Yuckelbel's Canon

2012-01-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to me reading one of the poems I have published in the past. I hope you will enjoy this!
sometimes a pearl

2012-01-17T23:00:00.000-08:00

I hope you will enjoy this article in the Washington Post, I certainly did. I also left a comment on it you might find interesting. Click on the link or use the following address: https://fb.trove.com/fbwapolabs/me/channels/trending/content/UVExkEnjoy!

Abu Dhabi- Marina Mall

2011-12-05T00:58:00.001-08:00

cute sets safe anchor
in the harbor of shops
statement of fact
plus tard
in the afterbirth
of wisdom
he has the time
like it was always
her money

certainties like that
creep down the hall
of ancient rumors
spend sleepless nights
whispers among shadow
that were once lovers

she will become one
when the coin of
beauty slips into
another purse

this beautiful life
will hibernate
dreaming quietly in
the taj mahal
of remembrance
so beautifully bathed
in the moonlight
of regret

he stands
behind the door
of a shop
that sells time

looking through
the glass at
a world that
strolls past
endangered with
every step
a tv show
of wishes of those
who will watch
only after
the shop
has closed

when they meet
and marry
their small child
cries all the way
through the mall
for something wanted

Posting poetry on my blog

2011-12-05T00:53:00.001-08:00

I so miss putting poetry on my blog for you to read. It all started because I publish poetry occasionally and editors have begun demanding that the poems we submit have never been posted anywhere before. I stopped posting poetry before it was published because of that. They, of course, want the only thing they can expect, which is to publish the poem for the first time. After that, the rights of the poem return to the poet and she or he can do whatever they wish with it. The publisher’s request seems reasonable and as if it was the least we can do for them. Still, it has been such a pleasure over the years to be able to share my poetry with you that I miss not being able to do that.
That is why I have decided to start putting original and first-time poetry occasionally on my blog. I am currently in Abu Dhabi and they are celebrating their 40th anniversary as a country. I was at the Marina Mall last night and had a wonderful time. The poem I wrote while I was there is what I will post now with the hope you will enjoy seeing this place through my eyes. The poem is comprised of some selected impressions and pictures of things I saw while I was there and the feelings and understanding the experience left on me. It will appear just above this post and I hope you will enjoy this experience with me.

Using Rubrics for Tesol learner autonomy

2011-02-19T02:21:00.000-08:00

I have a practice that I often use in class. I start by teaching my students to create rubrics (assessment tools that are easily understandable) so that they know what will be expected of them on an assignment. When a teacher does this, students have already begun the process by which they are beginning to think about how they can have a better impact on both their educational activity and their grades.

If it is a progressive assignment such as drafts of an essay, for example, they get to try their hands on improving their grades by making specific decisions about what they must teach themselves to do to get a better grade. The information should be right there on the rubric so they can decide exactly what their writing should look like and do in order for them to get the kind of grade they want.

My experience with the use of rubrics is that it makes the students more comfortable with the assignment if they have been part of the process of setting the ground rules on how their work will be evaluated. They start work on the task with more assurance because they know what will be expected of them and why it has to be that way. When they finally get down to work, they actually have come to have a better understanding of the task by figuring out how to grade it. This obviously starts them on a path to more productive self-evaluation.

The next step is to give the students an opportunity to assess each other (peer evaluation). Most of us are doing these activities in the classroom already but maybe not with such a coherent plan or process. You can immediately see, however that it would be much more effective to have the students use the same criterion to evaluate each other as the activity will be more focused. I remember seeing these peer evaluation forms for assignments but they often do not use exactly the same evaluation criterion that will be applied when the teacher makes the summative assessment in the end. These peer evaluation forms are often simplified so the student, who isn’t of course the teacher, can use them.

This is a mistake, in my opinion. The students should understand the assignment starting from the way they will eventually be assessed and should know it so well that the part of the authority which they are capable to take in the educational process should be transferred from the teacher to them as early on in their studies as is possible. This is an end forward process and seems to me to be the best way to establish learner autonomy. That is why I maintain that they should start the process by creating the rubric they will be graded on at the end of their task, thereby understanding the assignment from the perspective of the teacher. This better enables them to study productively by themselves. Grounding them well in the process of rubric creation, additionally can make them better students in all areas of their future education

Frustration

2010-11-17T23:28:00.002-08:00

PART 1

I'm just a guy who likes to teach people how to do things they want to know how to do. This doesn't translate into me being a teacher at a university like I am now doing however because somehow this process has gotten too complicated. I have to assess and judge how my students have done, in the first place. That means I have to decide what they are supposed to be learning.

As a TESOL teacher, that should be obvious shouldn't it, so what's the problem? There is, however a big problem because we test students on not only how well they speak English (that would be a placement exam) but on how well they can perform certain incremental skills in using the English language. We are trying to piece the language together from small parts and somehow that seems to function poorly on the scale of learning a language.

If we look at grammar (which is an incomplete science of the language) we can supposedly identify all the elements (in this case, many of them) about how the language works in practice. The real experience though is that people who know the grammar rules cannot necessarily speak and / or understand the language. They may get to that point eventually but they have had to learn two separate things.

Now why would I make such a stupid assertion as this? It is because I have observed that people who speak a language fluently often are not able to tell you the grammar rules they seem so competent at using. This leaves me with the conclusion that, although a scholar or writer may need to know grammar rules, ordinary people do not have to know them in spite of being fluent and perhaps even being talented in expressing themselves. Fortunately language instruction has mostly abandoned the slavish reliance on grammar instruction.

Obviously we can't use grammar as the basis for testing and certainly not for placement. So what are these small components of language that we use to measure the academic work of our students? Would they be able to be used as some kind of placement instrument? Since I know of no reputable modern placement instrument that relies on them, I must conclude that they are not a way to measure language acquisition. Therefore we must be using them purely for the purpose of generating convenient scores on which to assign the grades given at the end of each class. This sounds to be not only artificial but perhaps quite inaccurate as well.

I am left questioning whether my students will be learning English while I am being so busy at making meaningless measurements of their supposed progress?

ഹാപ്പിനെസ്സ്?

2010-07-12T04:20:00.000-07:00

I'm the kind of person who wants to be happy as often as possible in this life. Most people would say they are of the same disposition. If you were to ask me specifically what I want from life in order to be happy, however, I would be in serious trouble. I suspect most people are like me, in that respect. For example, I know that I often confuse pleasure with happiness and that makes me wonder about what it actually is -- this thing called happiness?

Since happiness is a state rather than a circumstance, it is necessary to understand that it is something which is intensely personal. It may have something to do with objects or people or some other external factor(s). It might be a result of a process or perhaps just a side benefit, like having written a poem brings me a sense of pleasure, for example.

I do not write poetry because it is fun, however because I find the actual experience stressful. I actually don’t write poetry because I am feeling happy, either. I start to have the feeling as if something is exciting me, not necessarily in a pleasant way. I have a sensation rather akin to discomfort, which I actually realize is not going to get any better until I have done some writing. It isn’t out of a sense of relief either that I begin to experience pleasure.

As I sit there looking at the completed work (as complete as a poem ever gets) it is neither the page nor the words on it that arouses that feeling of happiness and pleasure but it is a very personal sensation of something beautiful and real existing not only where I first saw it but also somehow resident within the thing, the poem, that is trying to hold it. This is also how I experience pleasure and the sensation of being happy when I read the poems of others.

