Bubbles

It is inexplicable to me
we are so wet
even the air sags, laden
or is so heavy that,
when in bangs into something,
it knocks it down.
Our sounds are gurgles and burps,
bubbles in water, punctuated with pressure.

We are creatures of wet land,
We are the commonness of water and air,
In a world where water stands
and watches or, worse, chases
after you, moving at frightening speed,
then bites you with huge,
thirsty teeth
leaving you laying,
oozing.

A few sunny afternoons ago, Zhenya and I took this picture between classes. 

Recriminations

Did you say tomorrow?
I’ve been promises,
I’ve been darkness
dogging crevasses,
with little hope
of covering the distance.
I’ve spread too thin.

And the promises?
They tunnel blind darkness,
nibbling love like a termite.

The nights are edgy,
I don’t hold them well,
they slip from my fingers
and shatter like dark, greased diamonds.

The barn

The sky was dogback dark
Close but still somehow too distant
To scratch where it itched.

I was in the empty barn of my life,
in turns, collecting the belt
with the red, raised skin of my back,
saving it for happier days,
to remember how to smile
(and why),

in turns, I was hollering
in the emptiness, looking
for the corners and edges of my voice
in the squalling building
where life went on –
independent –
of punishment and loneliness.

In the barn you see
shovels in the stalls
waiting by the manure,
you can pick right up
where you left off.

Even if I castrate my days,
send them to the office
for coffee and politics,
when I collect them in the evening
they head for the barn
to figure it all out again
as soon as my head hits the pillow.

Couplets, dime rhymes, and cheap thrills

Why is the doctor crying?
Is he in love with you?

The pick pocket wanders the aisles
of the empty bazaar at night
dreaming of the day and fat pockets.

He sees himself out-running them all
Suddenly he’s safe in his limousine –
the pockets of his fine suit are full
and everybody wants to give him money
for no reason; girls only want his love.

Envy, everybody is dying of it.
He rides to his mansion and is safe
in its cocoon-like emptiness.

He lies down in the empty aisle,
beside the cold metal container
and smiles in his fast paced dreams.

The doctor is hanging a mirror in front of his eye;
the cheek behind it glistens and sparkles.

One dreamer dreams the other is also asleep.
The other dreamer dreams only he is awake.

Elena, your sparkling black eyes
are the only night in which there is light.

The fat man is starving
inside the lard bucket of his body.

Zhamilla’s smile infects the poor boy with incurable happiness;
after she leaves, he dies of unrealized emptiness.

The night is collected in a cup;
the day drinks it up.
Each night there is more darkness;
in winter the day will die of indigestion.

We completely cannot see through
the dark overtaking me, you.

Fish have it easy -
They cannot drown
no matter how we cry.

Fourteen lonely lines

The day trips like a clumsy child;
I hate it that you are so far away.
I am not calm, nor happy for no reason.
Others do not see me as myself –
none of us are happy to see coming
the me that lacks you.

We have to struggle with the darkness;
Your absence is a kind of darkness.
We hope to know what we can’t
and our fears fill spaces already unhappy.
I hate it that I am insecure and
jealous pain sees where pleasure walked.

Longing and memory have become
the important parts of fruitless days.

Fall change

Climb the ladder to the day;
climb out of the dark cloth of night.
There is a nakedness in the light
that has nothing to do with clothes.

Press the silk of ruined dreams;
smell the wet and hot of protection
sleeping bag tight in the cocoon –
metamorphosis or death.

That which is different
appears as broken glass
treaded to crumbled sameness
becoming yesterday.

Tomorrow springs to life
in words and dreams and falling leaves.

An evening program advanced class 

Shooting a cooking Show 

To my daughter

That my heart is like a spike stuck in my chest
is natural because you are you.
I would not want to change you
although we cannot cross the same bridges.
Promise and truth have never been friends for us although
I would still lay down my life for you (and that is not a promise).
My eyes dim while yours grow brighter.
Your son makes my smiling face absurd and, at last,
I have harmed everyone by wanting to be good.
I always kill myself first like a coward;
I could gouge my eyes out but am still afraid I'd see you suffer.
My vanity is my legend, large as a lake,
with me trapped on the shore like a small intention.
Every time I flail out too far from the shore and drown,
I see your smile and know it was worthwhile.
We will always be lost in this love which has found us.
Regrettably you will always be small like a bright and shinny seed
and life will always thwart the fast running feet of our dreams.
Still you and I will face the world, hand in hand,
clown-like, in our Halloween costumes.

