short list

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

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

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

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

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

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

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