The sheer intangibility of the experience and virtually everything that is associated with it makes it such a difficult thing not only to describe but even to simply understand. So what is happiness for you? A woman once told me that happiness for her was to be lying in a tub of hot, soapy water at the end of a long hard day. Although that sounds good, I suspect most of what she was describing was about physical pleasure and emotional relief. By that I mean to say that endless days of sitting in a hot bath would be boring. The physical experience of pleasure is not enough to qualify for comprehending this most intangible of intangible sensation.

സ്ടുടെന്റ്റ്‌

2010-06-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

The university asked me to pen a quatrain about student life for some promotional material they intend to distribute. I ruminated about the age old thought that students are too self-indulgent and spend far too much time just having fun. I don't believe there is merit in that criticism so I decided to try to answer it as honestly (and lyrically) as I could. Those of you, who are familiar with my writing, know that I seldom write things that are both metrical and rhyming in form. I thought, hey, what the heck, it's for a good cause and I enjoy that kind of stuff so I went ahead and did it. Here's what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it!

Student life quatrain

I’ve seen it all around the world,
Students sitting on benches, boy and girl.
Time wasted? I don’t think so.
Rather time gathered in which we grow.

എബൌട്ട്‌ "വെ ഓള്‍ തീര്‍ വൊഇകെസ്"

2010-06-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

I had a wonderful experience reading We All Hear Voices by Sam Taggart. It is a warm and compelling book filled with all the gentleness of character that one would expect from a book about a loved and respected South. It is an iUniverse Publisher's Choice book and you can find it by contacting http://www.iuniverse.com or perhaps your local bookstore. The ISBN is 978-0-595-44184-6 and the cover price is $15.95 (US). I have a tendency to read a good book in a rush and this was more like an avalanche.

Having been a professional chef for almost 20 years, I must confess I was a little dubious about a medical doctor writing about cooking. If there is one thing I hate, it is to eat food that is prepared like a health recipe. However, surprisingly Sam very fully understands taste and its principle components of drama, texture (layers) and smell. But this is not a book about cooking, rather it is a book about characters and this is Sam's gift to us.

The characters in this story are often kind and posses a type of honesty and dishonesty that can only be found in small towns. The book itself becomes a character you will cherish. I can't say this any more strongly: GO OUT AND GET THIS BOOK - YOU'LL LOVE IT!

ഗര്ബഗെ ലെട്ടെര്സ്

2010-03-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

I've been enjoying listening to Blog Talk Radio on the internet. They have some very interesting programs for poets and I suggest you check them out. You'll find them at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ or click on the title (which seems to be a bunch of garbage letters, no matter what I type). What is going on with blogger?

Season's Greetings!

2009-12-25T21:31:00.000-08:00

the snow is bright
in the morning light
the yard echoes shouts
as kids go about
the precarious business
of falling downhill

we must take care
with the air we breathe
it's been laced with joy
since Christmas eve

Sea Trails: the Virtual Tour. Starting at The Thirteen Blacbirds. Don't Miss This!

2009-11-17T17:30:00.000-08:00

Sea Trails is out and has full sails. Enjoy this Virtual Tour by a contemporary poet you don't want to miss! This post's title is a link to take you there - just click on it!

alone

2009-10-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

(for Debbie)

i have a day
i thought was lost

you were in the mirror
when i looked the first time
after that you were gone

everyone knows
they don't want
to be alone
to know the tragedy

that life is
when it is
theirs alone

mine was about yours
until i got our pronoun right

January's "Got poetry" campaign

2009-08-06T01:50:00.001-07:00

(You will find this post in the comments of the blog you go to when you click on the title of this post.)

January, I'm glad you came back to this issue with some new information and some more thoughts. I think back to Edna St. Vincent Millay and her trips across the country doing readings to huge crowds and wonder where poetry has lost all the popular appeal it once so apparently enjoyed.

On the subject of self-promotion, I definitely agree with both you and Collin on this issue. Additionally, I think we must also jump on each other's bandwagon, so to speak and relentlessly promote other people's poetry that we find important to us as well.

If you look at the difference between the indie and the large publishing house, you immediately see that the latter focuses on a small number of writers and promotes them professionally. Please don’t mistake me for thinking badly of indies, I publish all of my writing there currently and am extremely grateful for their existence. What I am trying to illustrate is that about half the reading public goes to a handful of large houses and the other half goes to a group of indies that is only slightly less numerous than the readership it serves. Among the indies, the promotion ranges from none to rather professional and they don’t repeat-print works (first timers only, please) although that is beginning to change. The net result is a very diffuse and huge group of near nameless poets for whom little or inconsistent promotion is generally applied and for whom the per capita sales of each author are rather small. When compared with the big houses, we can see how effective is their concentration on a small number of name-recognition level writers and strong promotional support for each of those names.

Still, the interest in those names doesn’t seem to approach the level of popularity of Millay, Frost, and a handful like them. It seems to me that something has happened to the perception of poets as interesting, odd, exciting people worthy of, perhaps for lack of a better word, gossiping about. I guess poetry now is about ordinary, if slightly eccentric, people living ordinary lives and legendary figures of immense popular appeal are not to be found in this group anymore. Maybe I’m just trying to take a poke at a windmill here as I really can’t seem to put my finger on why poetry has slipped out of the popular view. If it was just about professional marketing, wouldn’t the big houses already be so successful that the indie market would never have even been able to assert itself? I’m obviously missing something here and would be deeply indebted if someone would be so kind as to point it out.

I hope others will have something to say about this topic and so I’m going to post it to my blog and refer them to yours where this all started. Thanks again January for continuing your discussion of this important issue.

FIRST PUBLISHED VS. POPULAR ALREADY

2009-05-26T00:21:00.000-07:00

The 'previously unpublished' versus the 'piece that is becoming popular' question is a big issue for me. This is something poets and publishers need to actively discuss because I believe that a wrong choice here can diminish the chance that a poem which has attracted some public interest will ever achieve the distribution and therefore exposure it would have experienced under the older print media system (which had its own flaws, let me hasten to add).

Much of the current electronic publication activity is, at best, counter-productive for the success of poetry in general (we need readers who are recreational and not just other poets). The small presses are struggling with minimal interest on the part of the consuming public and therefore are in perpetual financial difficulties. Many of them react to this situation so conservatively and narrowly that, believing they are serving their own best interests, they further limit the possible interest of the larger consuming public that poets and publishers used to enjoy in the past.

People (poets and non-poets) like to have their current favorite works available to read multiple times. Furthermore, they like the reassurance that others are just as excited about those works as they are. The more places in which their favorite poems show up, the more they feel as if their personal preference is justified. They like the critical interest generated by popular poems because they better learn how to understand them by reading what scholars are saying about their favorites. These issues are key ones to those who do not already possess educated specific background in poetry and poetry writing. The perilous inaccessibility of some modern poetry which demands deep technical understanding and considerable intellectual aesthetic attention is an understandable putt-off to people who already have no clue as to why MFA poets write the way they do.

I can’t think of a process more alien to this than our current small press activity. Are the current trends for publication in them actually endangering the growth of a real group of public readership (which would really be in the best interest of them specifically and modern poetry in general)?

On writing for NaPoMo

2009-04-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a 'write for contests' kind of guy, preferring to commit to art rather than things which would produce some kind of personal recognition but I have participated, for the first time, in National Poetry Month because it is, in part, about something in which I believe. For any of you who are unfamiliar with it, this is an American event created to specifically promote poetry and increase public awareness of poetry and poets, in general. What is asked of us during the month of April is to write a poem each day of the month. I begin to be a little uncertain here, wondering if some quantitative value is going to do anything worthwhile for poetry but, what the heck; it’s for a good cause so I can tolerate a portion of sloppy logic to go with the good intentions.

