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The Path

This is a rewrite of a ghazal written many years ago, making this my 132nd. The original ghazal used the closest equivalent in English of qaafiyaa, or that rhyme which recurs directly before the radif, which is the refrain. The rewrite uses another device entirely, primary alliteration (on the accented syllable) before the radif. Everything else is different, too.

Years ago, I wanted the poem to metaphorize that quiet calling that leads one away from common pursuits to something more personal, lasting, and perhaps even contributive. The rewrite is more focused on depicting this idea than was the original.

The Path

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.

The original, written in June of 2002, can be found under this title: “Path” (no article).

Publication History:

LYNX (web-based) — September 2012

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Companion

Maybe Time is more of a companion than she is—as many people feel—a tyrant. She is always with us, never leaves our side for a moment, and forever offers at least one consolation—that whatever our woes, these too will pass, one way or the other. This consolation has been perhaps the prime influence on my will to survive long, hard, bitter years in the face of an ever uncertain future.

Companion

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.
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Offerings

This is a rewrite of a ghazal written several years ago, making this my 130th. The refrain and preceding rhyme are the same, though possibly more appropriately approached this time around.

Offerings

I’ll walk through tattered corridors of time for you;
I’ll pick through rooms dilapidate with grime for you.

I almost didn’t make it through yon craggy pass,
but I’ll go back and map that deadly climb for you.

Because the great flood covered riches deep in mud,
I dredge destruction from the fetid slime for you.

A legend tells of treasure sunk where memory dims;
I’ll find those depths and search that watery clime for you.

Since priceless pearls were buried with the fractured years,
I dig amongst these bones beneath the lime for you.

A thief once entered in the night and took all hope;
I’ve striven ever since to solve this crime for you.

We lean against a storm of sharp discordant words;
I’ll try to harmonize them into rhyme for you.

The soft wind carries voices from translucent skies
which whisper meaning on the garden chime for you.

The original, written in June of 2002, can be read under this title: “Offering” (not pluralized).

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Without a Title

To begin anew, one must leave behind the old. This is at least the theory.

Without a Title

Perhaps I’ll start again
This time without a title

This time without the candle wax
the matted hair the long thin wire
all twisted and tangled into shapes
of desire and expectation

dangled from twine like a shrunken head
gouged full of pins and chanted words
until imago jerks and dances wincing
tortured steps of belonging

Maybe it’s time to forget all I dreamed
to tear free from voodoo strings
tendrils of blood wisped through the air
until the tired old spells are broken

to let go and plummet back through long
deep breaths and crushing gasps for air
through years of fear and foreboding back
to half-remembered moments of joy

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Trail of Prayer

In 2009 I visited Bear Butte in South Dakota with my Filipina wife. We weren’t yet married, but we were soon to be. The hike took about three and a half hours, all told. It was the day after Summer Solstice, and something unique was in the air.

There are several stories behind the trip that led us to this special place, and a few specific to our experience at the butte itself. Perhaps they’ll find their way into poem someday. For now, here’s a tribute to the butte, what it means, and what it has meant for years untold.

Trail of Prayer

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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Forsaken

I would consider this a random write. As someone who has lived in or at the edge of poverty his entire life, I have sometimes found myself wondering about my wealthy counterparts.

Forsaken

God has abandoned you. Go!
Cower beneath your rocks and pray.
Pray for a swift release. Pray
for a lesser hell. Pray for sweet
oblivion, cast deep into
the weightless black of naught.

Meaning has dried and mummified
taut against your splintered bones.
Hope has cracked and crazed and peeled
revealing raw infections of
despair. Where can you hide? Where
can you tuck your oozing loss away.

Seek the cellar. Seek the marble
floor. Seek the solitude of
pillared halls. Seek the satin
linens of your tier. Seek the
the double-breasted Valentino,
pressed firm against your perfect corpse.

