meters

Posted on June 15, 2023October 28, 2023 by EAT

When I’m gone

There was a lot of mystery surrounding my father’s death when I was 10, especially when you consider that my only source of information at the time was—and still is—incapable of anything resembling honesty—my mother. I knew he committed suicide, or at least this is what I told. But there was never anything more.

Any attempt to discuss my father’s death with my mother, then as now, invoked tirades of vitriol that still reechoes on perpetual repeat within my mind—“I told your father I was pregnant with you and he said I want a divorce;” “He never wanted anything to do with you;” “Maybe he faked his death and went underground;” Oh, and more.

I was left to fabricate my own reality around his death, especially when you consider that my mother in a very direct way seeded doubt as to whether or not he was really even gone. This created a lifetime of confusion that was only really resolved a couple years ago when my uncle contacted me out of the blue in his old age having learned that he himself did not have much longer to live.

He sent me his death certificate, coroner’s report, and a detective’s very detailed report—he actually interviewed multiple parties, including my mother, and documented his impressions about my father’s state of mind from those interviews, which lead him to believe that he was capable of suicide and there was therefore no need to investigate further.

Thinking about all of this, amongst other things, I realized I wanted to leave some thoughts for my son with regard to my eventual passing. I understand that the human psyche generates a mythos around the passing of a loved one all on its own, but I thought I would guide this a little in relation to my personal cosmology.

When I’m gone

You will not need to look for me
when I have ventured on
for I will dream in memory
till all your days are done

But if you look I think you’ll find
me high in cottonwoods
that fork like lightning in the wind
from out your childhood

You’ll find me where gray ridgetops rise
above broad seas of pine
that shimmer greens beneath clear skies
like echoes out of time

You’ll find me where long breakers crest
and roll to wide-mouthed coves
to crash on sands that span abreast
tall cliffs and alder groves

You’ll find me deep in giant fern
that glimmers from the shade
of ancient redwoods, taciturn
as prayers lightly laid.

But if you look for me in rows
of sorrow, loss, and care
that stretch beneath the call of crows,
you will not find me there.

Posted on December 26, 2022 by EAT

Blessing #3

It’s too bad I haven’t been saving the blessings I write into the title page of an inkling hope when I give a copy away to someone. This particular blessing I’ve used twice now, but I tend to keep thinking of something new before too long.

Blessing #3

May yer skeletons keep hidden
and yer angels be about
wherever ye are bidden
and whenever ye go out.

May the path before ye sparkle
and the path behind ye gleam
from out more distant darkness
that fades off like a dream.

Posted on November 27, 2022June 28, 2023 by EAT

The Enduring Seed

As some of my previous posts have explored, I ran away from the Juvenile Los Angeles Courts when I was 15. This was unplanned. There was a “houseparent,” as they were called, I only now remember as RJ at my last residential home with The San Fernando Child Guidance Clinic who beat me into submission, pinned me down using a hold that is today considered child abuse and can actually kill you, and threatened to break my arm—the hold in question involved twisting my right arm halfway out of the socket at an angle that could easily break the humerus without much added pressure.

“I’ll just tell them you fell,” he said, laughing. Actually laughing. His wife, the other houseparent—there were just two that lived with the kids full time—kicked me in my face, which was half mashed into the shaggy brown carpet. “Oh! He just fell!” She laughed, “That’s going to leave a mark.” They both laughed. This was all going down in my bedroom, and yes I was no saint—I had just ripped my large sliding closet door off in one of my tantrums. I cursed them out for all it was worth, which only seemed to make them laugh all the more.

This was pretty much all I had ever known, one form of abuse or another. But I was beginning to realize this was not how it should be, that something was wrong, that most of the people who dictated the terms of my childhood and upbringing were in fact twisted, sadistic, and void of compassion—including my parents. It wasn’t long after this incident that I found myself hitchhiking thither and yon across the highways of America, taking odd jobs, avoiding the larger population centers, and by some unimaginable grace steering clear of the predators, for about 2 years.

This poem reflects on a night I spent atop a mesa near Kingman, Arizona, probably my 6th day out. My 4th day out, two days prior, a Grand Canyon National Park ranger gave me a subzero sleeping bag. I tell that story here.