I’m used to external discipline as it is applied to learning. I’m a teacher and I try to do this for my students all the time as I also help them with the process of learning how to do that for and by themselves (called learner autonomy). In my life as a poet, I frequently find I need to learn more about my art. How does W. C. Williams bring that larger context along with that object, The Red Wheelbarrow, with such a simple, short poem? How does Basho find the soul of something physical and familiar to us? How does a sonnet or sestina work? I must learn from these external things so I can do what the art of poetry demands of me.

When I seek to gain knowledge from external sources I am practicing learner autonomy in my own life. If a poet acquaintance like Robert Lee Brewer takes upon himself to post a daily prompt for each day of National Poetry Month for use by hundreds of poets on the internet, this is another form of external discipline because now I must write not only daily (which I already do) but on a specific theme. Sometimes a thousand or more poets respond and post their themed results on an internet location where they can be collected and judged. I am the kind of poet that likes to revise and this regime gives no time for that activity to take place. In essence, we are being asked to produce the best work we can with rather short notice and with very little opportunity to revise before submission. This is so far away from the writing regime I have been using for years but I find I am learning some unplanned lessons in areas I usually don’t even think about by participating in this experience.

We are nearly half way through and it is not too late to pick up your pen and join in the fun. If, like me, you would never consider doing such a silly (although well motivated) thing like this, I invite you to give it a try. After all, being a holy person in the isolation of living on a high mountain is one thing but coming down and trying to be pure in the city with its myriad temptations is a whole ‘nother. Join the crowd!

Another trip to Luciole Press

2009-03-30T17:40:00.000-07:00

The Spring/Summer Issue is out! This is a big issue just packed with all sorts great art by some wonderfully talented people. It is an honor to be included in their company. Enjoy this!

(The previous post about the fall'\/Winter Issue will take you there also. I don't know if they have archives or not but will try to find out)

Fragment

2009-03-12T17:56:00.000-07:00

what’s old is the ancient quest of restless dreams
chugging through the night
what’s new is that in the gathering pre-dawn
birds sing eagerly
bells urging me to find that empty pew in
the church of my heart

Undeclared Love

2009-02-24T22:18:00.000-08:00

He smells her hair,
He holds his place.
It's so unfair,
This lovely face.

There's no broken heart
For him to mend.
This is the part
That doesn't end.

A languid limb
Of hers reclines;
For beauty’s hymn
Sorrow defines.

Of all the ways pain can name,
This is the one he would not claim.

The first two stanzas of this poem were written as a group effort at English club at K.I.M.E.P. recently and are the combined efforts of several people, including Nurmerey Shakhanova and Akerke Almanova. The last stanza and the couplet I wrote subsequently and the poem you have just read is the result. I want to say thank you to those who participated in the creation of this sonnet.

Go read Luciole Press

2009-01-13T21:49:00.000-08:00

You will find two of my poems in the winter issue. Just click on the title and it will take you to them. There is some wonderful poetry in this issue so please take some time to enjoy a few of the many fine works while you are there.

Go read the Blue Fifth Review!

2009-01-12T04:35:00.000-08:00

Blue Fifth Review has graciously published one of my recent poems. It is called dream and you can find it in the first section of their Fall 2008 edition. There is so much wonderful poetry in that issue you couldn't go wrong even if you got lost reading and it took you a long time to find my poem. Enjoy!

Journey

2008-08-15T03:09:00.000-07:00

I do not know how it calls

but I bounce off what I'm doing

and float on the words

the world is changed and gone away

the time that ticks so viciously

means exactly the next moment

and all those things that mean

there is nothing else and yet

gratefully it gathers in a grey ball

of thread and does not unravel

hangs there more motionless

than any illusion and the word

is the only motion I know

moving but carrying no twigs or branches

no leaves no gum wrappers

and there are no markers

that time could count

it was his special journey

everything had become indistinct

the war was it won or lost

his home his children

the house the cities with

order and direction roads to travel

these were thoughts that

tumbled endlessly

a washing machine in orbit

weightless cleaning nothing

everything tumbling

meaninglessly forever

maybe this is Circe

for whom he had searched unknowingly

but there were so many of them

each with their own

special enchantments

the magic of an oriental bazaar

the song of many temptresses

locked on land

trapped in offering trivial dangers

wasted songs tempting the

shipwrecked already of departed souls

pirates confused by bureaucracy

seeking plunder from empty ships

this and nights in the heat

and cold made dreamlike

with passion and slow lilting music

that stretches endlessly

without ever growing thin and dangerous

there is so much of it

and it is as if he was happy

thinking nothing of deep thoughts

dark swift dangerous

not watching running aground

on bars which you can't miss

with neon lights like beacons

head for the lighthouse

to save you with

night on the rocks

actually looking for it to end

but finding you must do it

over and over

this is the long of it

when time has gone away

and Odysseus lounges

on the endless sand

of an oceanless beach

drinking fragrant tea in bowls

and wondering

if he will ever

stop eternity grown to sameness

(First published in Autumn Leaves, volume 12(15), August 1, 2008

This poem is copyright © 2008, Russell Ragsdale, all rights reserved.

Tagged by Pris Campbell

2008-07-28T22:50:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was tagged by Pris Campbell who was tagged by Sam Rasnake in his second meme (go to his blog to read his):

Here is mine:

As an adult, the following selections have influenced or impacted me the most...

[These works may or may not be your favorites, and you may have first encountered them when you were much younger.]

the book:
Savage Beauty, Nancy Milford, Ransom House

the film / network series:
Matrix, 1999, Directed by the Wachowski Brothers

the music / spoken word recording:
The Magic Flute, by Mozart (in German)

What are your choices?

I tag Ozy, S. L. Corsua, Katy and anyone else who would like to put theirs up.

Four Haiku:

2008-07-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

(for Alan Summers)

Night (Senyru/Senyru):

1
end of a long, hard day
breath held in
suddenly let out

2
journal of a dream
hand writing on pillow
cat wants to play

Morning (Senyru/Haiku):

3
toast soaks up butter
egg in skillet
morning sunrise

4
prayer towers subdue
the rusty hinge
of cloudless dawn

origin

2008-06-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

I have found a church in your smile
a faith in your eyes
I’m lost in every other context
hard vacuous thought
wandering confused in the night
this is not that
this is vigorous
uncountable
no choice

loss is inexplicable
je suis fou
that makes sense

I am at last matrixed
to everything about you

prayer

2008-06-24T22:13:00.000-07:00

air conditioner words
cool comforting
wanting nothing in return

a kind of silence
with words waiting
patiently inside

dust on Mars
having no breeze
to help realize
what it is

patina
of hope
covering everything

saved

2008-06-13T00:15:00.000-07:00

day with its broken phrases
of brick and cement
tired and stuttering

a problem called cohesion
sunlight stretched too much
long late afternoon shadow
a lingering patient
thick with sage heavy breath

verb quick surgeons
waiting to open
patient flesh
that houses everything
too much possibility
need to do
something

suddenly
we knew it
flat line of
horizon at sunset
thick liquid dark
transfusion has started

a new life
darkness follows light
word metronome measuring
the breath necessary
for a few
tercets into night

doctor scar

2008-06-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

I fell on some lips
ripe with despondent promise
just as
he was going to pretend he didn’t exist
she saved him by pretending he did
and ordered the execution
it took place the following night
as a small and forgotten
suicide
but we hope
he’ll be better soon

could she laugh
damn right she could
did I
did I do da
all night long
with strong upturns
the following afternoon
like a day of sun
the night has been
praying for
a laconic laceration
in a flotsam jacket

at the fountain I
exchange coins with hope

In response to a visit by S. L. Corsua

2008-06-01T11:09:00.000-07:00

I am everywhere
the puppy is me

I am lost and I pray
you will look for me
(I am at home)

thank you for saving me
on a cloudless
night of sturm und drang
endless misery

suddenly concludes in your eyes
change of season
is a metaphor

I am the subject laid prostrate
by the object

camera

2008-05-14T21:53:00.000-07:00

everything’s slowing down
I have lit the candle
cat sniffing this page
camera freezing life
into little splashes
of light and color
painting hanging patiently
slow metallic drag
of the shutter
ancient shuffle of my feet
punctuation when the shutter closes

light like a haze
pale with slowing down
black cat asleep
white cat
rubbing her pink nose
on this pen
it falls
from my hand
slowly

camera finally clicks closed
last picture inside
but not understood
it let a little light in
each time
I know that now

tt works so slowly
taking so much time
when that was all that’s left
when people have gone
when always only
same places
pictures empty now
images in a mirror
with no one looking

