an ode for you

photo credit: “Bach Invention 13″ by Debra Hurd (http://www.dailypainters.com/paintings/240853/Bach-Invention-13-music-classical-painting-art-by-Debra-Hurd/Debra-Hurd)

 

an ode for you

 

Tell me something that you

love.

 

Be it a bread I will

bake it,

a gift I will

bring it;

a craft I will

make it,

a song I will

sing it,

 

though I am

not much

of a craftsman,

I can

read instructions;

 

and though i am

not much

of a chef,

I can

follow a recipe;

 

even though I am

not

much

of a singer,

yet still

I can

carry a tune.

 

***

 

it hunts

***

i wear my black

est black. funereal, almost.

and lay flat

est flat; under a dusty rug that is

under a heavy rock that is

at the bottom of the black

est black well. and i think

i will be safe here.

it

cannot find me, certainly, and i

exhale, a long, long

hiss, a tire leak

ing air through a crack that

cannot be sealed. and when i am

still, silent, breathless,

supine,

it speaks.

its slithering voice

whispers to me, saying,

fool.

i knew

all along

this is where

you would try

to hide.

“For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.”  -Psalm 32:3

***

image credit: http://orig00.deviantart.net/0c2f/f/2008/023/c/e/_abstract_darkness__by_mysterybugster.png

trends, trinities

 

 

***

trends, trinities

 

i

sun, moon, water

 

sun’s light is

best reflected in

placid water. jealous,

ardent moon, ever

derivative, prowls for and

pulls us, mere

drops, into

fumbly tides

just to disturb and

shatter into

glistening everywhereshards

the image of the day.

***

ii

mine, yours, no one’s

 
we have

not seen it

before; we have

not yet sat

together,

calm, not

speaking;

have only

beaten mercilessly against beach and

one another,

either trying to

tear apart gentle

earth,

or fighting to leave in the

dust

some impression that

fades

as soon as the

next wave sees and

disagrees.

***

iii

a cord of three strands

 

only a photon

remains in me, when two

together, i and

                  you

would a beam make;

and three? i dare not even dream, a

picture

begin

to form;       a clear,

                        clear,

reflection.

***
 
“No, I don’t miss you… Not in a way that one is missed.

But I think of you.

Sometimes.

In the way that one might think of the summer sunshine

On a winter night…”

― Sreesha Divakaran, Those Imperfect Strokes
 
 

image credit: http://www.dailypainters.com/paintings/150245/Sun-and-Sea-abstract-contemporary-modern-art-painting/Nancy-Eckels

 

oh to die instead in egypt

photo credit: www.devon-photography.com

***

i do not know

  much of the sea

    (i have yet to get my

      sea-legs and remarkably i

        still get ill at the

          waves, most of the

            time) and yet even

              i can tell that boats

                left unsailed and unanchored

                  will neither stay moored

                in the place they were

              docked nor will they by

            glorious happenstance

          reach some tranquil unknown

        beach on foreign shores but

      very likely will simply

    run aground in the

  very place that they

just departed

***

folds

 

***

there is not very much room left in

this notebook now. (who uses notebooks anymore

anyway?) i have used it much for

various things; it is close now to filled, scribbled with inks of

different color, different density, different

viscosity i suppose, though i never studied inks

enough to know if that word applies. on some pages i was

taking notes in classes (the

subject matter of which i no longer need for my

profession), on others outlining books that i

never completed (in some cases

never even began), even occasionally dabbling in

drawing, though art was never really much of a

strength for me.

 

you read sometimes of some lost journal

found among the tattered belongings during the

post-wake post-media cleanout of some famous artist’s house.

Inside could be scribbled lyrics left sadly sans music perhaps; or the

manuscript of some great play that never quite

wandered its way to the stage; or even a passionate discourse on

some pertinent topic, like human rights or something

important like that.

 

this notebook is destined to be

no such journal. its sad white gyri are bloated full, their

contents distinguishable only by the mercy of

narrow blue sulci, deep cavities dark and secretive like

unexplored caves by

the shore of the

dead sea.

***

“write something today.

just…something. anything.”

this probably isn’t good, but i am out of practice. we shall see if that can change.

RW

Psalm 0

***

i think trust must be

knowing

that someday i will be

standing

somewhere a

good ways off (a

good time hence),

and not

wishing

it was all different.