The Enduring Seed

The midnight sky was moonless
and clear as tempered glass
I could discern no gap between the stars
that drifted up as numerous
as white sands by long shores
the milky way foamed like a standing wave

Beside me a Smith-Corona
typewriter case contained
a toothbrush, rag, two sets of dirty clothes,
half a loaf of bread,
a jar of strawberry jam,
and six days worth of desert dust and grime.

I climbed to the crest of a mesa
feeling my way through darkness
and lined up the flattest rocks I could find
to prevent my rolling downhill
as I drifted off to sleep
tears drying cold and taut on restless cheeks

I remember screaming out
to that heavy shroud of stars
to whatever benevolent beings could hear my pleas
I remember cursing God
until I spattered blood
in open palms I then washed dry with dust

Oh and I remember
throwing back my arms
chest heaved out to darkness, fully expecting
to be struck down—vaporized
by God’s infernal might
and somehow disappointed life went on

I remember crawling dazed
into my bright blue bag
tired, weak, defeated and staring up
through a drawstring hole
at all those distant angels
wings flickering syncopation in absolute silence

I was alone with my rage
completely alone and free
alone with hunger, alone with fear, alone
with sorrow, grief, and hate,
with raw, unbalanced, potential
alone in the dark struggling at the edge of extinction

The stars gazed back at me
and offered only light
a billion little pinpricks stung my eyes
I spoke once more through tears
and said I only wish
to know somehow that I would be okay

and with that very last word
the dark that held its breath
throughout the hours with not a single stir
exhaled and breathed at last
and from the twinkling expanse
a star broke loose and streaked across the night

There in that moment began
a strange new resonance
a current of meaning for which no words exist
an insight beyond the reach
of language or even thought
and to the watercolor stars—Thank You

I drifted off to sleep
and dreamt of rattlesnakes
of scorpions, coyotes and unexpected strangers
and here and there I woke
looked up into the stars
said Thank You and returned to broken dreams

The sun rose—I unzipped
from my cobalt blue cocoon
stood up hungry, thirsty and cold—and stared
out over sand and rock
as far the eye could see
and after bread and jam began my descent

That day I set off in search
for a completely impossible future
a seed laid firm and deep within my soul
that sprouted and slowly grew
from barren soils cracked
beneath the heat of apathy and malice

Yes, something did change in me that night, and I don’t think the language exists to express or convey it. Sometimes I wonder why I try, knowing full well that what I wish to accomplish is actually beyond the reach of words, imagery, metaphor—anything.

Yet, I have also been driven to the edge of language my entire life, ever since I stumbled across the Best Loved Poems of the American People as a 12 year old and my drugged, traumatized, disorganized brain for the first time began to stitch together coherent thoughts through the power of structured language, imagery, and metaphor.

So here I am, attempting yet again to walk the insubstantial hinterlands of language and find one or two lexical, imaginary vapors that may or may not convey some small aspect of my experience, and the insights gained therein.

Posted on October 30, 2022March 22, 2023 by EAT

the past

It has been many, many, many moons since I wrote my last ghazal poem. In fact, seeing as this blog serves as an archive/portfolio of my poetry, it’s easy to discover just when that was, exactly—December of 2012. Just about one month shy of 10 years.

Well, here it is:

the past

Once again these haggard bones and thews relive the past.
It seems no matter where I roam, I’ll never leave the past.

Your words, they still reecho up ravines and canyon walls
where aspirations reach like peaks, but not above the past.

However far our dreams may sprawl—however high they rise—
they come and go. And in the end, we merely weave the past.

A belching mire—hidden deep in mist—gave birth to all,
so everything that lives and grows is forced to grieve the past.

I found an alpine vale where I could fill my lungs with peace,
still shadows rise unwelcome guests—and I receive the past.

The road behind me stretches back and fades into a storm
that rumbles such uncertainty I scarce believe the past.

A soul fragmented by neglect, abuse, and bitterness
may find a way to live awhile, but won’t survive the past.

Unearthing ruins from memory may lead to understanding—
Yet you may also raise a corpse if you revive the past.

I know I’m owed a debt that even lifetimes can’t repay.
But, if I’ll ever thrive today, I must forgive the past.

Put down the seats and open up the moon roof—breathe a while.
The stars are out with yet another message, “Waive the past.”