I have become
the book I write in
between black and white
cat bookends
looking up to see
if there are angels
falling from the skies

arf

2008-05-07T22:43:00.000-07:00

the dog of summer
hanging around
scratching fleas
wagging his tail

articulate hesitations
sitting there
with a slipper
in his mouth

airport calls
planes answer
sit there
good boy

sun like butter
smooth yellow warm

Judy

2008-04-14T01:02:00.000-07:00

your name stays with me
I am a suitcase of dreams

night is for hunting sleepers
it depends on dreams
as a day is a long dream

eyes see what they are thinking about
nightmares rise with the sun

your name has no words in it
is a sigh uttered in sleep
where arms flinch empty

I am insubstantial
I float through you

an unanswered question
I have dreamed myself
and you dreamed me

those lost forms float
through each other

never meeting
hands have no meaning

I can touch myself
only when the dream
becomes bright and wistful

intense and strangely sad
I can feel us

me having a body and a life
and then it goes pale
like a thief

prisoner of the future
and the past

a ghost that still knows
forty yeas of gray
cannot take one satin night away

Spring haikus (2)

2008-04-03T17:32:00.000-07:00

1.
a lost pleasure is
tucked in the folds of darkness
birds sing to sunrise

2.
the apricot tree
long bare suddenly flowers
at which spring smiles back

Ion

2008-03-23T23:23:00.000-07:00

undershirt overcoat in the vale little not big glade cut from the town with a blade run through by the train not on the vale but in it or under is better for worse far worse is than eyeless is the dirt like the worms making new friends at the funeral . that , is enough they welcome him in friends make a fence with their bodies won’t let him out ! this is your hole , forever like a door open like I’m sorry like I miss you like the lid closing with the smack of a kiss that sounds underground a subway somewhere simpers )

Let me add a few words about this strange new prose poem thing I have been playing with lately. This is a poem for Ion (pronounced yawn) Drimba, my friend and coach. He died in Brazil in 2006 and is much missed. I have attempted to (with the exception of internal punctuation such as contractions) use punctuation only as a verbalized part of the poem. So when you encounter one sitting strangely separated off from the phrases, please say what it is (for instance ! exclamation point , comma and the like). They have no other function in this poem, in reality. There are some natural rhythms here and some caesura that is unavoidable and I’m confident you will find them as you read this out loud. That, unfortunately is the only way this strange poem will make any sense at all. It might seem a little confusing (strange rhymes lost without the perspective that lines and stanzas provide, alliterative phrases that are inherently awkward) at first but let the parsimony principle be your guiding light and all will be delightfully murky. Enjoy!

These are the Friday Five words used:

kiss
train
fence
vale
simper

place

2008-03-17T23:59:00.000-07:00

town of my dreams
streets slick with night
green spring sunny days
time
to sit
and write

breakfast
and lunch on the terrace
sparkling sea water
peaceful
walks along the beach

talks with friends
colleagues students
artists

sunny day
convertible drives
top down
along a coastal highway

trips to mountains
picnics in meadows
music at the symphony hall
ballet and opera
at the theater

cocktails on the boat
in evening

cathedrals
cool large and hushed
outdoor cafes in the afternoon
people walking by
us sitting talking laughing

snorkeling
in quiet coves
of afternoon sun

barbeques
with friends
kids and grandkids

and time
precious time

lovelight

2008-03-11T11:40:00.000-07:00

leave the light on
we will see you

Beethoven is home
the madman

is this your game
who is winning

conquest Mozart

coming home from
miles away

undertone
to radio

key in a lock
understand

pastisse is a
midnight game

you didn’t win
it isn’t finished

femme

2008-03-07T04:37:00.000-08:00

she felt happiness
in her mouth eyes

chocolate endures
it tastes long deep

burning her mind
an itch

daylight hides her thoughts

a feeling inside
what she should do

doing without finding words
my sense of completion context

feet feel floor
as dancing

TO ALL WOMEN: HAPPY WOMAN'S DAY!!!!!
8 MARCH 2008

string

2008-03-01T19:09:00.000-08:00

from the bureau of words
in the drawer of my mind
looking through the mess
for order

looking at morning’s mural
painted on energetic flesh
in my eye my yard
my neighbors

migration dilated
made larger in parking places
to morning movement
seen and heard

and understood
without speech words
which aren’t even kempt
in dictionaries

found but confused
contemptuous
under alphabetical tyranny

never understanding silent order
of string to fingers
and vinegar to nose

migration

2008-02-24T06:41:00.000-08:00

with the sun’s infliction
watching gathering lines
searching for the
words of waiting
as well as music
from the margins
of afternoon
which were agitated
and in that agitation
crows called to their hue
the colorlessness creeping
up from the roots
of Soviet style apartment buildings
down from Lenin
all the way up
to the language
darkness speaks with
black mitigating wings
scudding on the
ebb tide of sunset
to the land of closed eyes
that dance with black
that bleeds from every
corner crack
taking away all
but the sunny frosty afternoon
I still carry inside

lighted

2008-02-22T18:44:00.000-08:00

light falls on the sidewalk
lit rooms behind curtains
look like eyes in the dark
listening watching laughing
lives like that so near by
lonely figures passing
longing by the street light

poetry

2008-02-22T10:45:00.000-08:00

post on the internet
poet friends will come read
put a comment or two
places frequented less
perhaps someone listens
probably no one new
preaching to choir again

valentine

2008-02-13T04:43:00.001-08:00

again today no new snow
to cover up our sins
the world comes
seeping through
the black ice
harder and more dangerous

the ghost carriers scurry
across the solid sea
of brown stained white
how many times must I see it
before I can say it is true
they spend their ghost faces
on dreams they may have
while waking

some of their dreams are of you
some of your dreams flow back
that is a more fluid ocean
than the sky
with its racing thin water
sailing faster than any ship
trapped narrowly between
freezing cold and frozen solid

this water doesn’t betray our water
this water sends its love
without the tyranny of feeling
every day is valentine’s day

eve

2008-01-27T21:15:00.000-08:00

it is not today it is tomorrow
assertions of discomfort
accusations instead of requests
the lonely litany of proving others wrong
domestic pain on the half shell
the full fury of a bite
dissected in mid-air
the vampire as a victorian silhouette
the vasectomy of life

the herodotus of failure
in leather volumes
with blood running down their backs
the piles of lazy dishes
the lilting halo of cupidity
numerical as sin
but well grounded in
ever-shifting theology
and prismatic light
glancing off the scales
of unbalanced philosophy from discussions
held by the apple tree

when the end has come
I’ll take the dishrag
releasing all the brown halos
purging to the core
the earthly sins
that have trapped you here
and bid your soul
song along the skyline
and speed exceeding
God knowing what you have prayed for

