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Braille

There’s a young blind man that frequents one of the coffee houses I like. Whenever he comes tapping in with his white cane, there is always this pretty lady with him. She dotes over him and helps him with whatever he needs. She could be his sister, or his lover, but I suspect that they’re intimate.

The last time I saw them at the coffee house, I found myself drafting this poem, thinking about what it must be like for him. Later I revised it further. It’s abstract, as I imagine a blind person must perceive the world in an abstract sort of way.

Braille

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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Forward

All conceptions of beauty are idealized, period. If you’re lucky, that ideal will emanate from a place so deep within your heart, that as your spouse begins to age and show the defeats of time, you’ll see only what your heart sees. But, for most of us, we’ll see only what the skin shows—And that is our unfortunate karma.

Forward

You’ve shattered the image,
    marble glass and clay
            scattered like broken dreams.

There’s no repair,
    no reconstruction
            for these lost ideals,

Grecian models fragmented
    into rubble,
            jigsaw disappointment.

What is there to save?
    These jagged shards will only
            tear the skin.

Yet there’s still the garden,
    paulownia trees in bloom,
            a little brown path.

Please, take my hand;
    let’s walk, find a casual pace,
            and leave this waste behind.

At best, for those of us disturbed by the shape of skin and bone, we must make an effort—a conscious effort—to move beyond what we merely see. If we don’t, we must repeat our tragedies over and over until there is nothing left to do but die alone.

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Sakura

My 6th trisect poem. The first segment depicts the cherry blossom, by means of impressions. The second segment depicts the environments into which the cherry blossoms manifest and disperse. The third segment depicts the ephemerality of life.

In Japan the cherry blossom has long been associated with the ephemerality of youth and life, sometimes even painted alongside scenes of samurai harakiri and other scenes of mortal transition. In this poem I’ve attempted to depict these associations using mostly Western imagery. I’ve also tried to lace a sense of ephemerality throughout the entire poem.

Sakura

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.

What’s interesting about the trisect is that I often come to see more in the poem when I read it than what was there when I wrote it. Already I can see associations and connections in this piece that I would have been sure were intentional if I hadn’t written it myself. I find myself wondering if this isn’t some kind of connection to the workings of the unconscious. Trisects are dreamlike in a lot of ways

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sheer

One of the ways I’ve conceptualized coming, as in being born, is something like a dream in which there is no real self, but an egoless point of perception that shifts through abstract perceptions of unreality until at some point it is yanked from the ether and pinned to a fixed location—the new life that wails confused from the womb.

sheer

the dreamer falls
  crashing through patterns of ice
     submerged in crystal black waters

a flash of cold
  sears through the senses
     and life begins

And I’ve found myself conceptualizing going, as in dying, in much the same way. That point of perception becomes dislodged from the decaying self and returns to an egoless realm of dream and abstraction until the next time it is yanked into some fixed reality.

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Ark

This, my 5th trisect poem, is inspired by the moon of Europa. The one in orbit around Jupiter. Some believe there could be something neat happening beneath the rind of ice surrounding that unique sphere.

Segment one depicts that rind of ice. Segment two depicts the underlying potential. And segment three depicts the evolutionary process proposed to be a possibility.

Ark

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.

Publication History:

Art Arena (web-based) — March 2006

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Architect

My 4th trisect poem, inspired by none other than the Lego building blocks system. Segment one depicts the building blocks themselves. Segment two depicts the various creations that can be made from those building blocks. And segment three depicts the imaginative play involved in making those creations.

Architect

The Elements

Modeled after brick and stone,
the cinderblocks and dolomites
that long have kept our ancient homes
half hidden from the crush of night,

a simple notion binds itself to form
in varied shapes of molded polymers
that—scattered out like remnants of a ruin—
tease the mind with possibilities.

Quarried from the realm of thought,
hewn from enigmatic veins,
abundant with the priceless ore
of nascent creativity,

each hollow cube is made to interlock
with all the many others of its kind,
magic puzzle pieces crafted such
that they will build whatever comes to mind.
 

Of Invention

Imagination rises up
to form a towered ring of walls,
ramparts crowned with parapets
that guard a nest of dens and halls.

Or simple village structures manifest
from deep within the wells of memory,
little homes around a market place,
a chapel standing quaintly in the midst.

Bridges arch above the spread
of nonexistent waterways;
modern superstructures scrape
against conceptions of the sky.

Even ships from other worlds emerge
to travel all throughout the universe,
forever redesigned in the docks
of varied moon or planetary bases.
 

At Play

Individual colors snap
together in a bold array,
absorbed into a growing sense
of cognizance and clarity.

Nimble fingers probe and rearrange
impressionist expressions of the mind,
each sculpture an accomplished masterpiece
comprised of cubist rectangles and squares.

Walls and rooftops recombine
as various disasters strike;
rigs develop stronger frames,
evolving after every wreck.

Experimental joists and joints explore
the art of bearing loads and distribution,
each new creation more elaborate,
expanding with the will to learn and grow.

When the segment subtitles are joined together, you have “The elements of invention at play.” This wasn’t by accident.