So, yes, “the past.” It’s been doing a bit of haunting the last few months. I suppose it would be more accurate to say it’s been doing a lot of haunting all my life. So much of it is lost to me, hidden somewhere beyond my powers of recall. And yet it continues to bear influence on my daily life, my state of mind, my approach to relationships, everything.

As I contemplated this reality, a few lines came to mind that I felt could work within the ghazal structure, and so I finally had something to start tapping into this document that’s been sitting open on my last 3 laptops for the past 8 years. Yes, as in opened every single time I restarted the system, and without content that entire time—until now, that is. This is now my 135^th ghazal.

There’s a lot of writing I would like to be doing—a lot of ideas I’d like to explore. But finding the time and energy for this has been difficult. A few months ago I bought a laptop that seems to be helping. I’ve gone through a few laptops and tablets over the past several years in search of the right writing and research tool. Turns out that—aside from dealing with sleep apnea, wonky biochemistry, my wife’s cancer, raising a kid, and working a full-time job—one big challenge I’ve struggled with is the ergonomics of typing and research, just sitting at and using a computer.

This laptop has an eraser mouse, which I thought had vanished from the earth close to 2 decades ago. And having a laptop with an eraser mouse I think has helped bring back a little inspiration and drive to write over the past few months because there’s so much less ergonomic strain involved. Still, time and energy are ever at a premium.

Posted on September 1, 2022October 29, 2022 by EAT

Blessing #2

When I give a copy of my book away, I usually write a dedication on the title page. Oftentimes this will be a fairly well-known traditional Irish blessing. Other times I’ll use a variation of Spock’s “live long, and prosper,” that includes health and peace of mind—That one would actually be “Blessing #1”, which I don’t have posted. But I’ll get around to it.

Someone I’ve worked with for the last six months is moving on to other endeavors, so I thought I’d pass on a copy of my book as a parting gift, as I’m wont to do. I found myself writing this on the title page.

Blessing #2

modeled after the
traditional Irish blessing

May each new day be brighter
than the brightest day ye’ve known
and each new path be fairer
than the fairest path ye’ve flown.

May all your days bear meaning
and all your nights bring rest
with light and joyful dreaming
that lifts to mornings blest.

It had such an aphoristic feel to it that I thought I might be remembering it instead of writing it—But, no, I couldn’t find anything like this out there in the aether. It’s truly from right between my two big ears.

Posted on July 17, 2022July 17, 2022 by EAT

Falling Petals; Beating Hearts

The top floor—the fourth floor—of the Center for Advanced Medicine, Building B, houses the Renown Institute for Heart and Vascular Health, or to put it simply—cardiology. In fact, the entire top floor is dedicated to cardiology and not a square inch of this space goes unused.

Well, first the poem and then a little context.

Falling Petals; Beating Hearts

Center for Advanced Medicine,
Building B – Early Spring 2022

Cherry blossoms—pink and white—
sway like clouds against the sky,
minding not the plates of rough
gray wrinkled bark from which they spring

They offer no assurances, yet
comfort nonetheless—and thrive
for merest moments, fading back
like apparitions in the sun.

Beneath them hearts that have endured
too much to bear beat slowly by
as here and there a petal drops
and flutters lightly to the ground.

They enter at a door that leads
four floors above this transient ring
of urgent color, beckoning
for but the slightest hint of cheer.

So, this is a sakura poem. If I write nothing else in a year, I’ll always strive hard to pull of at least a sakura poem in the spring. It’s always a challenge to dream up new contexts, circumstances, and metaphors to connect to these remarkable trees.

As I post this, it’s the middle of Summer. I’ve been busy with my new job, which has me stationed at the location in question, and tired—always so damned tired. I won’t go into the nature of the job in this post, but I’m enjoying it and I really like the people I work with and around.

So the inspiration for this poem came as I showed up and left from work amid a parking lot full of cherry blossoms in all stages of bloom—a fairly even distribution of both wild cherry (Prunus avium) and Japanese cherry (Prunus serrulata)—that completely encircle the long wide building. Having researched Japanese cultural connections to the cherry blossom (sakura) in the past, I found their juxtaposition to a building full of medical offices that deal with life-threatening conditions striking, fitting, and moving all at once. And so the first lines came to mind, which I later expanded upon.

