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Musing out loud

Been wanting to play more with imaginative poems that tell a story of some sort. So, here’s one. Going for the vague approach for the time being. I like vague. I like interpretable.

Musing out loud

I’ll wait for you here.
  I trust you’re not far.
          It was you who called me,
      after all.

I still remember.
  I lived in decay,
          the kind that can’t be overcome
      by strength or will.

In the cellar of broken dreams
  you shone your light
          and found me, emaciated,
      covered in cobwebs.

You left the old door open,
  standing just outside,
          and read out loud, so I could see
      stories in darkness.

Many seasons passed.
  But I finally emerged,
          lured to the sound
      of your lyric visions.

You placed one hand
  firm on my shoulder,
          and my knees nearly buckled
      from weakness.

You said, “Now you’ve come,
  emerged into light.
          And you’ll never return
      to the shadows.”

We walked.
  You talked of potential,
          of patience and study
      and time.

I listened.
  I watched the clouds climb
          where mountains reach out
      to the skies.

You talked of acceptance,
  the power of faith,
          a trust in the value
      of learning.

I listened,
  and built castles of sand
          and watched them return
      to the sea.

Then I suddenly saw it,
  the long steady path
          you had been hinting at
      with breadcrumb words.

It was covered in shrubs,
  weaves of poison oak,
          and the old fallen branches
      of deeply rooted tears.

And I found myself
  shifting the past years’ leaves
          beneath an uncertain tread
      of discovery.

Behind me I heard
  your soft-fallen feet
          hardly disturbing
      the settled breath of dew,

and the sound of your voice,
  naming the leaves,
          the blossoms, stones and creatures
      on the way.

And each had a story,
  of birth and being—
          the stones that weep dreams;
      the earthquake birth of ravens;

the old madrone
  who clothed the fox with her bark
          so he would not be cold;
      the star that seeded lilies.

And each was a marvel,
  a touch of understanding,
          a fresh new flash of light
      in my soul.

We came to a cabin,
  moons along the way,
          filled with lost ideas
      and empty pages.

I lit the candles,
  read beneath the darkness,
          and penciled meditations,
      brief as lake-borne mist.

Collecting berries,
  I played with long dead lyrics,
          reciting little moments
      to the wind.

One day you told me,
  “This time is yours.
          You can never really own it
      while I remain.”

And so you left,
  assuring you’ll return
          when one day I am ready
      to skim the stars.

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subjectivity

Just did a little reading about an old Russian art movement called suprematism, manifesto and all. Kind of a curious thing. It was originated by an artist, Kazimir Malevich, around 1913, and he declared the movement ended in 1920. The only art movement I can think of whose originator eventually decided to end it. Never mind, though, Malevich was apparently charismatic enough to draw in a few adherents to suprematism, who continued creating supposedly suprematist artwork and writing (one Russian poet played with it) well after Malevich ended his movement. I guess if you don’t want something to take on a life of its own, don’t publicize it.

Anyway, Malevich was inspired by cubism and futurism to start this movement. In effect, suprematism is a sort of combination of the two. Cubism is basically artwork comprised of representational industrial shapes and angles like cubes and circles. Futurism is the extreme abstraction of the same.

Malevich, apparently, saw some metaphysical connections and called his attempt to bring them out ‘suprematism’.

So, here’s my stab at it, just for metaphysical cubist kicks.

subjectivity

clear your mind white
empty the canvas of thought

paint a black circle
a ring of smoke

outside is all the void
inside the void of self

scrape the inner edge
with a triangle’s black points

spirit thought and body
trapped within the void

now fill the black triangle
with questions feelings doubts

a snail crushed underfoot
a daughter crushed by steel

a spider’s shriveled figure
a mother’s crinkled corpse

a fly smashed by the swatter
a son smashed by debris

a red fox snared in iron
a father trapped in credit

it all lasts but a moment
the circle snaps and fades

and the triangle’s edges scatter
to join the canvas white

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Presence

Sometimes it seems as if the unit I keep watch over at night is in some way haunted. There are so many times I would see something move toward me down the long dark hall—something there and yet not there, tangible and yet intangible—only to watch it dissipate back into nothing once it reached the cone of light cast from the bathroom.

The kids, asleep in their rooms, would stir as it moved past. And once in awhile it would dip into a doorway, followed a moment later by an anguished cry from the child that sleeps there. I would go down to look, only to find the child sound asleep and nothing else, save a strange cold sensation in the air.

Presence

A shadow slips
      from the corner of my mind
   beneath a random lintel
joined with darkness

A muffled sob
      stirs beneath gray sheets
   as walls absorb
the thuds of restless sleep

The shadow blurs
      across the long dark hall
   and slides between
the jambs of dreamless rest

A long strained moan
      struggles from the gloom
   and crawls half noticed
toward faded shades of light

The shadow flickers
      dust from mothen wings
   into the hollows
of one more dusky room

A sudden holler
      echoes down the hall
   a broken sorrow
cursed into the night

The shadow rustles
      like shaken autumn leaves
   into the twilight
waking in the east

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Contrast

There are strange contrasts where I work. Inside it’s like a sort of grave—dingy, dark, dismal. Outside there is the Ukiah valley and the vibrant green hills nearby. There are cherry trees that grow just outside, and in the spring the contrast becomes even more pronounced.