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Condensation

A full lifetime of pondering the implications of life and death, coming and going, has lead to a fair amount of reflection on the matter. Here I ponder the beginnings of corporeal life as relates to consciousness and its drive to manifest a corporeal existence.

Condensation

vapors ooze from a black unknown
   shifting places changing form
 currents swirl beyond sensation
   and dreams are set adrift
wafting like scents through the void

poured from starless reaches
   impulses consolidate in pools
 growing creeping crawling flying
   their primal manifestations
sprung in tandem from the abyss

color falls from the earth
   moisture grows from the sky
 soils sweep across the seas
   waters erupt into mountains
fires spurred to consciousness

flashes clear a shapeless dust
   and pink hued lumps of clay
 soak the stormy reign of thought
   stand and stumble struck with awe
blinded by visions of time and space

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E merge nce

My 1st trisect poem. The trisect is my own semantically complex poetic form which I will use to help me with developing my use of depictive language.

E merge nce

Fortress

walls of paper kept the world at bay
cubes of indistinction none would see
where settled there within a watcher peered

the dusty brown a perfect camouflage
propped against a wall or by a hedge
passed a thousand times by reckless feet

corrugated fibers held the wind
so that the space inside was made to form
a child’s island haven from the storm

sometimes it was a spaceship among the stars
sometimes a moon-base on a barren scape
sometimes a roving tank all battle-scarred
but always it provided safe escape
 

Goliath

shaped from molten vats of ore
molded by a burning greed
riveted with violent force
pieces merge to fill a need

manifest from heavy silence
oils surge and slowly drip
uncertainty across the roads

power charges through its frame
explosions channeled in its chest
to serve a senseless master’s will

tires grind an alley’s dirt
shadows steer a ghostly wheel
the phantom grill athirst for blood
 

Impact

black lightning strikes the living clay
evaporating life from every limb
suspending consciousness alone
void of breath yet interfused with fear

tires spin throughout the dark
an engine roars above a twisted neck
inches from a lifeless face
psychic tethers anchored in vibration

a heedless monster lumbers back
the shelter shattered open like a nest
blood resumes its former course
and wild bones reanimate the flesh

a figure stands and staggers numb with pain
screams and scampers filled with terror
headlights rear and fade away
a child’s bones left fractured like his mind

The first segment focuses on cardboard. I used to create cardboard forts when I was a child—sometimes very elaborate—and hang out in them all day long. Some of them would be portable, and some would be built in vacant lots or alleyways blocks or miles from home. They were always very well camouflaged, so my little hideout would remain my little hideout. The portable ones I’d often setup at the edge of a busy parking lot, made to look like a pile of scrap cardboard, where I’d hang out and just watch people without them knowing. These simple forts were a safe haven for me, a private place to go and be away from troubles and worries. And I had my share.

The second segment focuses on the automobile, the car. I remember reading up on their manufacturing process and design, and the primary materials used in their construction, before starting this segment.

The third segment focuses on a little mishap I had in one of those cardboard forts as a 14 year old, which involved a car. It was in an alleyway a few blocks from home. City blocks. Los Angeles City blocks. About a mile away at least. I had some big fight with my mother that day and decided I’d just have my own space that night in a cardboard fort I and a friend had built a day or two before. It was a beautiful fort, with four separate compartments, each of which were big enough to lay out flat in. The whole thing was masterfully camouflaged with various sorts of debris from the area, including dead palm branches and branches of other sorts. In the end it looked like a slash pile, just a bunch of branches and other random materials tossed into a pile—but it was hollow, and there were access points.

That night as I slept a car slammed into the fort and ran over my right arm, shoulder, and neck, breaking the upper arm longways from near the elbow across to the top near the ball socket, and blew a piece out of the ball socket itself. My neck was severely sprained—which is of course a miracle. It was possible to make out the tire treads on my throat. How I happened to be aligned such that the tire didn’t snap my head one way and pop my skull off the spine like a bottle opener I have no idea.

This was my first NDE. I have no way to prove it, but I just know. I know what I experienced, and I was dead for at least a moment—and a moment is long enough to be dead. Sometime I’ll dedicate some poetry and discussion to that experience. But as I “returned”, after the car had somehow managed to back up off me without running over my neck a second time, I sprang up in a panic, and it came toward me again, then stopped, then backed all the way down the alley and around the far corner, as if in a mad rush to escape affiliation with the mishap. I’ll never forget the sight of those headlights.

I was near a series of hotels. And each time I knocked, with my left arm since right wouldn’t respond, the owners would come to the door and I’d ask for help and they’d slam the door on me. It sucked. In this manner I ended up up making my way half a mile to an apartment complex my mom had lived in a year or so before, where some people knew me, and an ambulance was called.

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On a Life Left Unfinished

I met Del Warren Livingston early in the Fall of 2003 online at a poetry forum called Poem Kingdom. He was one of the first people I met and talked with online who took me seriously as a poet, and he treated me like a scholar.

