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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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Legacy

After listening to an Amerindian read his stuff at a poetry reading here in Portland, I pretty much knew what the subject matter of my next poem would be. His “poetry” turned out to be an angry prosaic tirade against white people, and it went on and on and on.

I, being mostly a mix of white, didn’t feel it applied to me, because I wasn’t the one who caused so much injury to his ancestors. As I listened, I found myself reflecting on the fact that pretty much anyone raised on American soil is a Native American. Looking at it animistically, I realized that we grow up immersed in the ghosts of Amerindian ancestry, as well as a growing mix of other ancestries.

This strain of thought led me to reflect further: The food we eat, the water we drink, everything. Barring imports, it all ultimately comes from the ground we live on. So we are quite literally made of—manifest from—the bodies and psyches of our Native American ancestors, regardless of race. How could we escape it? They are as much our ancestors at this point as they are the ancestors of the Amerindians, because we—white, black, red, or yellow—are re-manifest from the very same atoms and psychic engrams.

This would have to cause some degree of spiritual ambivalence, at best. And so my 5th hybridanelle poem.

Legacy

an essence rises from the land into our spirits
    a touch like the raven’s down dispersed on a maiden flight
        that permeates our souls with an otherworldly memory

            in one ear seethes resentment deep and bitter
        reflections of a suffering long endured
    and in the other burns remorse as sour

this land is an amalgam of disembodied psyches
    its rivers and rocks infused with their enigmatic drift
        an essence rises from the land into our spirits

            as one hand grips a wound too deep to bear
        the other twists a blade that lightly glimmers
    reflections of a suffering long endured

we drink of water filled with transcendental engrams
    a sense emerges in all who share in its natural course
        that permeates our souls with an otherworldly memory

            as one arm holds a steady hand for moments
        and all the warriors freeze in sober pause
    the other twists a blade that lightly glimmers

like sea-mist on the wind our minds are touched by phantoms
    immersed in their love and hate—a plight we cannot escape
        an essence rises from the land into our spirits

            one eye sees arrows pierce men to their rest
        another watches bullets drop their targets
    and all the warriors freeze in sober pause

the waking world is brim with long forgotten relics
    their shapes reduced to the dust we breathe from the fragrant air
        that permeates our souls with an otherworldly memory

            one hero’s war-lance slaughters human objects
        the rage that sent it warm upon the blood
    another watches bullets drop their targets

all ancestries are fused in our subconscious insights
    we dream their atrocities—their advances and retreats
        an essence rises from the land into our spirits
            that permeates our souls with an otherworldly memory

                each side is long remembered in our veins
            in one ear seethes resentment deep and bitter
        the rage that sent it warm upon the blood
    and in the other burns remorse as sour

Publication History:

Blackmail Press (web-based) — Spring 2006

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Fusion

This, my 4th hybridanelle poem, was written for someone I never got to meet, the ex-husband of my first wife. He committed suicide not long after she divorced him. His ash remains are buried at the base of a young sequoia on his father-in-law’s property in Northwest Oregon.

Fusion

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:

Pacific Review — Fall 2006

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Stormlight

As a runaway teen, one of my rules of thumb was to never sleep where anyone I had gotten a ride from suggested I sleep. I didn’t like the thought of strangers knowing where I would be during the night. I had no way of knowing how twisted such people might be, nor the sort of twisted company they might keep.

As I wandered the States for nearly two years, I normally slept out in the open, up high out of view of any nearby roads, or in dense woods or thickets. But sometimes it rained. I didn’t have a tent, though in retrospect I can see that it would have made sense for me to have at least toted a tarp around.

It was usually when it rained that I took my biggest risks in choosing a place to sleep. With dry weather, it was easy—just bed down away from people someplace out of view. But rain changes the situation. The human urge to stay dry is based on the fact that the body loses heat much more easily and rapidly when wet. And aside from this being unpleasant and discomforting, there’s also the very real threat of death from exposure.

Still, I generally considered the threat of being discovered as greater than the threat of freezing to death. People act on unpredictable urgings. They can leave a victim with fewer options than a little cold and wet might. So it would have to really be storming, and cold, before I’d consider passing the night in an abandoned, or empty, house. Much less a place suggested by the last person to give me a ride that day.

