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On the Lost Coast Trail

I recently backpacked the Lost Coast Trail in the Sinkyone Wilderness State Park. It was a peaceful, invigorating enterprise that spanned four days and led to new insights about myself and abilities. Upon returning I found myself tapping out some reflections and revising them into this poem.

On the Lost Coast Trail

I’ll walk now, on my own.
My legs are strong,
  my back sturdy.

I’ll heave this pack and learn.
The trail ahead is long
  but I understand now.

Each day out I’ll greet the dawn,
cook my meal in stainless steal
  and drink strong black tea.

The past is over.
Nostalgia is but a hollow wind,
  and I a new-grown wood.

My soul was never in your arms,
but in the high up leaves
  of swaying alders,

and in a stone moved loose
as I strode to rustle,
  roll, and bound from sight.

And again in the call of an eagle,
soaring below as I hiked
  into the haze of its canyon.

At night the stars will sing,
and I’ll listen. In time
  no thought will come of you.

I feel now my heart purling
down ferny creek beds
  to join the widest freedom,

and sifting through branches,
up storied hillsides,
  each rooted thing alive.

I’ll never pass your way again,
for I have unlocked my cage,
  and the trail unfolds before me.

Up until now It’s always taken someone else to motivate me into going backpacking. This isn’t because this isn’t what I wanted to do. I’m not really sure why this is. Maybe a lack of confidence in my abilities, that I could go out into the wilderness on my own lugging around a heavy pack and actually enjoy myself.

And enjoy myself I did. In fact, I went a lot further and with greater ease than I would have guessed possible for me. It looks like my several walks a week over the past year of no less than 2.5 to 3 miles has changed my biology some. It used to be very difficult for me to hike even two or three level, or soft grade, miles with a pack, but now I find I can hike six rugged up and down miles, pressing through underbrush and crawling under and over fallen trees with relative ease. I’ve changed in the past few years, and until now I couldn’t have grasped how much.

On my first night I stayed at Little Jackass Creek, about six miles in using a fire-road shortcut I know about. Turns out this is a hot spot for week-enders all around. When I got there, there was only one official campsite left (flat with enough cleared ground to safely operate a camp stove without setting everything ablaze). And a few more sets of people showed up after I did. The second night I spent at Wheeler Camp, four plus miles north of Little Jackass. There is a great lookout between Wheeler Camp and Little Jackass from the top of a flying buttress cliff face called Anderson Point that would terrify an acrophobe senseless. From here you can see for miles both up and down the coast, and of course several hundred feet just about straight down to tidal rock reefs below. The third night, about six miles south of Wheeler Camp, I spent at Anderson Creek, which was satisfying because I was the only person in the area that night. And the next morning I hiked the long way back about six miles to Usal Beach.

And so begins a newness of life that I hope will thrive vibrantly even in the face of certain death.

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mirage

Millions of years of biological evolution drives us; the mind rationalizes and justifies this compulsory insanity. Lucky is the soul who somehow finds he or she is at peace without the need of an idealized intimacy.

mirage

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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moods

My 128th ghazal, inspired by a woman with deep brown eyes.

moods

a clarity settles deep in her soft amber eyes
and peace wells up from nearly fathomless eyes

adventure lures the heart to the mystery
of sidelong glances cast from her earthen eyes

imagination paves her path with promise
where patience lightly walks with brownstone eyes

hope found refuge under the feathery green
of one long look into her mahogany eyes

she cheers the sunbathed home of inspiration
with a glittering veneer of cherry-wood eyes

love tastes of strawberry kisses beneath dark curls
coated with the cream of her dark chocolate eyes

compassion sways against the sprawling skies
praying up to the stars with terrestrial eyes

Instead of qafiya, or that species of rhyme that occurs just before the radif (refrain), I used words loosely hyponymous with the color brown for an associative parallelism.

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shimmer

I had maybe five hours sleep over course of four days when I wrote this, and I had just come off a 20 minute break at work, which involved a fitful nap fraught with sleep paralysis and vivid “dreams” that I mistook for actual goings on. An interesting mix peculiar to the narcoleptic.

    shimmer

          footsteps fall
across scattered dreams
     i hear your voice
  but see no face

          a radio drones
in a nearby half-lit room
     a body stirs beneath
  light brown covers

          something moves
outside in the dark
     creaking almost silent
  above the ceiling

          i try to ask your name
my lips won’t move
     and my voice grants no expression
  to the wind

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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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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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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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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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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