Del passed away suddenly in September of 2005. After more than two years building a friendship, which is something I rarely do, this was a loss deeply felt. He really liked the hybridanelle form I invented, and he wrote several poems using this form himself. Most of them were very well done, and a couple may be found on his memorial page linked to below. So it only makes sense that I write and dedicate a hybridanelle poem—my 14th—to his memory.

      On a Life Left Unfinished

      in memory of Del Warren Livingston (1944—2005)

      A full life’s never ended; it merely passes on
   new inspirations wrought from memories
like stardust filaments that weave the birth of suns.

   Your time had come to shed the mortal dream;
      although you wake beyond our veil as if from heavy slumber,
   your remnants ripple through our half-lit realm.

And if you find yourself reflecting where you’ve gone
   on all you’ve left undone, well just remember:
      a full life’s never ended—it merely passes on.

      We who float within your wake can hardly help but wonder;
   we guess and grope for answers to our loss
although you wake beyond our veil as if from heavy slumber.

   Despair would not become you despite your waning moons;
      you strove instead to leave creative memoirs
   like stardust filaments that weave the birth of suns.

The mystery conceals you like a shroud;
   now left with only memories of all you planned to do,
      we guess and grope for answers to our loss.

      You chanced that every evening would reproduce the dawn;
   unfinished projects bear the keen reminder:
a full life’s never ended; it merely passes on

   a sense of oak leaves newly formed and foals of chestnut hue
      to those who valued more than just your presence,
   now left with only memories of all you planned to do.

The minds you’ve touched remain to bear the human trance,
   yet still your essence drifts in memory
      like stardust filaments that weave the birth of suns.

      Your intuitions leave prospective imprints
   and phase from tangibility as cloudscapes phase from view
to those who valued more than just your presence.

   So long as breath sustains, your friends shall hold within
      the insights you have offered as mementos;
   a full life’s never ended; it merely passes on
like stardust filaments that weave the birth of suns.

   The blood that fueled your living form returns to join our roots;
      your time had come to shed the mortal dream
   and phase from tangibility; as cloudscapes phase from view,
your remnants ripple through our half-lit realm.

I met Del about when I was starting to get a handle on expressing myself and my observations in fairly neutral, non-judgmental tones in poetry forums, and discussions in general. Not fully—not then, not now—but more so than before. When it came to discussing poems, poetry, and poetics in an online poetry forum, it has always been my goal to seek knowledge and understanding while at the same time freely sharing whatever I’ve learned up to that point. However, I’ve had to gain insight into my own ego and insecurities as part of this process, which hasn’t always gone smoothly. So I’ve ended up alienating a lot of people as I’ve struggled to learn how to communicate intelligently, openly, and unassumingly with others.

As luck would have it, Del wasn’t much bothered by my rough-edged, self-distancing gruffness, and he enjoyed batting ideas and information back and forth. I was also at this time finally becoming proficient in my understanding of verbal meter, so our early discussions included much talk of meter in poetry. As a result, he learned so much about this aspect of poetry, which had thus far eluded him, through our dialog that he eventually naturalized it himself.

Much of our dialog took place over his own poetry. He sought out my critiques of his poetry—And he didn’t want the light stuff. For the first time I was able to completely cut loose on analyzing and interpreting a living person’s poetry to shreds without worrying about hurt feelings. It was an educational treat for me, and he appreciated the time I spent critiquing his poetry so much that he actually sent me a check at one point for around $200, which he called “compensation”. Up until his death he also took the time to provide me with detailed thoughts and interpretations on every new poem I wrote.

I am by nature asocial and emotionally distant to people, so it took him some effort to cultivate and sustain a friendship with me. But he did so, and as a result I took an increasing interest in him over time, getting to learn a lot about him as a person.

Part of the reason he was studying poetry himself is that he knew his time above ground was limited at best. Years ago he suffered from a metabolic accident that caused him to very quickly gain and retain a lot of weight. In fact, the accident screwed up his biology in general, and his heart weakened over time from the strain on his body.

He wanted to learn how to use the medium of poetry to tell stories about his life and his inspirations so he could leave something behind that would feel significant to him. In fact, Del self-published a book about a year ago titled Writing into the Sunset, which I have a copy of. He passed away literally one day before sending a second book to print. Hopefully his family will be able to get that book published for him, too, at some point.

I came to consider Del a good friend, enough so that I took the drive down to Tuscon, Arizona last spring to meet him. I spent a week at his house with him, mostly entertaining myself with my reading as I’m wont to do, but the rest of the time having very long conversations with him. I’m glad I went; because if I waited, I wouldn’t have gotten to meet him in person at all. He was a wonderful host who made me feel completely welcome in his home.

One of his friends, Eric Lee, has arranged to have this memorial page setup for him online, which includes a short bio of his life and some of his poems. I hope you will feel moved to go have a look.

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Dis-integration

The ephemerality of life and self has been a subject of personal reflection for as long as I can remember. This has given rise to the occasional abstract poem, such as this one.

Dis-integration

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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The Mother

Wrote this while sitting in a Starbucks in the Portland area. A woman sat across from me with her infant child, and I found myself moved by the way she interacted with him—and reflective of the disparity between that infant’s experience and my own.

The Mother

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.