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blindspot

My 7th trisect poem. Segment one is focused on the thunderhead, or supercell. This is the metaphor for the “thing” that has blinded all sense of foresight for me my entire teenage and adult life, at least since I was 13. I’ve always been amazed by how some people can see a desk job, and through it “see” a four bedroom house, a Benz, and a paid-off mortgage in 30 years, complete with wife, kids, a dog, and a picket fence. All I’ve ever seen is this thundering cyclone. Similarly I find it amazing how some people can look at a pile of wood and see a shed, a new business, or a planter garden, while all I tend to see is just a bunch of wood—and the thunderhead. So, this is segment one, “Erubus”, the realm of darkness and obscurity personified (not to be confused with night—that’s different).

Segment two focuses on the narrow road—in this case the road of life, specifically my life path, or “calling”, as it were, which I do my best to follow.

Segment three focuses on my interaction between this road and the ever-present thunderhead which looms on the horizon (and often much closer in the mind’s eye), sucking “the long horizon from the mind”. So the process depicted here is that of obscuration, brought on by a life of personal defeat and dehumanization.

blindspot

erebus

a million million shades of gray
swim between the land and sky
absorbing every detail into mist

many-jointed shoulders haunch
hulking up against the dome
to scatter shadows out across the earth

amorphous legs traverse the realm
labored with colossal strides
gaping forth an omnipresent maw

and in its belly rumbles deep
the acids of uncertainty
which churn the world into obscurity
 

calling

laid with crumbling asphalt rock or dirt
a rarely traveled path meanders far
across the scapes of possibility

beneath the canopies of ponderosa
along the stony course of waterways
amid the yawn of jagged desert peaks

the way of freedom weaves by dusks and dawns
a twisted uroboros colored earth
wrapped across the contours of existence

boiled in the depths of crawling storms
it rises writhing sharply into sight
a tired trail of chance and destiny
 

presage

colors fold into a distant haze
an open road to somewhere fades from view
lost in many-layered nimbus plumes

long cascading booms convey
a wall of nearing emptiness
which sucks the long horizon from the mind

this narrow road unfolds and turns
to meet the turbid banks of doubt
which cling to every curve along the way

weary legs and blistered feet
lurch and falter on the path
yet swing forever onward toward the void

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Forward

All conceptions of beauty are idealized, period. If you’re lucky, that ideal will emanate from a place so deep within your heart, that as your spouse begins to age and show the defeats of time, you’ll see only what your heart sees. But, for most of us, we’ll see only what the skin shows—And that is our unfortunate karma.

Forward

You’ve shattered the image,
    marble glass and clay
            scattered like broken dreams.

There’s no repair,
    no reconstruction
            for these lost ideals,

Grecian models fragmented
    into rubble,
            jigsaw disappointment.

What is there to save?
    These jagged shards will only
            tear the skin.

Yet there’s still the garden,
    paulownia trees in bloom,
            a little brown path.

Please, take my hand;
    let’s walk, find a casual pace,
            and leave this waste behind.

At best, for those of us disturbed by the shape of skin and bone, we must make an effort—a conscious effort—to move beyond what we merely see. If we don’t, we must repeat our tragedies over and over until there is nothing left to do but die alone.

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sheer

One of the ways I’ve conceptualized coming, as in being born, is something like a dream in which there is no real self, but an egoless point of perception that shifts through abstract perceptions of unreality until at some point it is yanked from the ether and pinned to a fixed location—the new life that wails confused from the womb.

sheer

the dreamer falls
  crashing through patterns of ice
     submerged in crystal black waters

a flash of cold
  sears through the senses
     and life begins

And I’ve found myself conceptualizing going, as in dying, in much the same way. That point of perception becomes dislodged from the decaying self and returns to an egoless realm of dream and abstraction until the next time it is yanked into some fixed reality.

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Ambivalence

It was an interesting dream. Though my ambivalence lessened as a result of this dream experience, it ultimately did not work out that I remained her step-father.

Ambivalence

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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Disparity

This was written as I reflected on some of the stark disparities between myself and a well-known poet and musician, Leonard Cohen. I would actually sing a lot of my poems, if I could. There is a problem with my throat that prevents me from being able to explore that side of my craft. This problem also makes it difficult for me to recite my poems at poetry readings.