My wife’s cardiologist is on this floor—the irony of my ending up employed here is not lost on me. I see him in the halls with some regularity. The first time we went to see him, following up from her multiple admissions for supraventricular tachycardia as she gradually succumbed to her as-yet undiagnosed refeeding syndrome, it was early spring and the blossoms were in bloom.

I wanted to write a poem about them then—her heart rate reached in excess of 240bpm, like the flutter of a cherry blossom in the wind—but our struggle with her cancer loomed large in mind and there wasn’t much mental space for that sort of thing. Maybe I’ll still find myself exploring this metaphor as that nightmare moves further into the distance. Thus far, four and a half years later, she has returned to near-normal health—and that damned cancer is still gone.

Posted on January 31, 2022August 30, 2023 by EAT

In Sickness

I made a note for the idea behind this poem when my wife was dying from refeeding syndrome in 2018. At the time, I was way too close to the matter to even think about writing a poem like this. But, now some time has passed, and my wife survived to regain her health again.

In Sickness

If I knew then what now I know,
would I still take the vows?
Would I still pledge my life to you
beneath the cherry boughs?

Your arms are like a skeleton;
your face is gaunt and frail.
A bag is taped against your side
collecting what you spill.

Would I still bear the looming loss
if somehow then I knew
what “sickness” meant so long ago
within that heavy vow?

You vomit everything you eat;
your heart rate will not slow.
Each day it seems you’re nearer yet
the place we all must go.

The truth is, I have no idea—
The man I was back then
might well have taken every step
to circumvent this end.

The doctors at the hospital—
They have no reason why
you will not stabilize and heal—
I fight back bitter sighs.

But he is not the man that’s here.
For all my fear and grief,
I will not turn away from you
so long as you draw breath.

Turns out there is a fairly high percentage of cancer patients who die from refeeding syndrome—a metabolic cascade failure that ends in death—especially with large stage 3 tumors. This is because the tumor takes all the body’s nutrients, essentially starving the patient. When the tumor is gone, the effect can be just like the prisoner of war returning to a normal diet for the first time after rescue, which can trigger the syndrome.

Unfortunately, it seems most doctors don’t know to look for this. It was pure chance that someone on my wife’s medical team realized what was happening and started the protocol for saving her life—parenteral nutrition. This means being fed intravenously until the body remembers how to correctly metabolize food through the digestive system on its own.

Posted on November 8, 2021December 14, 2022 by EAT

Boxcars

During my early 20s I was friends with a man who was also one of the staff who worked at the last residential home I lived in as a teen—not long before I ran away. I was still pretty feral in those days, so I eventually ended up damaging the relationship beyond repair and never saw or heard from him again.

But before this happened he passed on a piece of wisdom to me during a time when I really needed to hear it that involved a new way of looking at and dealing with my thoughts—seriously dark thoughts and intentions that absorbed a great deal of mental space in those days:

Boxcars

A steel-bell clamor echoes through the air
in time with frenzied flashes warning red;
the long arm of the crossing gate is down;
behind it boxcars rumble down the rails.

Some are old, the corrugated frames
bleed rustic patterns through the faded paint.
Some are new, unblemished angles gleam
the colors of a harvest fresh from field.

The doors gape wide, revealing vivid worlds
that move within the spaces as they pass,
each one reflecting back a hope, a fear,
a grim regret, a powerful desire.

The spacious confines beckon one by one—
the broken promises, the lasting doubts,
the things that could have been, the grand designs—
the vengeful plans that ache within the heart.

The cars move slowly—such that if you ran,
you could with little trouble hop aboard
and there within the confines of a thought
be carried off away to who-knows-where.

Nearby a tunnel opens to a plane
of deep uncertainty; it is from here
the many cars emerge to clangor by
and disappear around a far off bend.

I’ve been here many times throughout the years,
the way ahead obscured by vagaries
that mesmerize the mind with strange allure
and goad the impetus to jump aboard.

Sometimes a car would pass reflecting back
distorted visions holding such appeal
the urge to run and climb aboard would quell
all sensibility and self control.

Then suddenly I’d find myself within
a lucid fancy on that train of thought,
so thoroughly immersed in reverie
I soon lost sight of where I was or went.

