Doors
What would you conceal?
Or open to. Could you unfurl
your fist to daylight
and shudder loss away — one key,
one digit, one death — presuming the universe
and all its hinges available for inspection
behind yet another unlatched presence.
And this spinning disk,
how shall we step off? Every moon
sheds its coat. Listening, I turn the knob.
“Door” last appeared here in September 2017.
An intriguing and wonderful response. Having and letting go…
February 12, 2019. Now and then a poem emerges in response to something I’ve read. This is one of those – from puzzling over what Robert Okaji might’ve been thinking when he wrote Window Open, Closed. Realities include Robert’s poem, listening to Alan Watts, and the imagery. Our bay tree suffered heavily in 2018’s freeze, and though now only a fraction of its former size, the image reflects its determination to keep flavoring our suppers. The photo collage includes a prior moon and prior clouds.
Read Robert’s poem here: https://robertokaji.com – click HOME and scroll down to Window Open, Closed.
Listen to Alan Watts “Let Go Of Attachment” on http://www.youtube.com.
“Serpent” is the first part of the second poem in I Have a Bird to Whistle (7 Palinodes), my new chapbook. I’ll post recordings of the second and third parts in the next few days.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
If Ahead I See
Gray skies filtered through light,
eyes adapting space,
the possibilities of the
horizon or a foot
lashing out in reflex,
what do I learn?
The house finch sings as if
all air will expire at song’s end.
Falling, I release this misplaced trust.
The path, muddied and crowded with fools.
* * *
“If Ahead I see” is included in my 2017 chapbook, From Every Moment a Second.
From where do these poems come?
The second poem in the chapbook, (serpent, door, eye), grew from a snake-eviction experience one Friday evening, and questions about perception. I marveled at the strength the snake’s body evinced as it wrapped itself around my wrist. What does it see, I wondered. How does it sense? What sequence of events has brought me to this place, now, standing in the grass with a snake in my hands, the sun hovering just over the horizon, cicadas thrumming all around?
And of course the poem rumbled around in my subconscious for months after the incident. What took me back to that time and place? Who can say? Perhaps a flash of light through the oak’s branches, rain dripping from the metal roof, or the fragrance of burning juniper. I never know, but it slid out, somehow, onto the page.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
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.
“Glass” is the third part of the first poem in I Have a Bird to Whistle (7 Palinodes), my new chapbook.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
Window Open, Closed
We enter daylight in the shape
of praise, little words
billowing through wire mesh. Across
the highway a busboy questions time
and the concept of never, while
someone plucks leaves from the bay
tree and plans her day. Roger Bacon
longed to manipulate the inner essence
of inanimate objects, to harness their force,
and a lonely man swallows prescription drugs
deliberately, releasing their attributes over time.
My eyes redden from juniper pollen as the moon
spins invisibly above our roofs, tugging at the
clouds. I once traced in a building of music
the organ’s sound to the woman I longed
to attract. Now, the window prevents the passage
of solids, but waves penetrate. I spread my fingers
across the glass, but feel no vibrations. Distant
sirens announce a procession of cause and intent,
of carelessness and indecision. Somewhere a voice rises.
* * *
This originally appeared during Bonnie McClellan’s 2015 International Poetry Month celebration, and is included in The Circumference of Other, my offering in the Silver Birch Press chapbook collection, IDES, available on Amazon. A recording of the poem may be found on Bonnie’s site.
“Passway” is the second part of the first poem in I Have a Bird to Whistle (7 Palinodes), my new chapbook, followed by “Glass,” which I’ll post in the next day or two.
The book is available here to U.S. residents for $7.50, shipping included.
Non-U.S. purchasers can order it directly from me by emailing aBirdtoWhistle@yahoo.com.
Aubade (Inca Dove)
Such delicacy
evokes the evolution of hand
and wing, a growth
reflecting all we’ve come
to know. Two doves
sit on the fence, cold wind ruffling
their feathers. What brings them
to this place of no
shelter, of wind and rain
and clarity defied? Fingers
often remember what the mind
cannot. Silence
complicates our mornings.
This last appeared here in February 2018, and was originally published in The Balcones Review in 1987. Seems I was enthralled with birds back then, too…
O at the Edges 