This light flooding my chair
Is too strong at six in the morning;
It was meant for the policemen prowling
In a room around some criminal,
His guilt a form of sleeplessness.
With half-shut eyes, I see horses motionless
in a field
Except for their tails that flick away darkness,
Their eyes blazing like angels
On a beach in hell, bruised but noble,
For they left speech behind them
On their nightlong fall into the world.
Perfect sleepers, erect in the narrow field
Between thinking and dreaming,
Your large eyes merciful, but empty;
I take you with me into the grey milk of dawn,
Knowing your terrors are simpler than mine:
Afraid of puddles, rabbits and the whip,
Not of promises kept or broken, not of breathing,
Not of love's forged signature
And its costly repairs.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Quote
"Let us remember...that in the end we go to poetry for one reason, so that we might more fully inhabit our lives and the world in which we live them, and that if we more fully inhabit these things, we might be less apt to destroy both."
--Christian Wiman, Editor of Poetry Magazine
--Christian Wiman, Editor of Poetry Magazine
Friday, January 20, 2012
Someday
imagine a world with no language
where there is neither silence nor music
only the pleasure of sound
where words are unable to form in the mind
where nothing has meaning only sensation
where all people are strangers all friends all lovers
where one cannot distinguish their body from the air
from the ground they walk from the spaces they move through
where lines and borders have no bearing
only colors and gradual tone shifting signal the change of a moment
where everything is a beautiful and inspiring wisp of confusion
puzzles that cannot be solved
ideas that do not ask to be understood only experienced
where love and indifference exist as the only feelings
both fleeting both sustained
The Monastery
A place hidden deep in unearthly peace
far beyond the borders of a small Texan town,
a monastery sits on the rocky shores
of white-cragged and grassy cliffs
Praying, praying, praying.
Silent monks with long black beards
sad eyes and always smiling,
praying, praying, praying.
They live in spaces with no clocks,
only the shoreline the sun and the moon
receding and circling the brief and endless span of time.
They live in spaces with no sound,
only shallow lapping from the shore, the hot wind
through open sanctuary windows,
the mid-day braying of the goats in the field.
In this place they are calm,
praying, praying, praying
they know no words other than prayer,
they work in secret, they love God
in quiet rooms and before the face
of every slow and red rising dawn,
while praying, praying, praying.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
"Ode to Criticism," by Pablo Neruda
I wrote five poems:
one was green,
another a round wheaten loaf,
the third was a house, abuilding,
the fourth a ring,
and the fifth was
brief as a lightning flash,
and as I wrote it,
it branded my reason.
Well, then, men
and women
came and took
my simple materials,
breeze, wind, radiance, clay, wood,
and with such ordinary things
constructed
walls, floors, and dreams.
On one line of my poetry
they hung out the wash to dry.
They ate my words
for dinner,
they kept them
by the head of their beds,
they lived with poetry,
with the light that escaped from my side.
Then
came a mute critic,
then another babbling tongues,
and others, many others, came,
some blind, some all-seeing,
some of them as elegant
as carnations with bright red shoes,
others as severely
clothed as corpses,
some were partisans
of the king and his exalted monarchy,
others had been snared
in Marx's brow
and were kicking their feet in his beard,
some were English,
plain and simply English,
and among them
they set out
with tooth and knife,
with dictionaries and other dark weapons,
with venerable quotes,
they set out
to take my poor poetry
from the simple folk
who loved it.
They trapped and tricked it,
they rolled it in a scroll,
they secured it with a hundred pins,
they covered it with skeleton dust,
they drowned it in ink,
they spit on it with the suave
benignity of a cat,
they used it to wrap clocks,
they protected it and condemned it,
they stored it with crude oil,
they dedicated damp treatises to it,
they boiled it with milk,
they showered it with pebbles,
and in the process erased vowels from it,
their syllables and sighs
nearly killed it,
they crumbled it and tied it up in a
little package
they scrupulously addressed
to their attics and cemeteries,
then,
one by one, they retired,
enraged to the point of madness
because I wasn't
popular enough for them,
or saturated with mild contempt
for my customary lack of shadows,
they left
all of them,
and then,
once again,
men and women
came to live
with my poetry,
once again
they lighted fires,
built houses,
broke bread,
they shared the light
and in love joined
the lightning flash and the ring.