Conqueror

I was a gulp of high air -
a bird breathing in,
a black dot on blue paper,
a privileged recipient
of finite sacrament
of souls of flying saints.
That all happened the moment
you taught me splendid roundness
as defined by the touch of your lips.

The other mysteries fell, one by one,
cities under siege,
watched by the terrible army of our love,
filling all the horizon, insatiable, made indomitable
by human frailty and sheer force.

The danger of sleep

I did a dream at night,
as I knew I should.
I was whole in it,
so whole that I crossed a barrier
and couldn’t wake up,
dreaming until I died.
Crossing into heaven,
which was where I had been
when I was dreaming
I dreamed that I was sleeping,
restlessly in the night.
In discomfort I crossed a barrier.
When I awoke
I looked round,
sat up and cried.

SCARY THIRTEEN RINGING OF THE BARDS

Superstition

Turn to the horror of himself, look at deep within
He knows there is a growing burden, He is guilty
If he hadn’t done what he shouldn’t do, no problem,
But he had to; no one takes care of you but yourself.
Steal that candy, break that toy, nobody will see it.
Don’t worry if they catch you, you can lie (as always).
God smiles at him from heaven, he is completely free,
Take that money, he knows he wants what they won’t give him;
Life passes into the hands of the greedy and quick.

The burden builds like a dangerous house with a short,
He can never relax because it’s all coming down.
He looks to the sky and thinks with a frown, no one home.
What there he sees is a reflection of him – snake eyes.

And so are you

I am that silhouette rain makes
as it falls on me. I cut this invisible swath,
sidling between Betty and death,
squeezing between beauty and the flower,
walking bower heavy under a barrage
of bougainvillea, just a notch below
the breeze and an hour beyond ice melting.

I cut the day with a line
that leads to dark. I am the nothing
in between everything.

What a class! this is the first shot I took. 

This group studies intensive English. They are really great! 

THE RINGING OF THE BARDS XII

Want this badge?

The Carnival Comes

The trucks have rumbled down the road.
At night they rested in the new spot.
Sodden thirsts have woken up early
to assemble machines before the dawn.
Speakers have been set up for there will be music.
Soon there will be food and noise and light –
bells and calliopes, hot dogs in paper
and lights strung in a row,
mirrors, mirrors, lots of mirrors
(for we must see ourselves as happy, amused).

Looking in the glass we see that
there are two of everything except us,
how disconcerting.
But there is little time for rumination
for we must buy this illusion,
we must purchase it from pipes and painted steel.
Smells rival one another, last nights rain, the fragrance of moist earth,
pop corn, pickle relish, mustard,
oil and iron, hot incandescent lights.
And always we pass the mirror to peek inside, and wonder,
watch them turning at the heart of the carrousel.

The music stops, people exit and the ride fills again.
Another tune starts, the carrousel spins,
the mirror scans for strange new views
in this place of Cartesian Duality.
It circles and circles –
we ride the painted ponies to where we started
(somehow we always end up there).
Children giggle, mothers smile, lovers embrace, wind caresses,
lights sparkle, in the mirror you see the world spinning behind you.
Eagerly we get in line again.

So much noise – the crack of rifles ringing bells,
music, loudspeaker voices with their Doppler second selves,
whirring motors, the wail of wind singing
its last song in airplane wings,
the calliope (associated with poetry, for we dream tonight)
and, behind it all, the mirror turns
showing a world that we know is silent –
cacophony and crystal.
Turning, turning, everything spins,
we are dervishes in the moonlight,
separated by having spun together,
each with our own ears and lips and heartbeats.

I search for yours – lips moist and warm –
I learn rhythm, friction and not to fear entropy.
But somehow I have lost you.
I see us in the mirror, wandering away.
I look back, we have turned away from the light.
We are another couple I recognize,
who have sated themselves on cotton candy and illusion;
we are fat and starving.

The lights go out – one last look in the mirror
on a world now of shadow. In the profound silence
a cricket sings to solve a lonely puzzle.


Thanks to all the wonderful poets who graciously contributed their works to this RotB XII, you are friends and fellow strugglers against the loneliness of words. Please enjoy all the fantastic writing they have done. It should be a great, leisurely oddessey to touch their minds and souls. It has certainly been my honor and pleasure to have been touched by them!

The students of the Intro to Films class I teach 

More Academic English Comp students at the board. 

Students at the board in Academic English. 

Some of my Intensive English students, aren't they great? 

Some beautiful flowers! 

My off-campus KIMEP students! 

These are some students from an intensive English course I teach! 

Hi csperez! These are master students. I'm teaching them to write essays. Look on the whiteboard behind us. In faint blue (my marker was dying) it says Hi Craig!