This poem, my 3rd hybridanelle, attempts to depict the experience of passing the night in just such a house. I didn’t sleep well that night—not so much because of the intensity of the storm as because a total stranger knew my whereabouts that night.

Stormlight

Frantic flashes illustrate my view,
        Random moments shot into the light;
                Thunder crushes every hope anew.

        I pass the night in a frail abandoned home,
                A weary vagrant teen deprived of will
                        Awaiting the dawn within its quaking hold.

                                Visions strobe throughout the empty room,
                        Shadows briefly singed by every bolt;
                Frantic flashes illustrate my view.

                        I curl within my bag against the wall;
                There’s nothing left for the winds to rip from me,
        A weary vagrant teen deprived of will.

Etched amid the suffocating gloom,
        Monster clouds roll black against the night;
                Thunder crushes every hope anew.

        I’ve struggled to grasp what life could ever mean
                As memory and mind are stripped away;
                        There’s nothing left for the winds to rip from me.

                                Leafless limbs are drawn in sepia hues;
                        Stark against the darkness of my thought,
                Frantic flashes illustrate my view.

                        I watch and listen, numb and half-aware,
                My slumber but vivid streaks of fitful dream,
        As memory and mind are stripped away.

Anxious waiting constantly resumes;
        Shocked repeatedly from fugue to doubt,
                Thunder crushes every hope anew.

        I try to manage what rest I can redeem,
                Protected from the storm by shifting frames,
                        My slumber but vivid streaks of fitful dream.

                                Desolation roars the whole night through;
                        Forces seem to tear the world apart;
                Frantic flashes illustrate my view;
        Thunder crushes every hope anew.

        Uncertain shadows pose in countless forms;
                I pass the night in a frail abandoned home,
                        Protected from the storm by shifting frames,
                                Awaiting the dawn within its quaking hold.

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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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To the Parent Who Committed Suicide

As scary and abusive as my father was, I still think I eventually would have found a way to reconcile with him in adulthood, had he not killed himself when I was ten. Though I’m not the most successful of individuals financially, I still think he would have been proud of who I became as a person. Somehow I’m certain of this.

Like many who claw their way forth from disadvantaged backgrounds, I often felt the urge and impulse to throw it all away to drugs, thievery—and much worse—as a way of dealing with feelings of impotence and inadequacy, as a way of lashing out at myself and the world. But instead I somehow chose to self-cultivate, slowly but surely, over time. A never ending process of ever evolving fruition.

If I were my child, I would be proud of him, knowing the impossibility of what he had to overcome both internally and circumstantially. And so sometimes I wish I could show myself to the father who left my world, who left life when I was ten, and enjoy even just a moment of his acknowledgment, his praise. The proud father of a survivor who learned to thrive in his own way.

I wrote this poem, my 19th villanelle, as I pondered what my father has missed out on. I know that he would have wanted to be here for this, to see me find my way. So as much as I lost him when he died, it seems like he lost me even more. I think this is the way with the suicide of a parent—The parent misses out on everything. The child adapts and ultimately finds his or her way, but the parent misses out on absolutely everything. It is the ultimate loss.

To the Parent Who Committed Suicide

You’ll never know what they will come to be,
The children of your heart who live without your love;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You’ll never share their triumph or defeat
And smile when again they rise with new resolve;
You’ll never know what they will come to be.

You’ll never comfort them in times of need
Or feel the subtle joy that always comes thereof;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You’ll never see them strive to meet their dreams,
The hopes within their soul they struggle to achieve;
You’ll never know what they will come to be.

You’ll never beam a parent’s prideful glee,
To see them find their way and how they learn to live;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

You lost them as you swung your failing feet,
And now you’re just a void that they will always have;
You’ll never know what they will come to be;
At best, you leave behind but stings of grief.

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Pestilence

Faith and conviction are powerful forces of human nature. They can work to heal and sustain an individual in the face of terrible trauma and adversity. But there is a dark side to this force. In the hands of dogmatists faith and conviction become a pestilence, rained down upon those who do not share their beliefs or who cannot adhere to their ideals.

