Gaza
We presume affliction by census,
whereas light
requires no faith.
Is the roofless house a home? When you call
who answers? The vulture
spreads its wings
but remains on post. Shifting,
I note minute of angle, windage. No
regrets, only tension. Breathe in. Exhale.
Again.
***
“Gaza” first appeared here in July, 2014, and is included in my chapbook, If Your Matter Could Reform.
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.
The moon smiles upon my bed.
I consider frost and ice,
and raising my head, the bright sky.
Lying back, I think of home.
Once again, I’ve attempted to shiver myself into a timeless piece. I can only hope that my version does not offend.
The transliteration from Chinese-Poetry.com follows:
Bed before bright moon shine
Think be ground on frost
Raise head view bright moon
Lower head think home
This originally appeared here in March 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
Numbers numbers numbers: NINE
Early on in my other life I was hand-picked and hired to assist with budgets, to work with numbers. One of the higher-ups remarked that my spelling score was quite good for a “numbers person.” This amused me to no end, as I’d no inkling that a) anyone in the world considered me fluent with numbers, or b) that the mundane labor that comprised my livelihood had been noticed, much less evaluated, by someone beyond my small, three-person office (certainly no one noticed the writing I’d produced and published). More than a quarter century later, I’m still amused. And still working with numbers, which even now remain mysterious, magical, and even inspiring.
Take the number nine. Multiply it by two, and you get 18. Add the two digits that comprise 18, one and eight, and you get 9. Multiply it by three: 27. Total the two digits forming 27, and you get, yes, 9. Multiply it by four, by five, by six, by seven, eight or nine. Add the digits that comprise the sum and you return to nine. Interesting, no?
It appears everywhere. In Islamic cosmology, the universe is built of nine spheres. In Ancient Mexico, the netherworld consisted of nine layers. The magic square consists of nine parts. Beijing was designed as a center with eight streets. Hindu temple foundations contain jewels and nine distinct grains. The human body has nine openings. The number also appears in both sacrificial and healing rites. The River Styx bends nine times. I could go on (we haven’t scratched the surface), but will refrain.
And if this piece piques your curiosity, you might find this poem inspired by zero (a truly fascinating subject) of interest:
http://www.cladesong.com/okaji.withtheseninefigures.html
Or this one, “That Number upon Which the Demand Lieth,” which takes up the number three.
This first appeared on the blog in February 2014.
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.
Dead Rose at 5 Points Local
(A collaborative poem written with Stephanie L. Harper)
Having plucked the disheveled
petals from the core,
she waits
for the dead to speak
of last week’s sweetness—
of damp upholstery
and worn-out shoes,
of locked chests
and the faint honey
of unrealized hope.
Magnetized,
I twist the stem;
I quarter the seeds and
blemish the plate.
Which north rings true?
Which faded-red
bridge reveals the lost
inner compass?
Our ice cubes clink
no answers, as the essences
of hibiscus, lavender,
and mint slip over my tongue,
concealing the cool
tang of her demurring
ghosts…
But when she says whisper,
touching her lips
with an index finger,
I hear distant trains
baying like wolves,
and smell the char of nights
trailing the undiminished
river, its waters flowing
in every possible
direction, away.
* * *
“Dead Rose at 5 Points Local” first appeared in Formidable Woman Sanctuary in November 2018. For the story behind the poem, click on the link.
Icarus
Currents of breath, the slight curve and lift
within a single motion, once
poised then released as if to say
the wind is mine, or wait,
I am alone –
the story we most fear, not height nor gravity’s
fist, but to exist apart, shadow and
mouth, rain and smile, feather
and sun, all denials reciprocal,
each tied fast and renewed.
“Icarus” first appeared here in April 2016, and subsequently was published in The Basil O’Flaherty in November 2016.
O at the Edges 