Disparity

i’ve never seen such a cross
between whisk and wood
rod and rood

your words portray such
longing for the very thing
in your arms

what drove you to spatter
prolific patterns of thought
into sylleptic song

was it really the tenderness
you found beneath blue skirts
or was it g-ds

no i have a feeling it was just
the same old question
that manifests us all

stranger we both wear black
yours stylish and dapper
mine rotting and threadbare

and stranger we both bear songs
yours in starbucks cafes
mine hushed dead in my throat

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Unfenced

A friend of mine died suddenly on the 12th. I talk a little about him and how we came to meet in “On a Life Left Unfinished”, another poem I wrote in his memory.

     Unfenced

     in memory of Del Warren Livingston (1944—2005)

          close your eyes my friend and listen
     hear the sound of beating hooves
your spirit-brothers come to take you home

          they have heard the call of your stallion heart
     wild neighs that pawed against your chest
and now they come to see you home

          yes they have heard you realms away
     known you as their own throughout the years
lifting their heads at the sound of your distant soul

          your stallion blood has pounded long
     confined within a human cage
at last you have broken free

          do you feel the wind flash across your mane
     can you sense the creased mountains in your nostrils
the power that ripples beneath your hide

          close your eyes and dream my friend
     no longer can the old pains trouble you
go now and join the waiting herd

          graze where waters wind through wooded vales
     gallop where the grasses stretch and gleam
nicker in morning mists among your kind

          fill your lungs with fenceless air and leap
     when you open your eyes and blink away the sleep
you will be home again at last… and free

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Dreamscape

Reflecting on samsara, dukkha, impermanence, maya, and a recent dream, I found myself writing this rather abstract poem.

Dreamscape

splinters of lightning split the dark
   a billion thundering flashes
       lifetimes come and gone

       death has swallowed
   how many times
with its gaping fine-toothed maw

a suck of water
   a rush of loss
       oblivion

       don’t question me
   i have no answers
but i sense a certain permanence

the shape of lost lives
   enters into me
       splitting my sleep

       silhouettes flash in moments
   five shiny black claws tear past my ribs
and i wake bleeding anguish

did i know that loss
   those claws have taken something essential
       why can’t i name the sobs

       tissues harden around the tear
   even the wound is blurred with doubt
by midday

though the memory is lost
   the feeling remains
       swirling in blood-mist

       i know i am dead
   i know i am living
i sense they are inseparable

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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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return

This reflects on my first time looking down into the Ukiah valley. Though I had never been there before, I knew the place somehow as surely as if I had been born and raised there. It was like coming home. And every time I return, it is like coming home again.

return

foliage rises up the mountains
clouds amass upon the eastern ridges
i am home, finally i am home

my feet grew sore in the desert
my back stiff on the plains
like gusts of wind, i could not rest

rivers wandered their courses
stars glittered from the abyss
starved and alone, i followed them

one day i crested a ridge
and cradled there in a valley
a hamlet lost from the world

this place i had never seen
yet what my eyes never knew
my heart somehow remembered

in the world i was tossed relentless
storms passed to leave me in ruin
but here i am an old oak firmly rooted

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God, May I See You?

This is a backlogged post, made on November 1, 2012. At the time I wrote this, I was still borderline Christian. This was ten years ago, and a lot has changed for me since then. However, you don’t have to be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, or any other particular religion to seek an audience with “god”.

We each understand this word and what it points to in our own way—This can’t be helped, as we are symbolically oriented, interpretive beings. And, throughout life, we each in our own way seek an audience with what this word represents to us, even if we’re not necessarily conscious of the fact.

God, May I See You?

“God, may I see you?”
A silence fills the air
Into the dark I stare with hopeful gaze

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
The room is cold and dark
And blank I stare into a blurring haze

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
A cold wind passes by
As long in vain I peer into the night

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
The desert stretches wide
Alone I scan horizon’s dismal blight

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
Soft the snowflakes fall
I try to see into the flurry’s drift

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
Pine needles seal the sky
I look into the forest’s closing wall

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
The ocean stretches broad
I dimly watch the great waves crash and roar

… … …

“God, may I see you?”
The moonless stars are bright
One parts and splits the heavy night in two