***

 

praying bernhard reimann was wrong

 

we’ll see how this goes. whimsy often betrays.

 

***

last night i was certain

that i wanted

some scorching black drink brewed

fresh and only for me

 

and when it was done and

all the grounds were coursed through and

all the oils and sacred secrets had been

sucked out i

poured it into a cup and

set it somewhere new, different,

seemingly benign

 

heat scores and

time wears and apparently

together they conspire to draw

rings in unsuspecting innocent wood

 

at last when

undeft fingers clumsily looped into

ceramic rings to

rescue planks of ancient trees it was

too late

 

and already carelessness had

spent its fortune on

making some mark that

no one but me would

ever see

 

i hoped, more

dearly than i hope that

euclid was right, and that five hundred

billion years hence no one

still

will have heard my name

 

***

it’s been a while. challenges are welcome. please, shout to the heavens the horrors of this poem. it will, in all honesty, be appreciated.

fifty-one

***

i am not he

any longer

 

and yet my shadow is

as angular, black as

his was, my voice as

scratched and rasped as

his was, my words

carelessly swung

swords as were

his words, my deeds

like plowing barren fields, like

breaking rocks into

dust, sad and pointless and

empty:

 

so too were

his filthy sick

 

hands.

 

his folly is my

sadness, his failing becomes my

habit, his silliness my frivolity; his

each new birth means

my death

 

and he is born

anew

 

daily.

 

(but so too

am i;

 

his is merely of

air,

dust,

 

wind;

 

mine of

water, of

fire, of

 

spirit, unnameable un-

tameable, un-

quenchable.)

 

 

(amen)

***

there your heart will be also: a prose poem

***

for no other reason than because i must, i begin writing (what i see, the content) lest atrophy and wither these muscles (digital, cranial) that scream out for use. he is awake next to me now, who so recently slept comfortably, unabashedly, in daylight and storelight, in the old musted likelynotcleaned bookstore chair. i cannot do this, midday as he: sinus and snore forbid the act, engagement bars the attempt. he though (now contentedly reading), fearless, qualmless, appoinmentless, scheduleless, can. i am fascinated, fastened as i am to wheres and nows and thingsimustdo. a sigh escapes him, and these can say wordless so much. might be it speaks of comfort: old joints, bones finding settlement, peace in worn and weathered upholstery. could it be post-work, post-effort, cramped lungs spilling out muddy and carbony, yearning to be oxygened, replenished again. or it perhaps is (as this is, this whatever, this thinkless, imprecise utter wander) a breathful, mournful expression of abject need: perhaps it cries of want, of frustration, of doubt, of hunger, an anxious heart expiring out, expunging in airy gasp a manifesto of whatwemustbecome. i, still clinging to last green branches of youth’s autumn, and he having long ago forsaken any claims to such: perhaps there is more between us than first i guessed. now, for no other reason than because i must, i entertain this philosophy (what i otherwise feel, think, believe allowed to peaceably die) lest develop and flourish these sensations (difference, solitude) that are, at root, lies made of earth: cold statues left from ancient craft of man, features worn by time and wind and all corruption, no longer suitable as works of art, unique, brilliant and new, but rendered now hideous and unintelligible, exposed by erosion for what they truly are: simulacra, stiff and grey and dead.

looking up from this i know i must reach out to meet, shake hands, introduce: but his eyes have closed again, lids drawn curtains shutting me out from domiciles within.

***

morning in winter

***

fatigue that is

deeper than bones

in wiry old strength

today shovels

last night’s snow. more is

delivered fresh each morning,

white, new, heavy with the

weight of ice and

hidden dust. on the private stage of

grey-blue sky, each crystal

dances its own path,

shaped in lonely ways of its

own choosing, its flutter

choreographed to some music

that he cannot hear. but once they have

settled, lain down, capitulated,

he cannot see their differences:

fused by melt together they

conspire to make obtrusive mounds.

they cannot now

in graceful repose recline

nude upon the finger, nor

dissolve deliciously on the tongue,

but are fit only to be shoveled,

displaced, moved from the path but

never eliminated, piled on the side,

lingering in sight as he passes,

coasting, sliding in his wake like

ancient icebergs silently back into the

treads left by old tires.

***