I found myself writing this after dreaming about an encounter with my father’s ghost, I spent that day reflecting on his suicide—when I was ten—and its far reaching impact on my life.
Father
To my mind, postmodernism represents, above all, the birth of modern mediocrity, especially with regard to poetry. It has its points of interest, which I take and use in my own way and for my own purposes; but the rest I happily leave.
To the Postmodernist
your hands wave
in a sea of swaying hands
through cold dark waters
kelp shifting under swells
lost in formation
your voice howls out
against rocky cliffs
drowned in the crashing parade
of white-noise waves
lost in the drone
your words flash
briefly into view
on the tops of curling waves
a moments notice
lost in the tide
For a woman with dark brown eyes, she had a surprisingly bright countenance. This is my 7th hybridanelle poem, written to the woman who became my first wife.
Sunlight
For Jenna Joslyn
It seems to me the sunshine in your eyes
that burns away the glow of lesser stars
reflects the crystal moonlight of your soul.
Since our paths have crossed, I’ve never groped in darkness,
feeling my way by touch with uncertain hands and feet,
startled every moment contact serves as vision.
I feel the shadows fade before your gaze,
those blurred recesses deep where dreads are stored;
it seems to me the sunshine in your eyes
lifts an obscuring fog that would magnify my doubts
and cloud my thoughts with mist until I walked in quandary,
feeling my way by touch with uncertain hands and feet.
Your view illuminates my mystic core,
reveals a steady center in the storm,
reflects the crystal moonlight of your soul.
I’ve searched for eyes like yours, filled full of jasper mystery;
it often felt like folly; the hope would haunt my dreams
and cloud my thoughts with mist until I walked in quandary.
That dripping haze has drifted off my sight—
each day I wake beside your loving stare;
it seems to me the sunshine in your eyes
now lights the way before me, a path that once was dim,
concealed beneath the drizzle with slick unsettled footing;
it often felt like folly; the hope would haunt my dreams.
I feel the strength increase within my heart
because this narrow path beneath my stride
reflects the crystal moonlight of your soul.
So long as you’re beside me, I’ll always trust my heading;
you hold a gloom at bay that else would leave me blind,
concealed beneath the drizzle with slick unsettled footing.
Your smile clears a gray pall from my mind
and vivifies the world in which we stand;
it seems to me the sunshine in your eyes
reflects the crystal moonlight of your soul.
Your presence parts the clouds like gentle golden beams;
since our paths have crossed, I’ve never groped in darkness;
you hold a gloom at bay that else would leave me blind,
startled every moment contact serves as vision.
I wrote this poem, my 6th hybridanelle, hoping I’d be able to give a copy to the person who inspired it, a National Parks ranger stationed at Grand Canyon National Park, which I just recently visited.
There is a story behind the poem. But first the poem.
Cocoon
It was like a dream, a nightmare spanning years.
I drifted through a world of predators,
my larval soul awash in rapid fears.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way.
You asked me where I went to and why my eyes were closed,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
So with your gift, this orange coverture,
I found peace in the night, but in the day
I drifted through a world of predators.
My life was filled with terror behind impassive walls.
My thoughts were pumped with poison. In time I fled those cells.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way
and questioned me with care—I would not sway;
you could not know what I had just escaped from.
I found peace in the night, but in the day
my blood was mixed with shadows, turned to serum-waste—
you listened to my answers, yet sensed what I withheld,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
Your simple gift permitted me to travel,
to mend the fractured crystal of my mind.
You could not know what I had just escaped from.
I fled my own destruction into the fearsome world
to chance uncertain highways before my fate was sealed.
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way,
my fourth day on the asphalt running blind
with only pupal hopes—yet undiscerned—
to mend the fractured crystal of my mind.
Perhaps my eyes revealed the weight of iron woes.
You somehow glimpsed the quandary I would not dare expose
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
Those fibers offered metamorphosis…
It was like a dream, a nightmare spanning years
with only pupal hopes—yet undiscerned—
my larval soul awash in rapid fears.
In time I learned to fly erratic on the wind,
my dusty wings capricious upon the windblown fields—
One day I passed your station. You stopped me on the way,
then handed me a sleeping bag and wished me well.
