plane

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1

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

2

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

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

inside me

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

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

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)

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

many languages
exceptional silence
hotel lift

hourglass beach

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