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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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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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The Mother

Wrote this while sitting in a Starbucks in the Portland area. A woman sat across from me with her infant child, and I found myself moved by the way she interacted with him—and reflective of the disparity between that infant’s experience and my own.

The Mother

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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Matrimony

For the unity of marriage I used Katrina as the metaphor for life’s struggles. And for the survivors of Hurricane Katrina I used matrimony as a metaphor for unity. This is my 12th hybridanelle poem.

Matrimony

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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Father

I found myself writing this after dreaming about an encounter with my father’s ghost, I spent that day reflecting on his suicide—when I was ten—and its far reaching impact on my life.

Father

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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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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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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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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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!

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Helpless

My infatuated fascination with the opposite sex began very early. There are many possible reasons for this, but I can remember even as far back as age four or five absolutely craving for the attention of a beautiful woman. If I had a class with a pretty elementary teacher, it would be impossible for me to concentrate on anything beyond fantasizing about close contact. Not “sex”, that didn’t enter into my thought process until much later, but intimacy nonetheless.

So this set the stage for a life of desire for that which cannot be realized—Or at best realized for only a brief period. For people change. No-one stays young and retains a youthful countenance and physique forever. I even find the plastic “beauty” of older women who have changed their features artificially to be utterly creepy and unsavory.

So why? It is a curse I have not found a way to lift. I would give anything to be able to just appreciate a woman’s beauty as it changes through age, seeing only with my heart. But, sadly, this has never been possible for me, however much I may hope for it. I envy those who have this ability or natural inclination. So, as I reflected on all of this, I found myself writing this poem, my 13th villanelle.

Helpless

My heart is moved by that which wastes away;
My soul is rendered incomplete by beauty
And yearns in vain for that which cannot stay.

An urgency eclipses simple joy,
And caught within its raging rush unruly,
My heart is moved by that which wastes away.

How often I have heaved the heavy sigh,
A heedless hope that heats within profusely
And yearns in vain for that which cannot stay.

Today, as when a half unconscious boy,
Enslaved by aches that govern absolutely,
My heart is moved by that which wastes away.

My sense is charmed by figures slight and spry,
The fairest features doomed to rot unduly,
And yearns in vain for that which cannot stay.

I’m plagued by wonton wants that just destroy,
That urge with fiendish force until, all gloomy,
My heart is moved by that which wastes away
And yearns in vain for that which cannot stay.