Contrast

Sealed from the world
beside the drone of a dirty
ten gallon tank of goldfish
I look down the hall to hear
hidden in the splotchy half-dark
a cherry blossom breeze
and the twittering light refrains
of a yellow crested finch

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acceptance

Sometimes something breaks within ourselves, and the psyche is terrifically disfigured. Yet sometimes this becomes part of our growth and strength and not the cause of destruction.

acceptance

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

My first marriage lasted just about a year. We were together for all of about two years. She was a walking dichotomy. Loving, kind, supportive on the one hand—evil, spiteful, and treacherous on the other. The emotional roller-coaster ride came to an end when she added drunken extramarital affairs to her treacheries.

I was in love with her, for some reason. Deeply so. I suppose this is why her compulsive treacheries were so poignantly painful. I understood that she was a borderline, and so I endured as far as I could. But, enough was enough. After all, her first husband had already committed suicide. So, I left her to her insanity before I found myself buried next to him.

It was another year and a half or so before I finally began to really accept that it was over, and thus was born my 22nd hybridanelle.

Elegy

I’ll not forget your kindness, nor the pain
staked between my ribs to rip my vital center.
I’ll not forget your laughter, nor the tears
I cursed in vain against the all unseeing skies
or whimpered like a mongrel clamped in iron jaws,
bleeding broken lamentation to the stars.

I’ll not forget your whispers, nor the poison words
you coated on the rusty spike of truth,
staked between my ribs to rip my vital center,
healed only by the seal of deep unfeeling scars
that still can never hide the searing touch of rage
I cursed in vain against the all unseeing skies.

I’ll not forget your comfort, nor the angst
inspired by deception, the shameless treachery
you coated on the rusty spike of truth,
the weeks of turbid panic that thundered like a storm
until my thoughts were beached on barren shores of death,
bleeding broken lamentation to the stars.

I’ll not forget your promise, nor the tragedy
that left me in a state of desolation
inspired by deception, the shameless treachery
that marred my sense of trust with green infected scabs
until, half crazed by torment, in uttermost defeat,
I cursed in vain against the all unseeing skies.

I’ll not forget your presence, nor the absence,
the swollen scarcity of faith and understanding
that left me in a state of desolation,
clutching onto dirt-clods, scraping over stones,
choking clots of dust, and in the hollow night
bleeding broken lamentation to the stars.

Though I may one day drink from streams of inner peace,
I’ll not forget your kindness, nor the pain,
the swollen scarcity of faith and understanding.
I’ll not forget your laughter, nor the tears
that welled from acid springs to melt away my skin
as, trembling at the edge of self annihilation,
I cursed in vain against the all unseeing skies,
bleeding broken lamentation to the stars.

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spires

A ghazal! I haven’t written a ghazal since June of 2005. So that makes this—what?—my 127th. Feels nice to get one out again. I remember I got real tired of them by the end of my ghazal project a few years ago, but I never really intended to abandon them altogether.

With this one I veer away from using my penname in the signature couplet (last couplet) to using a reference to one of my penname’s meanings. In this poem it’s “open skies”, since “vast openness to the heavens” is one of the Arabic meanings for ‘Zahhar’.

spires

let’s twine our roots beneath the world together
until we rise against the wind together

let’s turn and reach to gather shades of light
with countless long thin leaves that wave together

let’s make a bed beneath our outstretched limbs
shaded by the dreams we weave together

let’s draw clear waters from the hidden earth
and breathe them out as vapors washed together

let’s share the sounds of creeks and faint cicadas
their rhythmic songs like magic wound together

let’s shelter soft brown trails among the fern
where lovers holding hands may walk together

let’s filter daylight from the open skies
through daydreams spun like amber webs together

Publication History:

Art Arena (web-based) — March 2007

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oak touch

My 22nd terzanelle. There are two particular inspirations behind this poem, but I’ll mention one. Years ago I had an extremely vivid dream involving a large black oak, species q. kelloggii, or California black oak. Without going into detail, in this dream the tree drew me to the shade of its canopy, and once there I found myself surrounded by all sorts of dream-time creatures (the sort of creatures that don’t exist in waking reality) as a raven high in the crown dropped a small something down for me to investigate. There’s more to it. Actually the dream is pretty well laid out in my poem, “markers”.