And drifting through the shadows of a dream
of what could be or what there might have been—
or some depraved indulgence deep within—
I found myself displaced from all that is.

And only after hours, days, or weeks
would I regain my senses and return
to where I was before I leapt aboard
whatever fancy lured me from my path.

But through the years I’ve learned to let them pass,
allowing each to come and each to go
until once more the way ahead is clear,
the red caboose diminishing from view.

What he told me was simple: Instead of denying or rebuking the thoughts that troubled me, allow them to come, and then allow them to go—like the boxcars on a freight train at a train crossing. Let them come; let them go. Don’t hop on and get taken for a ride.

It took a while—many years in fact—but I worked at it and gradually got better at this practice. It helped a lot when I one day realized that the process of rebuking and trying to deny the thoughts and feelings that troubled me was also a form of hopping aboard.

Posted on May 9, 2021August 6, 2023 by EAT

The Two Gods

The idea for this poem goes back to my early 20s—more than half a lifetime ago. I guess it took me a while to find the brain-space to flush it out.

The Two Gods

The Concrete God and the Abstract God sat down one day for tea
to talk about affairs of fate and solemn mysteries.

“They named this city after me,” The Concrete God began.
“There rising at its center looms my monument by man.

“Night and day they praise my name within the vaulted hall,
beseeching after every kind of blessing great and small.”

The Abstract God was unimpressed by what was said, yet smiled,
“This tea is quite delicious, and the evening air is mild.”

“And what of you,” the Concrete God went on, “Who praises you?
Where are your names reechoed up by altar, mat or pew?”

The Abstract God drank down another sip of tea and gazed
across the sprawling cityscape where spires loomed in haze,

the ones to which the Concrete God referred wherein his name
reverberates from ancient walls of stone with high acclaim.

The Concrete God raised prying eyes, still waiting for reply;
the Abstract God took in a breath and started with a sigh,

“Those who know me also know there is no name for me.
I am the breeze that bends the grass and moves the canopy;

I am the light that shimmers through between the shifting leaves,
the rumpling sound that rises up where wandering waters weave.”

The Concrete God now took a sip and pondered what was said;
And then, “No name! It seems to me the nameless are the dead.”

“Perhaps,” the Abstract God replied, “if you are bound to name,
its absence may induce a state that’s very much the same.

“But I have been since long before the conscious thought occurred
to name each thing the mind perceives or manifests with words.”

“But surely there’s a name for you,” the Concrete God appealed,
“for humankind is wont to name whatever is revealed.”

“They name the things they see and feel,” the Abstract God returned,
“but I exist beyond the reach of what can be discerned.

“They name the grass; they name the leaf; they name the brook and breeze;
they name the very thoughts they think; but I am none of these.”

The Concrete God looked down his nose, “And yet I heard you say
that there are those who know you here among the living clay.”

“Indeed,” the Abstract God again, “but as I said before,
they also know I have no name to worship and adore.”

“And so the ones who come to know me simply let it rest,
an understanding freed from nouns embedded in the breast.”

The Concrete God threw up his hands, “This makes no sense at all—
to be an entity that’s known but none can ever call.”

“Indeed,” the Abstract God agreed, “for reason cannot name
a thing beyond the reach of thought to give it form and frame.”

“Alright,” the Concrete God again, “but surely there are those
who bind their understanding to a name they can depose.”

“There are, my Friend,” the Abstract God said gently. “But, you see,
this is precisely just the way it is you came to be.”

Posted on October 30, 2019February 21, 2020 by EAT

Greensleeves (a retelling)

One of my all time favorite melodies is “Greensleeves”, especially the chorus. Yet I’ve always found it difficult to fully enjoy because the lyrics are so incredibly chauvinistic. The song is basically about a man feeling “cast off” by his love interest after showering her with gifts, attention, and the promise of status—implying in no uncertain terms that she’s a soulless bitch for having a mind and a heart of her own.

Even so, I’ve found myself singing the first few verses over and over again all my life. But something happened a few years back; I began to experiment with alternative lyrics as I sang. This eventually inspired me to go all out revising this song about personal rejection into a tragic lament about lost love:

Greensleeves

Alas, my Dear, you are dead and gone,
your spirit cast on the starry sea.
And I have loved you oh so long,
delighting in your company.