As a fifteen year old, I had been a road-wandering runaway for four days when I found myself in the Grand Canyon National Park—hiking to the bottom of the canyon and back. This, I later realized, is something only an Olympic trainer or an uninformed teenager would consider doing. It was a grueling hike, thousands of feet in elevation, and through several climate zones.
A ranger stopped me about a mile half down the ten mile hike to the Colorado, when he saw that I wasn’t carrying any water. He was horrified, and told me there was no way I could expect to make it to the bottom and back without water, and when he realized he couldn’t talk me out of the hike, he shoved a gallon of water in my hands as he grumbled something about crazy youth.
I did make it down to the Colorado, where I watched the rapids boil for a bit before starting back. He was right about the water.
On my way back, he noted with some surprise that I was still alive, and ushered me into his ranger station, where he proceeded to express his feeling that I was a runaway and tried to get me to admit as much. I lied and lied and lied and he eventually gave up, but before letting me go he followed some instinct burning in his chest, and gave me a confiscated sub zero sleeping bag.
I lived in this sleeping bag for the next year and a half as I wandered a better part of the United States. It saw me through blizzards, wild thunder storms, silver cloth, hail, sleet and more. I’m pretty sure that if it were not for this random gift from a total stranger I wouldn’t be here to tell you about it today.
I wasn’t able to find the park ranger when I made it to the Grand Canyon. So late in the night, about 2am, I left a copy of the poem on a billboard beside the Bright Angel trailhead, the same trail I hiked so long ago. After this, I walked over to a point where I could look north over the Grand Canyon and asked god to look after the spirit that gave me that sleeping bag. As I did so, one of the brightest and longest shooting stars I’ve ever seen slid across the northern sky.
This poem, my 2nd hybridanelle, reflects on what it was like for me to be “inhumed” at the Camarillo State Hospital between 13 and 14. There I spent a year on the children’s unit, a locked ward with cinder block walls and heavily grated windows.
The title is meant to convey the sense of being killed in spirit, mind, and soul as well as the sense of being entombed (inhumed), alive only physically. I also wanted it to hint at the sense of being dehumanized (inhume—inhuman—dehumanize—inhumation), though this is not a denotive definition for the word. The scheme of indentation is meant to mimic the way a column of bricks is organized in a cinder block wall.
Inhumation
locked wards cower in the distant gloom;
grated windows pattern all my dreams;
heavy haze distorts my heavy mood.
my eyes are weary of watching faded lights;
i wait throughout the dismal night to hear
the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.
silence is an ever-present drone;
tempered springs betray my slightest move;
grated windows pattern all my dreams.
these cinderblocks enfold my spirit in lime;
interred in tomblike walls of concrete halls,
my eyes are weary of watching faded lights.
thoughts amid this broken darkness brood;
restless motions lurk within the shade;
tempered springs betray my slightest move.
this is the crypt where my rotting soul is set,
thus laid to rest beyond that twilight hail,
the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.
time is fractured into mental shards,
strewn against the darkness of my view;
restless motions lurk within the shade.
and the images betray my heart with lies
that flash against my mind as crumbled hopes;
my eyes are weary of watching faded lights.
here i watch them phase in empty hues,
omens of a future laid in brick
strewn against the darkness of my view.
this lucid static is comfort of a sort
that’s lost with every sunrise when i hear
the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.
black within the slowly rising brume,
locked wards cower in the distant gloom,
omens of a future laid in brick;
heavy haze distorts my heavy mood.
i dread the sound that will end another night,
a sound that seals my fate within this hell—
my eyes are weary of watching faded lights—
the call of a rooster just beyond my sight.
Publication History:
The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007
I spent Christmas Eve alone this year. A month ago I was direct witness to a tragic, ringing loss that had eerie parallels to my own father’s suicide when I was ten. This makes it difficult not to feel pensive, reflective, and melancholy.
A Christmas Poem
Publication History:
The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007
I thought I would try building a metaphor for modern American culture. The decaying hull of a scrapped ship seemed appropriate. And so my 10th villanelle.
Culture
Publication History:
The Alchemy Post (web-based) — November 2005
There are many things driving me to study and write poetry, not the least of which is this sense or belief that I have something important and tangible to offer through the medium. I later rewrote this ghazal entirely under the revised title, “Offerings” (pluralized).
Offering
I trudge now back through this grime for you
Because it may ease the climb for you.
