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To the Postmodernist

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

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Sunlight

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.

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Cocoon

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.

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Inhumation

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

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A Christmas Poem

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

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:

The Awakenings Review — Summer 2007

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Culture

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

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:

The Alchemy Post (web-based) — November 2005

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Phrases

Here’s another old ghazal from the archives, slightly modified for flow and imagery. I’m starting to wonder how many of these I’ll end up resurrecting as I go through them. Note that this post is backlogged to the date the ghazal was actually written.

Phrases

Teens drive by in rides that thump out caustic phrases,
And yet nearby brown robins chirp out lyric phrases.

Calling from the minaret, a scowling prophet
Feigns to see with empty words in vatic phrases.

Winding, rippling in the wood and through the meadow,
Streams converge and weave to town with rustic phrases.

Shattered concrete, fallen bridges, broken towers:
Ravaged structures heard the call of seismic phrases.

Pooled in valleys, morning mists floats up the canyons—
Water rising from a lake of magic phrases.

Hiding deep in yellowed fabrics, cracked and tearing,
Wisdom fades into a scrap of relic phrases.

Bald eccentric maples stand by bony poplars;
Autumn shadows speak with dark and mystic phrases.

Shielding life, a veil of blue shuts out the heavens,
Then at night the curtain parts to cosmic phrases.

Call them pearls or gems or beads or what you fancy;
Still, the necklace forms a string of strophic phrases.

Relax, Zahhar, and just write ghazals till your done;
Countless thoughts can still be formed in distich phrases.

This is my 112th ghazal.

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Occurrences

Found this hiding in the folder for February, 2003, which contains five ghazals. I managed to polish it off a bit and steady the meter some before posting.

Occurrences

Ridges slope to meet the waves in gradient appearance;
Foliage climbs to each lone peak in variant appearance.

Soft the half-moon’s halo glows in the subtle haze of night,
Where undulating ocean foam gleams salient appearance.

Endless in collapse upon a steady, slow expansion,
Shedding light, the sun maintains a radiant appearance.

Countless shades of blue reveal within the arching heavens
Something more felt than seen in all its ambient appearance.

Ten thousand modes of thought assume that life is nowhere else,
That we alone dream near the rim, a sapient appearance.

Emptiness can only hold the ceaseless apparitions;
Where would we have, without the void, to orient appearance?

All these forms that seem so real are passing just like thought—
Zahhar, you too are simply but a transient appearance.

This is my 109th ghazal.

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Openings

Empty spaces have always intrigued me, especially when framed around a striking foreground.

Openings

Faces fade as lovers share a common glance in the void;
Sifting through the crowd, they meet, alone to dance in the void.

Falling from the azure depths, at one with wind in the heights,
Bold skydivers pull the cord and play with chance in the void.

Horses thunder through the fields—look how they race with the clouds!
Boundless freedom sings where neighs and whinnies prance in the void.

Distant rumbles barely heard in silent depths of the night
Leave a moonlit trail that gleams a silver lance in the void.

Stark against the setting sun and wild crash of the sea,
Growing lone, a cypress holds a mighty stance in the void.

Beating midnight wings in time, a raven lights on a branch;
Soft, a sable feather falls, then floats askance in the void.

Strive each day to wake, Zahhar, and lift the veil from your sight—
Shifting dreams can only serve to break your trance in the void.

This is my 108th ghazal.

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Transfigurations

A random write that has an abstract, metaphysical feel and focus. There’s really not much more to say about it, except that I think it turned out pretty well.

Transfigurations

Sprawled across a dusty couch, a fiend shoots dope in silence;
Lone amidst a warring world—one way to cope in silence.

Underneath the shifting heights, in tempest roar or sunshine,
Sitting on a rock, a monk expands his scope in silence.

On a hillside, old madrones unfold their hues to heaven;
Probing roots fan out and weave beneath the slope in silence.

Chanting in cathedral gloom with eyes fixed on the rafters,
Solemn voices rise and fall as thoughts elope in silence.

Tender faces turn in vain on seeking love or counsel;
Countless children walk the streets alone to mope in silence.

Shadows phase in depthless dark like phantoms but imagined;
Lost amid the shifting forms, the spurned ones grope in silence.

Clumsy creatures claw in fear and strike with fangs of venom—
Shield your heart with care, Zahhar, and hold each hope in silence.

This is my 107th ghazal.

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Havoc

A lot of my ghazals have explored the havoc of dukkha, or karmic suffering. In a way my life has been a study of this phenomenon, for I have striven to gain insight into its workings enough to maybe begin to pull free of it. But for most, myself likely included, even this process takes many comings and goings.

Havoc

Why are grown men sighing? Fear is dim by nature.
Why are children crying? War is grim by nature;

Angry hornets swarming—countless stinging voices;
Kingdoms manifest a battle-hymn by nature.

In this swelling madness, hearts are weighed to breaking;
Overwhelming sadness runs abrim by nature.

Rains can never cleanse the earth of all our bloodshed,
Blades and bullets slaying round her rim by nature.

Those who wake from dreaming, like the fading seagull,
Leave no tracks in parting, flying trim by nature.

Most are lost in chaos, like the flood-tossed salmon,
Helpless bound to homing where they swim by nature.

Providence, though gentle, has been known to ravage—
You will learn, Zahhar, to know her whim by nature.

This is my 106th ghazal.