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.
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.
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.
Ode to Being Placed on Hold
The music rarely
entertains,
but I find
peace between
the notes,
sometimes,
and embrace
the notion that
I’ve been inserted
in that peculiar
capsule between
speech and the
void, imagining
myself somewhere,
floating, free
of care and
gravity,
beer can
satellites
orbiting my head,
with bites of
pungent cheeses
and baguette
circling in
their wake,
a gift, you see,
like rain in
August or
a warm voice
saying hello.
* * *
“Ode to Being Placed on Hold” was drafted during the Tupelo Press 30-30 marathon in August 2015. Many thanks to Mary “marso” of the blog “marsowords” who sponsored and provided the title. The poem has also appeared here several times.
If You Drop Leaves
If you drop leaves when she walks by,
does that signify grief for those
cut down early,
or merely drought?
How easily we abandon and forget.
Yet a whiff of lemon verbena or the light
bouncing from a passing Ford
can call them back,
tiny sorrows ratcheted in sequence
above the cracked well casing
but below the shingles
and near the dwindling shade
tracing its outline on the lawn.
And what do you whisper
alone at night within sight
of sawn and stacked siblings?
Do you suffer anger by way
of deadfall or absorption,
bark grown around and concealing
a penetrating nail, never shedding
tears, never sharing one moment
with another. Offered condolences,
what might you say? Pain earns no
entrance. Remit yourselves.
* * *
“If You Drop Leaves” was published at Bad Pony in November 2017. Many thanks to editor Emily Corwin for taking this piece.
While Reading Billy Collins at Bandera’s Best Restaurant, Words Come to Me
And having no other paper at hand,
I scrawl on a dollar bill, “I want to speak
the language of smoke.” My invisible friend
interrupts. That is a white man’s dilemma.
At least you have a dollar and a pen.
“But I’m only half-white,” I reply, “with half
the privilege.” Then you must bear double
the burden,he says. This version of math
twists my intestines into a Gordian knot,
as does the concept of half equals twice,
or in terms I might better comprehend,
one beer equals four when divided by color
or accent and multiplied by projection.
The unsmiling waitress delivers my rib-eye
as I’m dressing the salad, and the check appears
just after the first bites of medium-rare beef
hit my palate, certainly before I can answer the
never-voiced question “would you like dessert?”
Cheese cake, I would have said. Or cobbler. And I
seldom turn down a second beer. This too, I’m told,
is another example of my unearned entitlement. I
contemplate this statement, scribble a few other
phrases on bills, drop them on the table, and walk out,
wondering which direction to take, which to avoid.
* * *
“While Reading Billy Collins at Bandera’s Best Restaurant, Words Come to Me” was a finalist for the 2017 Slippery Elm Prize in Poetry. It was published in Slippery Elm (print only) in December 2017. You may be amused to hear that shortly after the winner was announced, I had lunch in Bandera with one of the other finalists in this competition, D.G. Geis, but not at the restaurant featured in the poem. The photo is of a local bar, not the eatery, but it offers some of the flavor of the town.
Overlooked
How immemorable, he thinks,
drilling into the wall.
Another hole, another day.
Fill them, and still others
beg creation.
Say mouth. Say void,
followed by tongue and burden,
by orifice and bland. Say
invisible. Empty. Say forget.
That we plan is given.
But who writes the manual
to our lives? The hammer
does not shiver at the thought
of itself. Take this board
and remove only that portion
the screw will occupy.
Level the hook. Admire
the work. Adjust.
Do this twice.
* * *
“Overlooked” was published in Mantle in August 2017. Many thanks to editor James Croal Jackson for his kind words and for taking this poem.
He thought much of these disembodied hands, pictured them moving to the light of the burnished lantern, weaving patterns intricate as those in the most delicate hummingbird nest, textures and shades of light with traces of webs and soft fibers of unknown origin, making knots of shadows and their companions.
*
It was not that they were so very much like his; they were hands of another sort, hands that touched nothing held by another, hands that knew no lips or wooden hearts or curves in a quiet moment, hands that knew only themselves in the community of unnatural hands.
waking to the rain
he hears a far-off whistle
oh, the neighbor’s tea!
* * *
“Community of Hands” first appeared here in April 2017.
A recording of this reading can be found here: https://vimeo.com/703057322
O at the Edges 