My poem “Happy Circuitry” has been published by Figroot Press.
This piece was originally drafted during the August 2015 Tupelo Press 30-30 Challenge, and is dedicated to Margaret Rhee, whose book Radio Heart; Or, How Robots Fall Out of Love inspired me. Thanks Kris B. for sponsoring and providing the title!
“A Word Bathing in Moonlight” first appeared in Eclectica in July 2017.
A Word Bathing in Moonlight
You understand solitude,
the function of water,
how stones breathe
and the unbearable weight
of love. Give up, the voice says.
Trust only yourself.
Wrapped in light, you
turn outward. Burst forth.
“Thinking Music” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
There’s vision, and then there’s VISION. Read Stephanie L. Harper’s poem to SEE.
To think that we see
them so often yet so rarely consider
how those piebald songbirds so at home
on a snow-scape in their portable parkas
are made of the exact same stuff we use
to fill up our electric sky & shocking
watermelon nylon winter coats which must be
designed expressly for us to go out there looking
ridiculous not to mention callous (clothed as it were
in outright exploitation)—is the thing I’m pondering
as I observe through the window a little house finch
all feathery & poofed with his flushed cheeks
flitting over the snowy patio pecking among the abandoned
bench-feet for invisible if not entirely non-existent
morsels & hawking an air of self-possession that is obvious
even to me in my current incapacitated state
As for whether the red-crowned
retina specialist who conducted my examination
was young &/or fetching the prospect was…
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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.
“Trem Abandonado” by Rafael Vianna Croffi
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rvc/29472173566)
This ghazal!
Scarecrow Questions
Though my tongue withers from disuse and
drought, I taste from across the sea astringent
smoke and the progeny of a hundred bullets
buzzing by like misguided insects through
the theater of the dying, and I question how
pride and greed, hubris and fear, unwind their
cords to detonate these differing yet tangled
lines. How to fathom such depth of mistrust?
The Christian paints her door frames azure, a
Muslim carpets his tile floor, the Jew panels his
walls, yet among each, various segments clash,
and all of their houses implode. I feel nothing,
yet shiver throughout the sun-blazed afternoon.
Then I consider the structure of zero, whether its
body contains or extracts, negates or compromises,
hollows out duplicates within duplicates, exorcising
with a blade so sharp as to peel away memory from
those it crosses without the faintest murmur. Gone.
Erased. Banished to never having been. I neither
breathe nor digest, but I absorb and recall. How do
you so willingly forget history? This post determines
my destination, but not my destiny, not tomorrow’s
promise, nor the returning birds and faith, the long
nights, their stars, their deaths, the following days.
“Scarecrow Questions” first appeared here in February 2016.
Returns
What good is a rock
if the people fall, if truth
remains but no one
hears the long grass
rattle, and words
burst into flame
and gas, and life
poisons itself with
greed and the deficit
of compassion.
No body exists to bury.
I am trying to return
to a place of open
mouths, of nests and
groves left standing
despite their value
to the market. Which
pocket do I empty,
what song do I leave
unsung. Tomorrow
always becomes
yesterday, and today
flakes away into chilled
ash, carried over
rooftops and clouds,
never to be seen again.
Ghazal of the Bullwhip
Who hears braided tongues lashing the glare still?
The language of pain writhing through white air, still.
Or herding cattle you pop and crack above the horizon,
pastoral and flowing. But sharp, a sonic nightmare, still.
You ask how love blossoms through decades and more.
That look, a caress, the perfect words – all quite rare, still.
Oh to be a larks head knot, strengthening when used.
Delicious hitch, unmoved water, tight square, still.
I fall, you fall. We fall together in pleated silence.
The inevitable loop of the captive’s bright snare, still.
No gods today, but voices trickling through my skull:
Bob, Bob, they say. Not again. Even you should care. Still!
* * *
In response to a comment, Daniel Schnee dared/challenged me three days ago to write a poem about a bullwhip. To make it interesting I decided to combine his theme with my latest enthusiasm, the ghazal form.
Tuning the Beast
I prepare contingencies for all outcomes. No.
I’ve prepared for this: a body. A key. As if
that cloth draped a leg. Not a leg
but the representation of a limb.
Another fragment, brought forth and opened.
Not a limb, an arrow, perhaps, pointing to the sea.
An oar, brought inland and unrecognized
for its purpose, directed or aimless. No, not an oar.
A neck, polished, and a chamber, with strings.
Repetition, fixation. Position. Intent.
I pluck and strum, pick and stroke, maintaining
space, steel above wood, bending notes,
moving sound in time, purposefully, from
this place to that, the left hand, creating,
conversing. The right, reasoning, controlling,
burning its past to the present, allowing,
preventing, rendering beat, consistent
motion, shaping only this moment, this now.
“Tuning the Beast” was drafted during the August 2015 30-30 Challenge, thanks to Sunshine Jansen’s sponsorship. It subsequently appeared in The Blue Nib in September 2016.
What little I know of Tamil poetry, I learned from Nazir and his blog. Here he discusses the concept of “tinai,” which resonates with me. So much to learn, so little time…
Picture courtesy: http://www.palanimurugantemple.tnhrce.in
The Tolkappiam, in Porulatikaram, begins by identifying seven tinais out of which the middle five (“naduvan aintinai”) constitute the “world rimmed by the sea” (“padutirai vaiyam”) (Verse 1 and 2). These five tinais become known as kurinchi, mullai, palai, neidal and marutam. Then it goes on to make magisterial pronouncements designating the time and place as mutal, meaning first. The gods, the food, the animals, trees, birds, occupations, the musical instrument and melody, the flowers, the water source are the karu or things embryonic to the mutal. The human mood appropriate to each tinai is the uri. The tinai, identified by an emblematic flower and sharing certain specific geographic features, becomes a vehicle for the mutal, the karu and the uri. In other words, the tinai encapsulates the mutal, the karu and the uri. By doing so, it becomes a spatial, temporal, spiritual, gastronomic, biological, occupational and emotional…
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