Thursday, March 30, 2006

Working Heart

Working heart, love factory,
Generations of stored excellence
Perched on a straw nest hatching tired
From the constant ache of egg laid want.

Turned and turned but not from feeling.
Star bright dreams of the distant present,
Unblinking daylight telling all the fictions we believe,
Fears with words that wake us almost speaking
From nights of almost dreaming.

Friday, March 24, 2006

Spring Dawn Haiku

Mud blacker than shade,
rippleless silver mirror,
Morning dark dawn kiss.

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

To my students from the University:

Please feel free to enjoy this Blog. You are welcome to enjoy what I have written or taken pictures of and feel free to leave comments. To do the latter, however, you will have to sign up for blogger (just click on the button in the grayish brown bar above and to the right that says: “GET YOUR OWN BLOG”). It is free and I encourage you to do so. If this is new to you, welcome to the world of the blog!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Geezer

It is not my ears but my years
that wants to hear the shuffle and thump
of dance. It is not my mind but my age
that longs to puzzle out of another
passionate irresistibility that is consuming
all my faculties with the intensity
of hot, wet oblivion. Does wisdom come with age?
Obviously not! Am I a fool?
With every ounce of strength I can muster!

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Spraznicum Esho

Happy International Women's Day!

Sunset in Sun City
(for mom)

I.
Wheelchair ruts in faded red carpets
Crowded lobbies, hushed corridors
Grab a seat, the matinee is about to start.

Ancient limos, giant and shinny
Pull up to the grand promenade
Before the majestic doors.

The music of large bands is
Swinging in syncopation,
Swaying in orchestrated phrases.

It will soon be flashing lights, fancy dames,
Reporters bending in to catch what’s said,
Cigarettes and whisky until the dawn.

II.
Alone in the school yard
Two miles away, the squeak
Of a metal swing fractures the silence.

She actually enjoys the sound of it,
The desperate cry of some
Tortured giant metal bird.

No mom or dad around.
Nobody to play with,
The metal shrieking in pain.

III.
The old begin to gather
In after dinner sitting rooms
Chairs roll on careful rubber treads

Across padded carpets, or glide with a lisp
Down level linoleum paths as if descending.
A walker makes soft metalic clunks

Bangs in muted hollowness
Against the table as the woman
Surrenders to the chair.

There the show begins;
Not talking, staring straight ahead
She sees what no one still alive can remember.

She cries, she sighs, she smiles,
She holds dad’s hand.

Sunday, March 05, 2006

Sleepless senyru

Downward arching moon
Pale rectangle on the floor
Blank screen of moonbeams

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

Of Humble

The railless train of dreams ploughs through my night.
It whistles and chugs and races out of sight
And I am left in the bed before dawn,
A set of muddy ruts with no memory,
A headache and the corrupt taste of forgotten sweets,
Listening to the last cluck of laughter,
Incomprehensibly hanging in the air
Of an empty room that once was the party in my sleeper.
We are faced with the river that loses its freedom
When it becomes a drink of water and
The rare air at the mountain’s frosty summit
Which becomes a tired sigh.
Things go from what they once were
And our forgetfulness is puzzled by their halos.