There was a man who committed suicide. He was deeply religious and he strove with all his might to be what he was told was a good Christian. But when his personal writings were found after his death, it was discovered that he was homosexual. Outwardly there was no way to know. He was married with two children. Inwardly he lived in shame and terror. Shame at being something the dogmatists told him god despised and terror at the thought of spending eternity in hell. Eventually this torment drove him to his end.

I was on the outskirts of this disaster as it unfolded, listening, observing. Eventually I found myself overcome with rage at those who sent him to his death, and so I wrote to them. This, my 19th terzanelle, is written to all those who would use their dogmatic self-righteousness to destroy the hearts, minds, and spirits of others.

Pestilence

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 Phantom of Wheeler Camp

This poem attempts to describe an experience a friend had with a ghost while out backpacking on the Lost Coast Trail, north of Fort Bragg, California. After researching the old logging town of Wheeler Camp, the place where her experience began, and backpacking to the site myself a couple of times, I got the feeling the ghost she encountered was a child’s ghost.

Using what she told me, what I sensed about the area myself, and what I gleaned from my research into the history of Wheeler Camp, I managed the following.

The Phantom of Wheeler Camp

I

The Child’s Life

The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder,
Hauled to the clanging mill that pays for his evening meals;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.

Each morning rugged hands awake from slumber,
Heeding a daily call to climb the canyons and kill;
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder.

How can a child teach his father wonder,
Who razes pillared hills, destroying enchanted halls?
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.

The sentient forest beings fade in number;
Heavy machines befoul and ravenous saws defile;
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder.

He dreams of ending all this senseless plunder;
His hope decays and fails, for no-one cares what he feels;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.

His world is carted off as squares of lumber;
Helpless, alone, reviled, he grieves to no avail—
The ancient redwoods fall like crashing thunder;
Dismayed, he sees his refuge torn asunder.
 

II

The Child’s Ghost

Suddenly all is dim; he wanders in psychic dream
Among the barren hills of senseless slaughter,
Broken by savage harm, now one with his blighted home.

In death he holds a grief which never falters,
Transformed into a sprite that floats where the saplings sprout
Among the barren hills of senseless slaughter.

The loss has crushed his heart till nothing can soothe the hurt,
For every old-growth tree was slain for profit,
Transformed into a sprite that floats where the saplings sprout.

Two thousand years of forest-song, melodic,
Vanished amid the moist and constantly shifting mist,
For every old-growth tree was slain for profit.

Visitors sense his ghost, a subtle and somber guest,
An apparition vaguely seen then faded,
Vanished amid the moist and constantly shifting mist.

His anguish grew as all he loved fell wasted;
Suddenly all is dim; he wanders in psychic dream,
An apparition vaguely seen then faded,
Broken by savage harm, now one with his blighted home.
 

III

Decades Later

Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest;
Alders emerge from sleep and conifers climb the slopes,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.

A gentle woman dreams in the canyon shadows dim;
Her heart is touched by something lost in torment,
And shaken by the gleam, her spirit succumbs to gloom.

She wakes and walks beneath the new-growth foliage
With heavy-hearted step on trails where, defined and steep,
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest.

Dismay beyond her own fell just for moments
And brushed her troubled mind with losses forever mourned;
Her heart is touched by something lost in torment.

Her vision blurs with feelings strangely foreign,
A pain she can’t escape that distorts her mental scope,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.

A grieving spirit groaned within the molested ground,
Responding to the aura of her presence,
And brushed her troubled mind with losses forever mourned.

She stumbles home—her limbs grow weak and torpid—
Hardly able to cope where, as the semesters creep,
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest.

The very heart of nature stands attendance;
Coyotes hold their poise and ravens serenely pose,
Responding to the aura of her presence.

So few would guess the ancients all were corded
To see these living shapes in place of their eldership
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.

The air around her sighs the whispering subtle soughs
Of sorrows that a broken shade remembers;
Coyotes hold their poise and ravens serenely pose.