Stones

2008-01-20T06:35:00.000-08:00

(for Paul Auster)

Because quarry stones
don’t have to tell – secrets are
hard, patient, quiet.

thing and not again

2008-01-12T03:32:00.000-08:00

i dream battles
dozens of opponents
i am the army of me
beaten
killed nightly
but my task
starts again
i want to say
i am but
it is not me
i keep thinking
i was
but that
is only a memory
that is so
often forgotten
like my desk
when watching tv
like my dog
when im teaching

these things
come back to me
in times and places
and go away again

but every night
again i fight
and it won t end
until
i stop believing
learning is the goal
of education
until i can
resent my students
enough to do
what i am told

but then
what will i dream

bar canon

2008-01-05T04:26:00.000-08:00

the poor
are so full
of how bad
their lives are
the rich
are full of
stories about
how much
fun they are having

i sit
at the bar
and listen
and struggle
anxious about one
embarrassed about the other
having been both
to believe
any of it

i m scared
to say it
but glad to be
alive

too bad
buk can t
be here
to enjoy this
confusion
so well sorted

as we danced

2007-12-28T03:03:00.000-08:00

the stuttering thought
struggled through my mind
desperate to finish
and in itself
be smooth as
orator pebbles
in the mouth
of forced disability

was there a sense
that time was answering
its own questions
about dark and light
and lonely

that this great solitude
born in the shadows
of stones
or the fatally blanched
moonlit shadows
of trees
where lurked betrayal

that was the last answer
to the first question
about the third law of thermodynamics
echoing in the shadow
of the solid things
and dancing the dance
of duplicity
with tidal vapors
of emotion
made real by gravity
in the pale night

eclipse

2007-12-22T01:36:00.000-08:00

word wash waste water
bright day without sun
shadows dreaming darkly
dish dark dirty dragging

the moon will come
between me and the sun
mid day stars shine as
birds land beside me

surrounded by a flock
with their heads tucked
under their wings in the dark
as if it would help

as if sleep would save them
with dreams of bright and blue

to winter

2007-12-13T01:14:00.000-08:00

wasted days gather
the same as piles of leaves
on a crisp fall day

if something drops
you won t find it again
in those bleak piles

samolote

2007-12-08T06:37:00.000-08:00

soon i will take to the skies
my face – in muted cabin light
a pale offering upturned and spent
on bad things and duty free

the silence hiss and rumbling
is kept away
with headphones
and personal screens

talking and singing arms
wrap around me tightly
hold the lonely
and the bored

have embraced me away
and have brought me back

Lament for David “chip” Reese’s last hand

2007-12-06T00:03:00.000-08:00

maybe this is the some other time
business school at stanford can wait

forever
calm and quiet like chip
who was a lousy businessman

according to his partner
poker kings but business suckers
of the worst sort
true gamblers

lost outside the realm
of million dollar bets
easy come easy go

sitting now across the table
from the one with all the cards

short list

2007-11-25T23:40:00.001-08:00

here is my schedule for today
check room for final presentations
set film study exam schedule
grade papers
post grades
pick up papers at administration
teach class

it doesn t say anything
about staring at the corner
answering phone calls
reading e mails
finding no letter from you
looking at full pages
that are blank

and empty pages that are full
it doesn t say anything about them

we are too eager

2007-11-23T04:55:00.000-08:00

she can hear her blood rushing through her ears
a river of raucous song

she fashions sugarplums from her eyebrows
and sends them off to dance on their toes
in the gaze of handsome eyes

the thrill is to dance with a good looking stranger
her quiet looks of desire
are thoughts so loud
they overcome the music

rotating the room in circles
swirling to the center of disorientation
anticipation not knowing what it is looking for

what if a rustling shroud was a dance partner
and dying a dance

night flight

2007-11-21T15:25:00.000-08:00

she rides the rocket ship of mumbling in her sleep
monologs that once were conversations

we are aware of her as if she was dead
mostly asleep always waiting for the ice to melt
visible only as a spot in center glacier

we have no choice but to consider her
she cannot leave her world of solid ice
we know she is always there
asking questions in permafrost thought

she haunts the nights
a rumor in the hall - an allegation
that the dead can be hungry at three a m

lunch in orbit – who cares what the time -
with a final lay-over in the rocket-port of cigarette smoke

anguish

2007-11-19T10:20:00.000-08:00

night hollered
its last rainstorm

and the drunken man
slid below the surface
while the other watched

short gasping breath
leads to sleep
death confidently visits the face of the drowned
like an over-welcomed guest

dreaming breathing - mother -
whose eyes smother small children
with death defying control

wetly punishes – especially herself –
the weak who are too strong

A MEME ON POETRY -- tagged by Tiel

2007-11-17T03:38:00.000-08:00

Tagged (by Tiel at Knocking From Inside) and feeling somehow a bit naked these days, so the meme is like this: list at least four things each you think a beginning poet should and shouldn't do: tag someone else.

Ok let’s start with the DO’s:

1. Get in touch with the passion inside of you that most people bury and only give expression to obliquely at cocktail parties disguised as envy, prejudice, jealousy, provincialism and lust. When you get your passion uncovered and able to honestly express itself, mobilize it – give it your legs, arms, mind and time to use in whatever way it requires. You must believe in it blindly because it is invisible but, when you do, you will start finding physical things like clues that show it has passed this way.
2. Put on your Matrix sunglasses. The world, as it appears to most of the people you know, is an illusion created just for the purpose of keeping them amused and letting them pretend everything is going pretty much as they expect. Discover the splinter in your mind that will keep you from hiding from the world that is truly all around you. Open your eyes to the secret world; you may be the only chance somebody you love has to even get a hint of what is real.
3. Read, searching every word for proof that others have seen the secret world and are willing to bring us their dictations. Read until your head blows up with all the people who have penetrated the mysterious and have brought back what was shared with them as if it was somewhere very far away, which is how it seems to most people. Read until your mind becomes a roadmap written on water and fog and you begin to understand where you are.
4. Write so that your hands get used to holding the truth as if it was a present and you were happy to be at your best friend’s birthday party. Write until your hands are accustomed to holding that present, until they have learned how to hold a gift.

Now let’s talk about DON’T:

1. Don’t expect that it will be easy; in fact there is a bag full of expectations about comfort, recognition, money, fame, love, admiration, acceptance that must be disposed of immediately. What you are trying to do is too difficult (or else everybody would be doing it) and, with that bag of expectations it becomes impossibly disappointing.
2. Don’t be patient. You have to find your muse when you think she is lost. You must write when you think you are too tired or, in the middle of the night when you’re sure you should be sleeping. When you can’t find your manuscript, you must wipe your eyes and sit down to write it again.
3. Don’t give up. You must be an army. You must view the objective before you in an unswerving way. You must send yourself as a soldier to take that objective. If you are killed and fail, you must send yourself as another soldier to continue the attack. Keep sending your army until the objective is yours at last.
4. Don’t forget God! You must believe in yourself so blindly that no one can dissuade you. If God has given this to you (and talent is truly a gift), there is no one who can stop you, as long as you persevere. Also don’t forget that God is the only source of true beauty. Ask and you will be shown all that you are missing.