And now,
gentlemen, if you will excuse me
for interrupting this story
I'm telling,
I am leaving to live
forever
with simple people.
one was green,
another a round wheaten loaf,
the third was a house, abuilding,
the fourth a ring,
and the fifth was
brief as a lightning flash,
and as I wrote it,
it branded my reason.
Well, then, men
and women
came and took
my simple materials,
breeze, wind, radiance, clay, wood,
and with such ordinary things
constructed
walls, floors, and dreams.
On one line of my poetry
they hung out the wash to dry.
They ate my words
for dinner,
they kept them
by the head of their beds,
they lived with poetry,
with the light that escaped from my side.
Then
came a mute critic,
then another babbling tongues,
and others, many others, came,
some blind, some all-seeing,
some of them as elegant
as carnations with bright red shoes,
others as severely
clothed as corpses,
some were partisans
of the king and his exalted monarchy,
others had been snared
in Marx's brow
and were kicking their feet in his beard,
some were English,
plain and simply English,
and among them
they set out
with tooth and knife,
with dictionaries and other dark weapons,
with venerable quotes,
they set out
to take my poor poetry
from the simple folk
who loved it.
They trapped and tricked it,
they rolled it in a scroll,
they secured it with a hundred pins,
they covered it with skeleton dust,
they drowned it in ink,
they spit on it with the suave
benignity of a cat,
they used it to wrap clocks,
they protected it and condemned it,
they stored it with crude oil,
they dedicated damp treatises to it,
they boiled it with milk,
they showered it with pebbles,
and in the process erased vowels from it,
their syllables and sighs
nearly killed it,
they crumbled it and tied it up in a
little package
they scrupulously addressed
to their attics and cemeteries,
then,
one by one, they retired,
enraged to the point of madness
because I wasn't
popular enough for them,
or saturated with mild contempt
for my customary lack of shadows,
they left
all of them,
and then,
once again,
men and women
came to live
with my poetry,
once again
they lighted fires,
built houses,
broke bread,
they shared the light
and in love joined
the lightning flash and the ring.
And now,
gentlemen, if you will excuse me
for interrupting this story
I'm telling,
I am leaving to live
forever
with simple people.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
The Things I Learn From Doing Nothing All Day
I learn many things each day; I learn all I need to know
from sitting alone in the bedroom,
staring out the window and playing guitar,
making music no one will ever hear,
composing symphonies already muted and vanishing.
There are things I learn from the hardwood floors,
and the cold dirty tile when I walk barefoot,
from the simple stitched embroidery of my drool-stained pillow.
I’ve learned the gift of sleep is only greater than the gift of waking
if you have lost your last pleasant memory.
There are lessons I have learned in tasting Petrarch and the dust of ancient poetry,
of drinking literature while the light is still out,
of feeling the sun and the clouds waft over my naked body after twenty minute showers.
Some days I have a strong desire to fill all this emptiness,
other days I cannot distinguish myself from unopened books on the shelf.
The time I spent in the kitchen looking outside at the trees,
following the squirrels and the birds and then gazing forever
at the bread crumbs scattered on the countertop.
There is wisdom you learn from silence.
When the stillness of the broken peach trees
you planted many summers ago
match your own motion, it is then
that only your breathing exists. And there you are alive.
One can only truly understand love in death.
When the solemn face passes through airy joy and disengages the mind.
Because here, where I have done nothing,
everything I have loved has turned to dust.
I know this is true;
I sweep it off the floor and throw it in the trash every afternoon.
from sitting alone in the bedroom,
staring out the window and playing guitar,
making music no one will ever hear,
composing symphonies already muted and vanishing.
There are things I learn from the hardwood floors,
and the cold dirty tile when I walk barefoot,
from the simple stitched embroidery of my drool-stained pillow.
I’ve learned the gift of sleep is only greater than the gift of waking
if you have lost your last pleasant memory.
