this piece.
What Edges Hold
By which I mean those lines framed in certainty: the demarcation of sunlight and shadow. Kami signifies not spirit, but rather that force above man.
Never religion, but life itself: the mountains, trees, the rocks. Lightning.
Or waves, thundering off the coast, lured by the moon.
Stirring the water with a spear, Izanagi dripped an island into being.
Separate the ordinary through limitation, by practice, by ritual and space.
Another night in the twisted trees. The god-shelf.
Recognize that wind respects no borders.
Knowing that to the east questions may respond to answers I have long
suspected, I look elsewhere. After the vowel, the consonant.
Though torii differ in style, each retains two posts and a crosspiece.
After the consonant, the winnowed tunnel, extinguished light.
At the gate, bow respectfully, then enter. Ladle water from right to left,
then left to right. Pour it into your left hand, then cleanse your mouth.
Invert and regard the precipice.
I have placed one foot in their sphere. The other still searches.
This originally appeared in April 2014 as part of Boston Review‘s National Poetry Month Celebration.
Dark Rain Ahead, Hummingbird
The black-chinned hummer buzzes my flowered shirt,
bringing to mind the letter H, its history of an inferior life among
letters, and a Phoenician origin signifying fence.
An aspirate dependent upon others, or a line strung between posts,
even whispered, H does not contain itself.
Disconsolate or annoyed, the bird moves on.
Do names depend upon the power of symbols, or do they power the symbols?
In the 6th century A.D., Priscian disparaged H, saying it existed only to accompany.
Clouds shade the way.
The black-chin extends its grooved tongue at a rate of 15 licks per second.
Alone, the H’s voice is barely audible.
Through the trees, across the crushed rock driveway and beyond the barbed wire
and chain link, I hear deadfall snapping under hooves.
At rest, its heart beats an average of 480 beats per minute.
Modern Greek denies its existence.
Say khet, say honor and where. Say hinge, sigh and horse. Say depth.
Originally published in Prime Number Magazine, one of my favorite online literary journals, in 2013, it subsequently appeared here in June 2015.
The Echo is Neither Sound nor Hope
empty trees
a darkened
window
the void
between chairs
unchanged
as if you’d never spoken
* * *
This first appeared in April 2015.
Scarecrow Takes a Holiday
Having neither organs nor neural impulses,
I no longer ask why or how I hear and smell,
taste and see, feel. This morning I woke
to magpie song and onion breeze, in
a body not mine, yet mine, at peace
on Jeju Island, far from my crows, yet
still among friends singing the same
language. I know this: home lives
within, and no matter where we travel,
it rides with us. Like the man who
spoke to me, bald, bearded, a pale
foreigner in this land, comfortable
here, at home. He listened for my reply,
but unfortunately I’d not been given
a mouth, and my words dropped to the
ground and were rolled away by
beetles before he noticed them.
Perhaps I should have written a note,
but he wished to gamble and how
could I refuse? I am hollow, but not
empty, whole, yet not complete,
away but here. He took a coin
from his pocket, flipped it. I saw…
A response to Daniel Paul Marshall’s “Scarecrow Travels (after Robert Okaji)”
This first appeared in May 2017.
O at the Edges 