You are followed, each and every
step. Followed by an ever
present loss. Followed by the
exponent of emptiness.
Pursued through every twist of fate,
through every vain attempt to flee.

You are damned, forsaken, lost.
No one waits for you beyond the
veil. Nothing but the cold and
fetid clay awaits the one
who banishes his soul to claw
for bloody scraps of worldly gain.

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Unrealized

I think the greatest tragedy one can experience is to become ever so slightly aware of his or her creative or professional potential, only to have any chance of ever achieving it ripped away. This has been my experience as a poet, and no other pain I’ve endured comes close to comparing. For me, to develop my potential as a poet requires the time and attention of a career profession, yet I am forced to work for a living, which leaves my creative potential sheered from the light and rotting in the soil.

Unrealized

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.

I have often contemplated suicide as the only way to escape the torment of knowing I have this potential to realize while not having the freedom to pursue it—For the quarter-measures afforded by the trifling free-time left at the end of a workweek are grossly insufficient. To live as potential unrealized because it has been made unattainable by the structure of society is in many ways worse than death itself.

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Contrast

My third synthetic ode. I would like to eventually find the time and energy to write more. The first two parts are structurally isometric while the last has a structure of its own. Parts I and II focus on opposites, in this case the female (yin) and male (yang) energies, respectively. Part III explores a synthesis of the two.

Thesis, antithesis, synthesis—Using purely depictive language. All synthetic odes are done this way. It’s a time consuming process.

Contrast

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.

I will at some point get around to writing an article on the synthetic ode, since I’m the only one who can explain it. It is my creation, after all. But first I want to write more such poems, so as to become completely clear about what elements of language and prosody must be present for a poem to be called by this name.

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Maya

This was originally going to be at least a portion of part I for “Contrast”, but after several months it never progressed. So I decided to call it its own poem and start over with the former.

Maya

From hard hidden folds where granites press
stony drops through limestone crevices
to streams that coalesce in emptiness
and pool in caverns dripping far from sight
to canyon narrows carved from monuments
heft high above a universe of waves
to stillborn depths where ancient forms of life
move like starving ghosts amid the void
she creeps through time an ever present force
birthing shapes amorphous to the mind
which rise and bubble out into the light
manifest for moments on the wind

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summer solstice at Bear Tower

A few days ago I returned from a two week long road trip with my fiance. The apex of this journey took place at the Devils Tower (Bear Tower by some accounts) national monument in Wyoming, where we camped two nights. This place is sacred ground to many. Though I don’t personally think in terms of “sacred”, the place is special to me for reasons beyond my capacity to understand or express.

I’ve always felt a connection with traditional Amerindian ways of viewing the world, and with some aspects of their cultures. Perhaps my karma is such that this couldn’t be helped. I was born here on the soils of California, nourished on foods grown from the dust of their ancestors, and nurtured with waters that welled from and washed over these same sands. Every molecule in my body—and by extension my spirit—has manifest from these lands and from those who have returned to its soils. Inheritance is not just genes and culture—it is much more.

We don’t choose our inheritance; we are manifest from it. For some reason, I have always sensed something about that from which my existence has manifested. In recent years I have begun to better understand this sense, and perhaps I’m also beginning to learn how to convey some of this understanding, using the medium I know best—Poetry.

summer solstice at Bear Tower

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general. However, the above player can still be used to listen to it.
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reality

The greatest tragedy I know is not being able to realize ones creative, academic, or professional potential after becoming aware that such potential exists. Not everyone is mentally and/or psychologically geared to survive in a cutthroat world while at the same time pursuing a creative interest. Most jobs demand a great deal of mental energy and psychological involvement to such a degree that there is no energy left at the end of the day for anything but recovery and recuperation. For such people, life ended long before the day they actually died.

reality

This poem has been published in my book an inkling hope: select poems, available in Kindle and paperback formats. Out of consideration for those who have purchased a copy, I have removed it from this post and online viewing in general.