As I got to know my future wife long distance, I found myself wanting to assure her that my love for and dedication to her will never change.
“He loves me.”
If I have a child one day, where would he (bold assumption I know) come from? I think we rain from the void into awareness. I think we drift in a sort of sleep, locked in the watery depths of consciousness and are eventually lulled by the rhythmic sounds of promise into life. From dream to dream we sleep our way through eternity, connected by an ever expanding web of condition—or karma.
Provision
Some people… Just have a way about them. And thank god for that!
tease
her tongue swirls out
a wisp of smoke curled
round the edge of taste
where at the rim of flavor
chocolate drumstick ice cream
dances nimble courtship
and periodically slides in
through lush brown seals that
close round the shivering tip
of double dark suggestion
My first poem for 2008. A good friend wanted me to write a poem for his fiance, and here’s what I came up with. Think he’ll like? Think she’ll like?
Her Best
She calls me your very best for her—
I only ask that you mean it so.
And if there’s a doubt in your starry mind,
dear god I ask that you lay me low.
Lay me low in the moldering clay,
if one harsh look or a bitter word
exists deep down in this heart of mine,
so that it may never be seen nor heard,
so that she may live the span of her years
believing the absolute best of me,
trusting forever the love she holds
is the love I keep till she follows me.
But if you look and you see the man
she thanks you for each day of her life,
then please dear god will you guide my will
so I never bring her a moment’s strife?
Will you teach me all that I need to know
to be that childlike soul she sees,
tender as dew on the bamboo’s leaf,
gentle as hope on the slightest breeze?
Will you grant me health and the quiet strength
to stand with compassion at her side
for however long we both may live,
whatever fates roll in with the tide?
During my trip to Vermont in July/August, I visited the Devil’s Tower, where I had an experience that changed not only the course of my life, but the shape of my past. The details of this experience will remain with me, within me, to be buried with my bones and passed only to the heart of what posterity visits my grave. I will pass it then, the whole promise of it, one All Soul’s Eve, and so will the Promised.
For even then will we be side by side.
promise
from the moment i looked up and saw
just over my head your memory
draped off the stub remains of
a ponderosa’s lower branch
from the moment i felt lightning flash
through my mortal form till numb
my fingers tingled the beginnings of
an electric understanding
from the moment my eyes took in
the simple shape of your past hung
to the south of the bear-scratched tower
bleached white with unshed tears
from the moment i realized i stood
where grief-struck eyes set your spirit free
held hands and prayed for your hope
overlooking a plain of creeping thunder
from the moment you reached out and touched
my song with hidden fingers and embraced
my heart my mind my long forgotten dreams
with all the love you gave in life
oh my god i knew you then clear
as the cobalt sky that shook over dark
rumbling clouds suspended far
far in the distance
and from that moment i’ve carried
the shimmering whisper of your ghost in my
bones my joints my manhood like a promise
tangible as the stars themselves
You won’t guess it. You won’t conceptualize it. You won’t expect it. You won’t doubt or be convinced of it. You won’t have any idea it even existed. But, suddenly it may be upon you, and in that moment you will realize it was always there—that you were never apart from it for an instant.
Gleam
This might go some small distance to answer a question posed concerning my previous post, “Ode for Joy“.
Projections
We are small yellow suns
suspended together in space
plasmic arms entangled
in mutual relativity
Our avatars roam galaxies
seeking to see touch share
what momentary forms we
manifest in the tracts of time
remembering if but a sense
of our ancient dance
For how long have we caressed
our tandem orbits bathed
in the other’s light
For how long have we warmed the face
of myriad worlds and moons spun
round the plane of our equator
Here on a rock called Earth
warmed by a kindred’s rays
we have met once again
to joy in the spectral hues
we have loved an eternity
My first synthetic ode. This form hybridizes the near-original Grecian ode form of Pindar and the dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. I will eventually write an article about this form and what I hope to accomplish through its exploration. For the time being, I hope you’ll find this an enjoyable, or at least interesting, read.
Ode for Joy
I
Her eye was caught by a distant name,
unfamiliar and yet not quite.
Inspired, she followed a dream that came
from somewhere deep in her quiet heart,
a link that led to an unexpected hope,
born of intuitive sense
cradled in bamboo song,
confirmed by a kindred voice that helped console
the reign of a keen unrest
that troubled her, unconfessed.
Canticles from another time
settled near
in the curve of her ear,
bringing a dark horizon light,
raising the sun
where a half-moon hung,
until her soul, embraced by vibrant hues
of promise, once again became her cherished home.
II
He felt the touch of a silken tongue
brush his mind from across the world
with observations and thoughts, half sung
in accents cast from a dreamtime mold.
Intrigued, he listened to every tuneful word
whispered with delicate breath
soft as a moonstone breeze,
expressed from a place of enigmatic birth,
where steady Pacific rains
sang life in refined refrains
straight to his heart through lays unknown
to his ear,
just abolishing fear,
welcoming home forgotten hopes
faded within,
but arisen again
like morning rays on cloudscapes scattered far,
igniting new horizons to vibrant shades of faith.
III
Their pasts unravel thread
into a bright new tapestry.
They’re both reborn and dead
to what was once and what will be.
Visions leap before their view,
revealing possibilities,
and each is clear on what to do
to make them actualities.
And so begins
the recreation of their lives
as deep within
a transformation of their minds
reveals the way
to stand forever side by side.
The best thread of their days is used
in the shuttle of their unity
to weave a scene they know by trust
on a loom of shared serenity.
Joy is my fiance, whom I met online purely by chance. She, from her life in the Philippines, one day stumbled across a poem I had posted elsewhere, “Perfect Silence”, and found herself researching its author. On one profile she found my Yahoo Instant Messenger ID, and on another she read that I work with children but don’t want to have any. Then she popped me a message out of the blue, “How could you work with children and yet not want to have any of your own?”
Needless to say, I was puzzled by this note from a complete stranger. I responded with one word, “Overpopulation”. This sparked a conversation—or perhaps debate—that lasted four hours. The next day we talked on the phone. The day after that, Skype. And we’ve been talking-talking ever since.