If you haven’t been tagged yet, CONSIDER YOURSELVES TAGGED: Katy, Ashraf, and Shubhodeep!

trees in fall

2007-11-06T20:21:00.000-08:00

many have retreated from flesh to bare bones
clearly the hunger is in the crisp air

how the others eat that hunger
and are fed to fat with vibrant color
is the endless question of clear blue sky by day

and stars at night that also crisply crouch
like insect eyes of
a wise and very old
darkness that is nodding knowingly

answering that question like a whisper
when the wind remembers the branches
and tells them to the sky

but oh the rustling of that brilliant fabric
such a glorious flower for the season of departure

cartoon

2007-11-03T10:45:00.000-07:00

if i could put this night in a cartoon
maybe we could have a good laugh
sad and lonely faces
drawn as if in some other places
in cars and trucks
down some dark streets
in the illusion of motion
campy as someone else’s sorrow
who can only be painted
or drawn
a geometric form
long on the floor
motionless
as a vodka bottle
a discarded cap
a small stain
a stubbed out cigarette
in an empty sardine can
a puzzling circumstance
bags packed
the phone
scratched in pencil strokes
always silent
like a clown face
the phone
broad like
a clown’s frown
not capable of tragedy

plane

2007-10-23T03:52:00.000-07:00

there was a night of waiting
which took its toll
scrolling down a long list of words
putting the name of doggerel
on what the morning would recall

all superficial wishes come true
the substance of what matters still
far away on long carpets in short walks
to the cupcake of a toilet
and trudging from curtain to curtain
on the path above the clouds
as if there were wings

to carry the mythical beast of the impatient heart
back to the magic kingdom of long ago day

About a comment

2007-10-13T22:10:00.000-07:00

I had left a comment on a wonderful post by Tiel Aisha Ansari on being a Professional Poet. It is on her blog Knocking from Inside. I really find her a remarkable young poet. Also, like she mentions, thank God we love our day jobs. ‘Nuff said, you can go and read all that for yourselves. This is the additional comment I sat down to write after writing the first one. I decided to post it on my blog, rather than muck up her comment box:

Tiel, I wanted to add another couple of thoughts to my first comment. First, I would like to thank you for being such a part of the group of contemporary poets that one finds via the internet. I am honored by your presence in the life of my writing as are many others, I’m sure. The internet has been a real resource for contemporary poetry to grow in skill, community, enjoyment and, most of all, commitment among those who take this art seriously. That is indeed a great thing.

I remember when I left the writing program many years ago at the university. Those programs are so full of all the resources necessary for young poets. The contact and support structures are so busy with people trying to help that I was really unprepared to leave it for the loneliness of the print oriented environment it was supposed to be preparing us to enter. Afterward, I joked for years that I had finally found the obscurity I had been seeking. Eventually I stopped publishing poetry and then I stopped writing it.

This brings me back talking about the internet. It was my savior. My poetry found a raison d’etre here. The internet probably saved my life, in reality. The contemporary poets I have become acquainted with here are friends and colleagues whom I treasure. We share a lot and I am looking forward to continuing to do so for the rest of my life. I am about ready to publish a book now and have had the honor to be included in some fine e-zines as well as printed media and enjoy the encouragement of some wonderful editors. I woke up and started living again.

Lately however, the legalistic world has started to invade poetry on the internet. More and more we are told, if your poems have appeared on your blog then legally they have already been published and cannot appear in our magazine. I am now holding poems back to publish elsewhere before I put them on my blog. More and more I see poets who earlier were prolific on their blogs but have now become practically mute. This is a trend that worries me. I am not sure it is a good thing for the good poets out there to stop giving us the opportunity to come read their work and learn from them. I am not sure it will be a good thing for us who aspire to be afraid to practice and share our efforts with the group of readers we enjoy. I understand the value of the things Tiel and others have assembled as exercises and places to practice the art of poetry but that is only part of the richness we have all shared on the internet. It is the loss of that original and rather free environment that I find scary. I am not sure quite what we should do about it and would like to open this discussion with all of you out there who are equally affected. Tell me how you are reacting to these new changes in our precious electronic community. Please give us your comments!

moments

2007-10-08T21:08:00.000-07:00

can we find the grace
of little meaningless hours
that pass carrying no burden
greater than a trace of pleasantness
no countries saved
no great heroism
no answer to sciences main questions

the carousel of mindless time
that takes us up and down
with equal gravity
and for all the turning wheel
leaves us where we came from

refreshed
and smiling

romanticism

2007-09-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

hi how are you you ask
i love loudly and often
you would want to know that
for example i am always in love
tempestuous inside
i see a beautiful moment
and my words are choked
by travel my heart makes
up my throat
i try to lecture
my students sit wondering
at such a strange man
a man with a splinter
in the mind of his foot
a foot that is an expression
an expression that wants to tell you
how beautiful something just was
an expression that limps
stumbles
falters
but tells a story
louder than words
it cannot stand on

the beethoven of donna

2007-09-13T19:42:00.000-07:00

fill me with that face
dark and beautiful as
intimate words
promise me
you will linger on my lips
lost for a moment
and that
open or closed
my eyes will see
that secret world
only we know of
surround my ears
with the silky ocean
of your whisper
in the pendulous light of
a moonlight sonata
for a man
gone deaf on the world

longing

2007-09-07T17:26:00.000-07:00

i dont believe it is the effort of walking

that makes me want to fly

sweating on some

hot dusty road

nothing comes free

and sometimes walking

is my effort of choice

sometimes legs just need stretching

its a cold cruel world

when you cant make choices

im not talking about that

about dodging a reckless car

or hanging onto the mast

after a shipwreck

im talking about who will you find

where you are looking

cause where is surprisingly specific

where determines wholl be there

i mean those of the earth

are found in the city of the road

they roll beside me

trapped in traffic

creatures of the sidewalk

they read books

trying to set their minds loose

upstairs in the library

are anchored to their chairs

littering classrooms with questions

until bells set them free

still to linger outside doorways

grouped by gravity

and on to other questions

but its you who live in the city of the sky

and i want to see you

that makes me want to fly

it is my longing that needs to soar

bereft

2007-09-03T06:43:00.000-07:00

she stumbles across the dance floor of the moon
having failed to hear the music
she cannot soar and sway
in the sparkle of starlight
she looks for pieces of broken glass
her beast is blind and cannot find them
even though they pain her ancient shuffle
her mind cannot paint a picture
nor her ear transcend
the clank of fork and spoon
nor the hungry growl of her beast
for whom she so urgently
cuts her bread
blindly leaving huge gashes
glaring open
in the tablecloth of the night

she carries cold discomfort
which no blanket can warm
and no pillow can make rest easy

sated – her sleep is profound
as the death she fears
but not easy
there is no waltz
over smooth marble
to glide the night away

headline

2007-08-30T14:08:00.000-07:00

lust always comes first
it is the law of gravity
and inertia that follows
is scholarly
and would be boring
if you could escape it

pain always a breadwinner
hurry you cant delay
the news of your demise
published just today

love

traveling

2007-08-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

some another monday
perhaps in the middle
of a week that was lost
in a wine mist
in new orleans
perhaps that was washed away
in a shower
in a soap smelling pas de deux
that segues into a cool
walk during a sprinkle
on a dutch summer day
by the lake
with the windmills
and the bridges between
the places you didn’t mean to go

afternoons trying to make
the keyboard of your laptop
roar like a grand piano
watching the planes
leap in and out of schipol

ah the fruit and the cheese
on the train going through antwerp
on the way to paris
with vin ordinaire rouge

by hamburg the ennui
has a hint of lust
holding hands in our sleep
turning to smokey smelling whiskey
an hour away from frankfurt au main
playing with the letters of confusion
so as to spell a better word
so as to spell a happier moment
so as to write that really good poem
on some another monday

