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.
Nocturne (Fall 1983)
Tall weeds block
the view. Remove
sound from sight,
the guitar becomes
kindling. I stretch
my hands toward
the burning wood,
hearing the echo
and the woman.
This first appeared here in November 2015.
Moths
Small moths stir
in the darkness.
I feel their
wings brush my
face, my hands,
remembering the cry
of something unseen.
It is windy
again this morning.
* * *
“Moths” first appeared here in July 2015.
Still Hands (Cento)
I let it burn, rooted as it is. Now
nothing else keeps my eyes
in the cloud – get close to a star,
and there you are, in the sun.
What about all the little stones,
sitting alone in the moonlight?
Silence complicates despair.
I have believed so long in the magic
of names and poems,
and I know that you would take
the still hands to dryness and
loose rocks, where the light
re-immerses itself. It’s not the story
I want. We cannot live on that.
* * *
Credits:
Sharon Wevill, Julia de Burgos, Francis Ponge, Mary Oliver,
Alberto de Lacerda, Robert Hass, HD, Jacques Dupin, Francesca Abbate, George Oppen.
The subject of Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem is Translated, these four lines have not suffered from lack of translation. Gary Snyder’s rendition is beautiful – some might say perfect – as is Burton Watson’s. And then there’s Octavio Paz’s version. Yet I persist…
The transliteration on Chinese-poems.com (which differs from that offered by Eliot Weinberger):
Empty hill not see person
Yet hear person voice sound
Return scene enter deep forest
Duplicate light green moss on
And my take:
Deer Sanctuary
There’s no one on this empty hill,
but I hear someone talking.
Sunlight trickles into the forest,
reflecting onto the green moss.
Time and again Weinberger objects to an explicit first person observer, but to my ear it flows better. I’ve tried to retain a sense of precision in observation and at least a hint of duality, and believe that I’ve succeeded, at least in part. Having carried this poem with me for more than two decades, only now have I felt up to the task of adapting it. I chose the title “Deer Sanctuary” because in my neck of the woods spaces enclosed by “game fences” are generally meant for hunting. We Texans do love our venison. But the poem, to me, is ultimately peaceful. Hence my title.
I was flattered when Sam Hamill contacted me after this first appeared in 2014. We had a brief exchange about the sun and moss and academics that I’ll cherish forever.
This originally appeared on the blog in April 2014.
Resurrection (Cento)
Everything we love
returns to the ground.
Each syllable is the work of sabotage,
a breeze seeping from the heart of the rocks.
They are my last words
or what I intend my last words to be.
I think just how my shape will rise,
a miracle, anywhere light moves.
*****
A cento is composed of lines borrowed from other poets. “Resurrection” first appeared here in January 2016, and owes its existence to the poetry of Tishani Doshi, Paul Auster, Antonella Anedda, Sean Hill, Emily Dickinson, and Ruth Ellen Kocher. I urge you to seek out their work. It astounds!
(This first appeared here in March 2014).
Quite the interesting mag back in the day. This particular issue saw the likes of Bukowski, Ivan Arguelles, Lyn Lifshin, Norm Moser, Sheila E. Murphy, and, well, me, among others. I was thinner back then, as was my poetry.
no more than
the slow grace
of light turning
the leaf so
patient in the
air and colder
now that sense
of permanence unfurled
it is not
long to wait
as Wang Wei
said in his
letter I listen
for a sound
but hear none
Everything is nothing, but afterwards.
I rise and the moon disturbs the darkness,
revealing symbols, a few stolen words
on the bureau. Tomorrow I’ll express
my gratitude by disappearing be-
fore I’m found, which is to say goodbye
before hello, a paradigm for the
prepossessed. Compton tells us to imply
what’s missing, like Van Gogh or Bill Monroe,
but why listen to the dead before they’ve
stopped speaking? Unfortunately we throw
out the bad with the good, only to save
the worst. I return to bed, and the floor
spins. Nothing is everything, but before.
* * *
This first appeared in The Blue Hour Magazine in December 2014, and is also included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform. The line “Everything is nothing, but afterwards” comes from Antonio Porchia’s Voices, translated by W.S. Merwin. Porchia wrote one book in his lifetime, but what a book it was! Often described as a collection of aphorisms, Voices is so much more – each time I open the book, I find new meaning in old lines.
Forgotten
Is it simply forgotten
or not remembered?
My father coughs
through his days,
asking for answers
only his brother knows.
Some books are better
read from the end,
he says. I don’t know
what to do.
He tries to spell his name
but the letters elude him,
teetering between symbol
and thought and choice.
The chair tips over
when I lean too far back,
replacing memories
with hardwood
and a new bruise
coloring my thoughts.
This word, that one.
A face, the date.
Last Tuesday’s crumb.
The floor accepts us all.
* * *
“Forgotten” first appeared in ISACOUSTIC* in January 2018.
Hours
who remembers can
the blur of
flowers be so
unpleasant if as
Creeley says “imagination
is the wonder
of the real”
what then is
presence obtained from
nothing the mere
transformation of shape
to glory incessant
as the night
raining in through
the long hours
* * * *
A poem from the mid-80s. I don’t recall where the Creeley quote came from.
O at the Edges 