Because you just might learn from my pain,
I re-walk that bitter rime for you.
I’m told there are riches deep within,
So I search this fetid slime for you.
I seek rubies in the cave of loss,
Yet I’m glad to spend the time for you.
The earth and stars all could have been mine,
But I’ve passed these chances prime for you.
I’ll peel the rind and my soul expose,
Then wait as a silent mime for you.
Pearls were buried with my heart, you see,
So I dig back through the lime for you.
If in your depths these words resonate,
Zahhar is sounding a chime for you.
This is my 61st ghazal.
The idea for this poem actually came to me when I was 14 or 15. I saw it clearly. As the years progressed I realized how much I related to this imaginary flower from the id, and finally at the age of 30 I’ve tried to make it work.
Mauve Desert Rose
For some reason I’ve been thinking about this poem lately, written March 3rd, 2001. At least that’s the date on the file. Just now I decided to go ahead and have a look at it, maybe make sense of why it’s ‘calling’ to me all these years later.
As I read I couldn’t help my embarrassment—a reason why I rarely visit my older poems—and found myself editing as I went. To my surprise, I discovered I had already saved an earlier version a page down in the document. And, discovering this, I undid all my edits, copied the second draft and pasted it down on another page, then reapplied my edits. Might be interesting to look over revisions of older poems some day.
My edits were half-hearted. I just don’t really think this way these days. But it’s visual. Most of my older poems weren’t so. And the metaphor is strong. Perhaps I’ll write a new poem based on this idea, changing the voice and refocusing the approach entirely. But, for now, I thought it might be interesting to share this old poem.
Note that the original was center justified, and the second draft left justified. Here I’ve just about randomly indented the lines as I read, almost out of curiosity. The raggedness of the lines now actually feels more like the poem itself. I’ve kept the line-caps, which is how I used to write all my poems, both structured and free verse.
So interesting to see how my approach to poetry has changed. Sometime I should print up everything I’ve written to date and just read through it. I can put everything that elicits a strong desire to vomit in one pile, in another all the poems that don’t seem to evoke much reaction at all, and in the golden pile the poems that still somehow move me, either as the author or as a revisiting reader. Maybe I could do something with that golden pile, like bind it up and pop it off to a few publishers. See what happens.
Well, here.
Amelioration
I sift
Through broken dreams
They cut
Like shattered glass
Slicing clean
Deep
Until the inner essence
Of this that I am
Wells forth like blood
From injured depths…
The tattered remains
Of my dismal heart
Most would recoil
Leave it be
The shattered glass
But…
I cannot
For I remember…
Remember…
Vaguely remember
There was a time
There was
When these broken bits
Formed inspiring spectacles
Of drifting dreams
And so…
I rake my life
Through broken glass
Endlessly seeking
What might be salvaged
Salvaged…
From the shattered remains
Of long since shattered dreams
Though gored and bloodied
Somehow I know
Despite the pain
Gaping wounds hardly offered
A chance to heal…
My heart Knows
Slowly discovers
That which may be reclaimed
Among the fragments
Countless razor shards
Shattered bits
Of what once inspired
…And painstakingly builds
With fragments reclaimed
New dreams
New hopes
Hormones wrote this poem. I was taking a class at Mendocino College, and there was this woman. You know the story. For the most part this was an inspired write.
Eloquence
For Priscilla
if words
could express
your loveliness
your depthless beauty…
…they would soar
in endless freedom
profound grace
a gliding eagle
lost in the bliss
of a perfect sky
full of fragrant winds
fathomless spectacles
thrilling peace
…they would bloom
in a riot of splendor
like great meadows
vast valleys
emblazoning brilliant
with spring blossoms
as if a rainbow
were itself imprinted
into the very land
…they would flow
like the wandering waters
of a sliding stream
beneath the verdant shade
swaying canopy
of a dreaming forest
allaying forever
all ambient life
…they would shine
with the gentle radiance
of a full moon
in still clear skies
bathing all beneath it
in quiet iridescence
bringing forth
the deepest beauties
from the heart
of all things held
in the pearly thrall
of its silver glow
… … … … …
words will remain
forever inadequate
infirm to express
the silken grace
splendid radiance
serene delight
mysterious wonder
and remarkable eloquence
of your genuine beauty