the don quixote bar

2007-08-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

sitting there alone with all the pretty words

rotating a golden rumitchka

with silky cold of tarnished vodka

all the pretty birds have flown

darkness becomes frighteningly large

another siege of solitary pillow

discovering how huge small noises can sound

trying to narrow down empty space

to what can no longer be called alone

trying to hone down too numerous words

arrow prayers into expanding distance

hope like waiting for an echo

from a night soft as black silk

with tomorrow like a cliff too far

rock-hard and real but tough to see

under rule of empty stool

closing time is here

vodka chicken lips

2007-08-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

i roll like a sloth over land and sea
i am not lazy only compromised

rung tumble slumble
foolish word mumble
i am an advanced agent of a dizzy government

overlooking that laughing land
i have just stumbled out of
i want to laugh and
i am so loose

i know that all things are loveable
especially that all too nervous dinner
that not so long ago was worth having

but now presides over the future
precarious as a long drop

different

2007-08-12T19:38:00.000-07:00

a day with the sun like a large room

a big bright place where leaves rustle

work is an hour of intense conversation

at the end of which i step out the door

and the next room is dark

puzzling views of letters glowing in the air

words spelled backwards hung there in confusion

when the breeze blows there is the dank hint of mildew

mold in unseen corners traffic lights changing

with the metallic-electric click of switches

echoing hollowly

things scurry close by but hidden behind shutters of darkness

my pockets are full of shadows and pain

which can be spent to buy dreams i can’t remember

the change comes back always more than i spent

and time has no visible motion

the night is an endless conversation

held alone and in silence and i

shaking my head

find the day has gone

and taken the door with it

GOOD NEWS - THE RINGING OF THE BARDS

2007-08-11T21:46:00.000-07:00

TIEL AISHA ANSARI HAS POSTED A NEW RINGING OF THE BARDS AT LIFE, DEATH, AND GOD

inside me

2007-08-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

i have a flower in my pocket
i have a question in my mind

i have a splinter in my awareness
i have an alter ego
who has left me

a message
in a bottle
floating hopefully
in the pool

on whose surface i gaze
hoping her reflection
will have lingered there

lazy as a smile
cute as a wink

you

2007-08-10T05:37:00.000-07:00

it was for you i did everything
you told me i could earn it

all i had to do was work hard
that i could make it right
that i was wrong

you taught me that things weren’t right
you taught me tears and pain like bricks
i had to carry and place just right
so that everything would be better

that the world was wrong
that everything had to be fixed
and that would be my responsibility

tired in my sixth decade
i still love you

confession

2007-08-08T23:17:00.000-07:00

talking became like butterfly wings
and the colors got written down

The words were bricks
mortared into place
some walls shined with light

others were dull
he shared them with people
and tried to understand
the mystery of taste

he hid behind the walls
and examined himself
sometimes he just tried to hide

safety is color until you paint
words until you write

letters (Russell Sonnet)

2007-08-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

the alphabet of love
exists in deepest nowhere

with it we write novels, plays
carve letters in trees
form the syntax of whispers

it is a kind of prayer
the litany of the letters of your name
it is the stage behind the curtain
where movements happen that no one sees

letters penned from the inky darkness where we wait
hopeful with desperate need
to spell each other’s answers

to questions we lack
the alphabet to ask

consciousness

2007-08-04T07:43:00.000-07:00

I am who we want
It was all a mistake
which this is better
was that architecture
what was my mistake
we are not real
we are only each
others imagination
touch my
Corinthian column
I am in serious pain
We do not see
We are each others jokes which
We
unfortunately
take seriously

Waiting (Ghazal)

2007-08-02T19:59:00.000-07:00

Dark water runs away in the sunlight
Sad man thinks he has seen you among light

Shrieks and laughter in the yard are calling
Can your hand touch when morning craves sunlight

Breaks are braver than you know, by mercy
Mosques, churches, synagogues search for one light

Barely knowing what to say son turns from
Coffin lid, patient, hid one face from light

Russell’s mind shrieks questions, answers don’t come
Hearts and wrinkles smooth prayer in the numb light

beautiful

2007-07-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

i had a dream of breathing dream clouds
not the death hard face of
go to work every day dad -
a swirling day of light and joy
with all the confusion of
happiness you can’t stop or control

the music is everywhere
i’m surrounded by it
a whirling dervish
i dance all day
bright blue breaks through
and i take to the sky

soaring through the brightness
warm waves of day
surge around me buoy me up
gentle as a caress pleasant as a body
carrying me on bright hued winds
a bird of drums and fifes

i’m dreaming a dream where it’s good to be me
where fault is not in free to be

busy day

2007-07-26T22:11:00.000-07:00

first day of rain i’ve seen
and less people not so many people as the hotel
but all these people want to talk
how is everything how was everything how will everything be
i took a can opener but didn’t have to pry very hard to get some milk
had tea while the phone rang
phone calls a lot of phone calls
a regular oracle at Delphi you know what i mean
wistful to watch pictures who were all those people
especially the ones that looked like us
you know the smiling ones with the real familiar faces
not a care in the world simply not a care
felt a little robbed maybe even mugged
felt like quiet violence had taken place
sat and stared trying to stay out of all the talk
talk goes on you know since they come over to see you
but then they get started warmed up competitively telling stories
they know they are well-meaning crazy about being nice in fact
but their own lives are what they want to talk about
so i just sit back and the day goes on
almost as if i was still where i am missing

on seeing things in motion

2007-07-25T17:37:00.000-07:00

flowers in a turbid vase
battered and ruined by being there
so beautiful to see
so dead and dying
so what they are not
and so what they will be

many finches feeding below the tree
at the hint of a cat
they speed to the branches
which now wave to me -
a large green hand -
i wave back

yes you‘re right
i needed to smile again

Grand Efe

2007-07-23T23:49:00.000-07:00

the waves are blue and crystalline
the sun permeates everything
the sand and the smell of salt
are a possible universe

the waves gather light and air
and splash the eroding rock with it
everything is awash with the fact of beach
and the day is too brittle to carry cynicism

world of silence

2007-07-21T21:21:00.000-07:00

many languages
exceptional silence
hotel lift

hourglass beach

2007-07-20T04:47:00.000-07:00

she grabs her slippers
adjusts her navel
says i am a jeweled toy
hungry for despair
we - as is her wish -
do not talk about it
there is little
in that brittle manicure world
that is up for discussion

i am the dog of old wrinkles
my loose flesh
seems to shiver in the sun
the light hides the truth
the cicadas sing
the agean sea crashes softly
a horsefly bites my ankle

the litany of time
is quietly chanted
over cards and beer
by picnic table swimsuit old couple
at the shore
of the narrow measure of sand

arf

2007-07-17T03:43:00.000-07:00

trick dogs of the past
dance to new music

get up and move to it
someone wants to slowly sway to it -
sway away into vengance and despair

tears are always waiting
bursting forth from edges and corners we turn
when light blinds us
or darkness lies about its comfort

we sway to subtle hums of hips -
pleasure to pretend against pain -
pleasure that gnaws bone when flesh is gone

clap your hands and slowly spin
we are the skinny trick dogs of the past

initials

2007-07-10T03:50:00.000-07:00

show me the night sky
where darkness is your rib cage
and echoing within
is the pounding of your heart

i know that thump
pushing that blue liquid
carrying things jumbled together
like love hope pain
and that gathering ball
of strands of distrust
anxiously tying themselves
to your youthful thoughts
dragged kicking and screaming
into that silence and darkness

i know in that deep dark
you could show me
your heart
and i could see those letters
carved in it
as if florescent
and so i show you yours on mine