Well, two weeks later I was driving back to Ukiah from the coastal town of Mendocino over the Comptche-Ukiah road—a radically windy one-lane little thing—and as I rounded a corner just east of Orr Springs, there it was—the massive old oak from my dream. Years have passed, and I’ve struggled to understand what that dream and this oak are all about for me, but I still don’t really know. I would like to know. But I don’t know. I must settle for vague insights, as this is the way of such things.

oak touch

sepia leaves and branches shade
the supple parchment of your years
rooted deep in stardust dreams

wind shimmers through the boughs of time
beneath an ever phasing moon
the supple parchment of your years

bares the mark of ancient grace
that rustles by a canyon’s edge
beneath an ever phasing moon

grasses lap gray plates of bark
spread throughout a billowed crown
that rustles by a canyon’s edge

with each new breeze like subtle gems
glimmers softly in the dark
spread throughout a billowed crown

writhing in elusive light
the serpent beauty of your form
glimmers softly in the dark

etched against the realm of night
sepia leaves and branches shade
the serpent beauty of your form
rooted deep in stardust dreams

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investment

It’s been raining all day. The skies are heavy. I love heavy skies, actually. I love rain. I could use a walk, though, but I don’t always feel like going out for a walk or hike when it means I’m going to get wet. Haven’t been out so much the past few days due to the rain because I’ve just gotten over a monster head cold and I don’t want a relapse. But in a few days as I complete my recovery I’ll be out for my walks even if its raining.

This doesn’t have anything to do with the poem. Just a bit of environmental context, in a sense. I just wrote this while sitting in a Starbucks cafe. I played with a couple of stanzas then went out and played my bansuri flute for awhile beneath the awning. I’ve found that bamboo flutes and rain mix very well. Very satisfying to my spirit. Then I went back in and played with the poem some more. Then back out again with my flute.

As I played a man from Mexico came up and asked me if I was playing a kanakta (assuming I heard and/or spelled that right). I asked him what that was and he told me a South American wooden flute. I told him I was playing a bamboo flute from India called a ‘bansuri’. He was really intrigued by the instrument. His enjoyment of my playing was also satisfying to my spirit.

Anyway, this poem. I met someone recently and we’re getting to know one another. Looks like it will turn out to be an intimate relationship. Never know where these will lead or how they’ll end up. But I guess I’ll give it a go. She is very pretty, and unique. And we all know how pretty and unique affects most men. But it’s a psycho-spiritual investment, the sort with uncertain returns.

investment

perhaps i’ll brush my fingers
  down the backbone
 of your thought

feel the white frame move
  beneath the smooth motion
 of your silken cover

perhaps i’ll reach out
  and sip from the spring
 of your thoughts

part my lips and let
  your essence slide
 to my center

perhaps i’ll stand barefoot
  by the whispering edge
 of your emotion

wet my feet with waves
  and risk the moonlit tides
 washed from mystery

perhaps i’ll stand in awe
  beneath the star fields
 of your reflection

and catch my breath
  when one parts and falls
 from the night

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Spillway

Lake Mendocino, a reservoir lake, is a few miles north of Ukiah. The lake serves multiple purposes, among which are water storage for civic and agricultural uses, hydroelectric power for the City of Ukiah, and water-sport recreation for the region’s inhabitants.

About a two mile’s walk southeast of the dam there is a broad spillway that has been cut right through a tall hillside, effectively turning one peak into two. I have found that if I play my flute at the concrete lip of the spillway, the side furthest from the lake, I can create an orchestra of reverberating echoes. The effect is often stunning and mesmerizing.

This is my 22nd villanelle.

Spillway

Amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks,
a lone song lifts from a channel brown with grass
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Whispers lap the edge of a mountain lake
nestled in a valley, smooth as glass,
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

Wind shimmers through the chambers of a reed,
resonates across a manmade vale,
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

Frogs concealed in rip-rap greet the dusk;
a pair of small birds chase each other’s tails
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks.

A raven drops clear pebbles off its beak,
a sound that ripples lightly through the air
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

The lone song dims to silence. In its wake
a gentle quiet settles with the dark
amid the ghostlike skeletons of oaks
and echoes up to join dissevered peaks.

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To Write a Poem

For most people, the most difficult part of writing a poem is to allow it to just exist on its own, without succumbing to the compulsion to infuse it with every last possible ounce of personal ego. To my mind, poetry is above all the art of verbal depiction. To depict is to let the image describe itself, to let a scene show itself, to let an idea present itself—To let the subject of the poem make itself known without any intervention from the person writing the poem. As soon as “I feel”, “I think”, “I believe”, “I am”, I this, I that, I A-B-C and X-Y-Z come into the picture, the potential depictive poem becomes probable expository prose. So…

To Write a Poem

Remove your self
  from the scene

        Let the snowflake
      slip between high wires
    slide past bony twigs
  and loop through the air
  to meld with a stainless pole

          Let the bold red sign
        slice the long cold wind
      with cutlass whispers
    and the faintest tremble
    of uncertainty

            Let its white rim rest
          against the calloused grip
        of a puffed brown robin
      dark beak twitching
      to thoughts of spring

              Let its bright song seep
            through small gray cracks
          and creep from the alleyways
        to finger glazed reflections
        faces creased with care