Her thoughts are framed with images emotive,
An endless foggy drip and trails where the branches droop;
Eroding skid roads slowly change to forest,
Obscuring man’s destructive greed from notice.

Long after mists have cooled the campfire embers,
A gentle woman dreams in the canyon shadows dim
Of sorrows that a broken shade remembers,
And shaken by the gleam, her spirit succumbs to gloom.

There are three poetic forms used here: Parts I and II are my 18th villanelle and terzanelle, respectively; part III is my 1st hybridanelle.

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Balancing Hook and Pan

She has two pen-names and she loves the movies Hook and Peter Pan. As I got to know her, I thought I’d write her a Peter Pan themed poem comprised of acrostics—from her two pen-names and her given name.

Balancing Hook and Pan

For Jenna Joslyn

Hook

Bitterness curled his hair and turned it black
Enveloped in a lonesome burning rage
Zealously he fights to kill his youth
Obsessed with flying taunts that haunt his rest
Aboard his galleon pirate ship he schemes
Relentless plans to ruin his lighter half
 

Pan

Absorbed in endless play and make-believe
Begrudging any hint of love or care
Serene he plays in trees and cotton clouds
Inventing games with boys who have no home
No memories can haunt his innocence
The thought of growing up is but a myth
He toys with shadows and with pirate ships
Endlessly anguishing his darker half
 

Wendy

Just when she learned about her hidden kiss
Entangled in a nest of doubt and dread
Never-land became her place to learn
None other than the truth she held within
A way to hold forever dear her youth

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The Release

We drove to Yerington, Nevada to visit the site where her father had died many years ago in a tragic accident. It took hours in the local library looking through the microfiche of old newspaper articles, but we eventually discovered the name of the abandoned mine he was exploring when he fell down a shaft to his death. We also learned a few other speculations about the accident that surprised us. It took nearly two weeks for him to be found.

Once we knew the name of the mine, it was just a matter of finding out where it was located. We drove into the mountains and got as close as we could to the old abandoned mine. Then we hiked. To our surprise, the mine had been collapsed. It turns out that after her father’s death, the City of Yerington decided the mine was too great a hazard to leave intact, so charges were set throughout the mine and it was blown up. This left a wide crater more than three hundred feet deep at the location of her father’s death.

We had her dog with us, who was not able to navigate the boulders down into the crater, so I stayed at the rim while she hiked down to its bottom. Once there, she knelt down, pressing her left hand to her heart and her right hand against perhaps the lowest-set boulder in the crater. At that moment the interior of the crater flashed several times, as if reflecting a powerful source of light, and my body went numb with tingles and chills. It was incredible. She found him, and somehow she set him free from that dark cavern where he died.

Later I reflected on this experience and wrote this poem, my 17th terzanelle.

The Release

For Bonnie

His shade is drawn from the earth by the light of his daughter’s love,
From deep in the crushing blackness, where he left his broken body,
Free at last from the silence to wander the stars alive!

He lost his footing and fell, in a moment of fatal folly,
Lost below in a mineshaft where no-one could hear his cries
From deep in the crushing blackness, where he left his broken body.

In time they found his remains; they had ferreted many days;
His carcass was raised from darkness, but his ghost remained enshrouded,
Lost below in a mineshaft where no-one could hear his cries.

He stirred in motionless airs while his loved ones were left confounded,
Gripped by senseless bereavement; his presence could not be felt;
His carcass was raised from darkness, but his ghost remained enshrouded.

His daughter held to the hope that she one day could reconnect;
She called to him in her longing to in some way touch his spirit,
Gripped by senseless bereavement; his presence could not be felt.

Her sorrow numbed and distressed, as a part of her heart grew frigid,
Held too long in a stasis where time had no way to soothe;
She called to him in her longing to in some way touch his spirit.

We come to find where he died, and the moment she nears his tomb,
The canyon reflects his spirit, a release from dim confusion,
Held too long in a stasis where time had no way to soothe.

And now with a touched amazement, I gaze on their bright reunion;
His shade is drawn from the earth by the light of his daughter’s love;
The canyon reflects his spirit, a release from dim confusion,
Free at last from the silence to wander the stars alive!