Party

2007-07-08T09:32:00.000-07:00

love was dead
it made me sick too
pug shrug ugly
past tense dreams
i didn’t have any chance
selecting

where was hope
i hadn’t seen it
a long time
lonely me
my dice time again tonight
i found you

we watched eyes
but we found your belt
stars twinkled
breathlessly
putting my hand racing time
we both gasped

secret now
secret forever
this was our
only chance
this was our only real hope
still got caught

painful

2007-07-06T20:52:00.000-07:00

the wound sits sullenly
seeming never to scar over

in my white jacket with
mirror on my forehead
i take out my pen

to look for its history
a deep pocket of hurt –
imbedded alternate reality –
in a shallow layer of skin

scratching my case notes
on oversensitive paper
like a photo of a sigh

beauty maybe is skin deep
but ugly is a cosmos

blade blood

2007-07-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

all this anger drifts skyward as a flaming ball over the darkness of the city night
down below, just above the skyscrapers, sits this dense cloud of raining sorrow
the French horns of screams add a hollow solemness around the buildings
that ephiphinizes nature’s calm acceptance
of right and wrong as existences of equal entitlement -
a place for everything with wrong at the head

oh i am sorry i cannot make this better
i am, after all, just another stupid human
stupider than most because i see what is wrong
and can do nothing

what, i wonder, does it mean to be human, to live in this mess,
behave like trash, and treat each other accordingly
yes i foul myself because i am a course man
forgive me, find in what i say some hope i cannot see

find us a way forward
find something that is not a logical extension of me
find it in your heart to forgive me for writing about it instead of being there

Darkest daylight

2007-06-30T00:09:00.000-07:00

Even in the daylight, you see, I’m haunted by shadows.
They follow me, remind me, tell me another dark secret
just as a hot body promises with perfume to be a flower.
I stumble under this weight, even at noon with the sun on my bald spot like a crown,
trying to disguise things by making them shiny.
Trying to make this foolish person laugh when there’s nothing really funny.
Trying to make sounds that will echo in the dark and, at that time
I will know them alone by their real names.

Dark fingers can be seen at the corner of things holding on, waiting,
dreaming of the sadness and surprise day will know,
will know soon enough, will stager unable to cope with.
These are the dark fingers we feel inside when, on a hot day we suddenly go cold.
This is the darkness we know as inevitable as that parallel universe
when death closes our eyes and the only light, albeit bright,
will come from dreams as the light we have wrapped as a package
in this profoundly dark and impenetrable paper
is the only light that can be seen,
can be found anywhere in that permanently dark room.

There are no corners in that room, no walls and I wonder if the day
with it’s shapes and turns and rooms and windows
has any idea of what seamlessness the dark contains.
The dark contains the noisy, shiny day as keys clatter in my pocket –
can the day contain the dark
or is the universe grown too large to tolerate such a travesty?

you

2007-06-27T18:41:00.000-07:00

you are always who i wanted
you of the long stair
thousand houses of a thousand cities
teaching chameleons disposition

teaching me not to blink
but I must
and in that moment you are gone
leaving hurting eyes that are red and dry

i must climb the stairs
or return to the street
and so i climb
praying

that je ne sais quoi trace of perfume
that empty air still following you across a lifetime of a thousand rooms

city

2007-06-26T06:52:00.000-07:00

the door that was the doctor
opened on the stars
the neon above the entrance
was hotter than a five course meal
her eyes like wine to wash the night away
and everything was exactly an answer -
no questions allowed –
don’t even think about it –
just say yes
and stumble on the bluish shadows
raised on the crumbling sidewalk
cracks and chunks
that lead to everywhere
like a roadmap for a modern pirate
rolling dice for her life
because that’s all that’s left
just this map
these informative shadows
just this night with its neon black holes
and darker yet my desire
burning holes
in solid hearts
so lonely and strangely still

bird

2007-06-22T22:56:00.000-07:00

hope hop tune
claws along the sidewalk
last chance bargain -
give me something
or give me death
passionate question
indifferent answer
good this time
a senior not a cat

need finds need
get in to jail free card
when life outside
has not been good -
place to go

home needed a song
good name – lucky

This little experimental sonnet is a 55 word poem, an idea coined by the inventive mind of English August. I still enjoy the form. The story is a true one I read about on a post called encounters (22 June 07) about a walk around Seattle a short while ago. I read it on her blog at: http://owlrainfeathers.blogspot.com/ .

Summer

2007-06-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

With his own hands
He fitted the wood
Sanding, shaping, carving
But there’s much he cannot touch
The day cannot be carried in his hands
He cannot pick up love
He may hold the thing he created
But he cannot touch the beauty of it

With my ears, eyes, skin and mind
I have written this poem
It is like a box to carry beauty
I cannot own that beauty
I can only admire it
I cannot even give it away

So while there is some sun yet
Let us go into evening’s gentle breezes
Let life caress us with summer’s gentle mood
And when the night comes
Like that graceful dark cat
We’ll let it snuggle between our bellies
And purr contentedly

painting

2007-06-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

he was afraid that you would know
he had always been himself
like a secret
that he had seen darkness
as it brooded across his mind
yes he was afraid of being
the wrong kind of human
some something –
too much of another view
of what was wrong

although he could understand why
he was perplexed
this so rested on him

every rebuff hurt so
he had to build an island
of color to hide in
waiting to be discovered
as having gone
to somewhere only
his rules applied

sleepless

2007-06-07T23:26:00.000-07:00

charge the day with harboring a fugitive
noise sits- quietly hidden by silence
if your chair offends you call it a throne
gain a gift for naming- create reality

noise sits- quietly hidden by silence
worship power you don’t create
gain a gift for naming- create reality
i put my hand up waiting for God to call on me

worship power you don’t create
who is dawn’s mistress
i put my hand up waiting for God to call on me
did she just come or just leave

who is dawn’s mistress
perfume, cologne, satin and silk
did she just come or just leave
spider’s web of smell and touch

perfume, cologne, satin and silk
hope floats to perjure fate
spider’s web of smell and touch
we argue delicately into the night

ecclesiastes

2007-06-05T19:39:00.000-07:00

true swing
slow debate -
when wow
is slower than an hour
and the pigs are home
before you know it
smelling of truffles
and sounding of small talk

let and live, pigs say -
when asked about physics
an answer today
is a question tomorrow
so why worry

who

2007-06-02T09:41:00.000-07:00

the dog is a nose
not one like a cat
or monkey - not long
like a horse - though
longer seems to be
a specialty
and cold and wet too

mouse says
that makes you wonder
about a lot of things
like why does chicken
taste like everything
and a hearse is always
spread before you
like a shadow
with only death
sticking far enough
above the ground
to create it

how do you know me
only by this shadow
that creeps across
this page - this ink
these startled ramblings
woken from their
murky sleep
and driven by
someone pretending
to be their shepherd
hoping to be their helper
praying they will save me
from being myself
from being something
we both know
in darkness as
precisely an alias

Poetry Readings by the authors!

2007-05-12T01:44:00.000-07:00

If you like Avant Garde and contemporary poetry, here is the address for Pennsound: http://www.writing.upenn.edu/pennsound you'll want to load your MP3 up with some fine readings. This is a Wow!

war

2007-05-03T21:13:00.000-07:00

there a dark corner spread
and became persuasive
a quiet history
nobody could deny

over it the muscle
of day flexed
and marched around proudly
an army celebrating
while the enemy sneaked up
hiding under bushes
beneath trees around corners
taking victims little by little
till so diminished
the day begins to flee
with darkness sprinting after
shouting coward

ambition

2007-05-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

my mattress only moans and sighs
it is not the proper place
for a man like me
lying on thoughtful nails
rather than rest

a question rather than answer
if i were to write the story of a life
could i say how
i climbed a tower of hours
to the room at the top

how i could have counted tedious steps
how many of my graves are spread below

how i light the dark window again
with my moon encrusted sleepless face