There are lessons I have learned in tasting Petrarch and the dust of ancient poetry,
of drinking literature while the light is still out,
of feeling the sun and the clouds waft over my naked body after twenty minute showers.
Some days I have a strong desire to fill all this emptiness,
other days I cannot distinguish myself from unopened books on the shelf.
The time I spent in the kitchen looking outside at the trees,
following the squirrels and the birds and then gazing forever
at the bread crumbs scattered on the countertop.
There is wisdom you learn from silence.
When the stillness of the broken peach trees
you planted many summers ago
match your own motion, it is then
that only your breathing exists. And there you are alive.
One can only truly understand love in death.
When the solemn face passes through airy joy and disengages the mind.
Because here, where I have done nothing,
everything I have loved has turned to dust.
I know this is true;
I sweep it off the floor and throw it in the trash every afternoon.
Friday, January 13, 2012
"The Other Ocean," by Paul Zweig
It was the whip-marks of the horned asp,
And the Beduin sucking his coffee
Through cracked fleshy lips;
It was his ceremonial kindness
In the month-long solitude of camel-watching,
While his animals bellowed over the plain
Like ghosts roaming in the star-glitter.
It was these scattered lives in a country without rain,
And the miniature within,
Crawling, hissing,
Its light almost solid, almost mineral.
The way back smelled of cinders,
Older, emptier than anything living;
A way of faces lost in the changes
Of light into dark, passing grief-wrinkled
Boulders, sand glaring red and grey.
It was a line of rust scrawled on the stillness,
As a sown darkness, and an expectation.
And the Beduin sucking his coffee
Through cracked fleshy lips;
It was his ceremonial kindness
In the month-long solitude of camel-watching,
While his animals bellowed over the plain
Like ghosts roaming in the star-glitter.
It was these scattered lives in a country without rain,
And the miniature within,
Crawling, hissing,
Its light almost solid, almost mineral.
The way back smelled of cinders,
Older, emptier than anything living;
A way of faces lost in the changes
Of light into dark, passing grief-wrinkled
Boulders, sand glaring red and grey.
It was a line of rust scrawled on the stillness,
As a sown darkness, and an expectation.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
"Where Everything is Music," by Rumi
Don't worry about saving these songs!
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
And if one of our instruments breaks,
it doesn't matter.
We have fallen into the place
where everything is music.
The strumming and the flute notes
rise into the atmosphere,
and even if the whole world's harp
should burn up, there will still be
hidden instruments playing.
So the candle flickers and goes out.
We have a piece of flint, and a spark.
This singing art is sea foam.
The graceful movements come from a pearl
somewhere on the ocean floor.
Poems reach up like spindrift and the edge
of driftwood along the beach, wanting!
They derive
from a slow and powerful root
that we can't see.
Stop the words now.
Open the window in the center of your chest,
and let the spirits fly in and out.
Friday, January 6, 2012
Meditation
And now the sun descends behind the grassy cliffs, the rays are a deep golden hue, bringing everything into color, into being. The monastery bells are ringing, the time for vespers is now. I wish to stay and bask in the eternal and benevolent glow of the sun, to sit here and sleep, to write myself into existence. The present so vivid, there are too many mysteries to ponder, much beauty to behold. I still gape in awe, soul-spaced and light-bodied at the thought of Divine creation, of the secrets brought to the senses. And there is a strong red ant marching toward me, two now, on either side of me. They hunt me out, they consider my nature, sense me and know I am harmless. I am a benign giant shading their atmosphere, a thin bearded being, loving to live and to continue living. The monks have taught me things. To be simple, to love without ceasing, to become lost, absent-minded in the immensity of glory that is continually overflowing. To eat little and pray much, to know that God has words to praise Him properly, of all the books written it cannot be contained, of tongues and minds it cannot be explained. There is a lonely fish jumping in the sea. I hear the splash echo through the bay and the grassy cragged shores and I think of how it has been for me for a long time. And like me, it has been the same for many others.
Oh monks, brothers, teachers and saints, those of you held by a stronger rope to the heavens, pray for us all, that we may live in kingdoms and kingdoms and kingdoms for what we suffer now.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
'Just Friends," by Robert Creeley
Out of the table endlessly rocking,
sea shells and firm,
I saw a face appear
which called me dear.
To be loved is half the battle,
I thought.
To be
is to be better than is not.
Now when you are old what will you say?
You don't say,
she said.
That was on a Thursday.
Friday night I left
and haven't been back since.
Everything is water
if you look long enough.
sea shells and firm,
I saw a face appear
which called me dear.
To be loved is half the battle,
I thought.
To be
is to be better than is not.
Now when you are old what will you say?
You don't say,
she said.
That was on a Thursday.
Friday night I left
and haven't been back since.
Everything is water
if you look long enough.
Monday, January 2, 2012
James 3:13-17
"Who is wise and understanding among you?
Let him show good conduct that his works
are done in the meekness of wisdom.
But if you have bitter envy
and self-seeking in your hearts,
do not boast and lie against the truth.
This wisdom does not descend from above,
but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
For where envy and self-seeking exist,
confusion and every evil thing are there.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,
full of mercy and good fruit,
without partiality and without hypocrisy."
Let him show good conduct that his works
are done in the meekness of wisdom.
But if you have bitter envy
and self-seeking in your hearts,
do not boast and lie against the truth.
This wisdom does not descend from above,
but is earthly, sensual, demonic.
For where envy and self-seeking exist,
confusion and every evil thing are there.
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure,
then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield,
full of mercy and good fruit,
without partiality and without hypocrisy."
Plane Etiquette
A sneeze pregnant with disease,
she’s reading a dirty magazine
on the plane, in the seat next to me,
dropping snot-crusted tissue
and rubbing her face
all over her sleeves
I dream only hypothetically,
Ma’m, if you could please,
release your nose grease
away from me, preferably
in the space between
the garbage and your teeth,
because I can already barely breathe
something so calm, so serene
she would gladly believe my
mild gesture of courtesy
like a hygienic call from a referee,
because on this plane, when all
we see are clouds and a hint of blue
from the surface of the sea, we have to
plead silently: Please don’t bother me,
or else you’ll get what you see:
an angry man with gritted teeth
within arms reach of the door
labeled “Emergency”!
she’s reading a dirty magazine
on the plane, in the seat next to me,
dropping snot-crusted tissue
and rubbing her face
all over her sleeves
I dream only hypothetically,
Ma’m, if you could please,
release your nose grease
away from me, preferably
in the space between
the garbage and your teeth,
because I can already barely breathe
something so calm, so serene
she would gladly believe my
mild gesture of courtesy
like a hygienic call from a referee,
because on this plane, when all
we see are clouds and a hint of blue
from the surface of the sea, we have to
plead silently: Please don’t bother me,
or else you’ll get what you see:
an angry man with gritted teeth
within arms reach of the door
labeled “Emergency”!
Want
Grandma moved to Los Angeles
last summer, she said
she would miss us so much
she was only going for the weather
and the ocean and bloody mary’s
in the mornings on the beach,
all-you-can-eat-crab
and oysters, oh! unlimited
oysters on Mondays
down by the pier.
We should visit.
On the phone her voice
sounds happy. She lives
by her sister and her last brother.
They play cards all day
and watch Egyptian dramas
on satellite while cracking
dried watermelon seeds
between their teeth,
and church a few times a week,
it gives her a sense of peace.
At home mom says the house
feels cold since grandma’s space
heater is never on anymore.
But I know,
she misses dinner
being ready when she and dad
come home.
last summer, she said
she would miss us so much
she was only going for the weather
and the ocean and bloody mary’s
in the mornings on the beach,
all-you-can-eat-crab
and oysters, oh! unlimited
oysters on Mondays
down by the pier.
We should visit.
On the phone her voice
sounds happy. She lives
by her sister and her last brother.
They play cards all day
and watch Egyptian dramas
on satellite while cracking
dried watermelon seeds
between their teeth,
and church a few times a week,
it gives her a sense of peace.
At home mom says the house
feels cold since grandma’s space
heater is never on anymore.
But I know,
she misses dinner
being ready when she and dad
come home.
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