by
I am tired of words,
the anxious necessity
to hear, if only
my own stifled whispers.
I am tired of talk:
the exchange and banter
enmeshed in daily
guilts and desires.
I am tired of listening
to my stillborn story,
unsure each moment
if I’ve said it before.
I’m tired and uncertain;
there is no end, no beginning.
(July 13, 2024)
“Ring out Wild Bells”
—Alfred Lord Tennyson
Sending happy bells
into the spring air,
I was the center
of an expanding circle,
the rock tossed
with nonchalance
into a pond, the causality
of all that was right.
I walked solemnly
next to the road.
Both arms swung
in time, like a clock
pendulum’s metronome:
the glass coca-cola bottle
in one hand,
the claw-hammer’s heft
in the other;
the bottle— the chime;
the hammer, at once
both—bob and striker.
The inevitable had yet
to happen: the glass
shattering the air
into a cascade of tiny pain,
like ice lacing my calves
in rivulets of blood.
The moment was there
waiting to change,
patient as an old cat.
The sun was bright,
the sky— a blue clarity.
I was three, maybe four,
barely aware of my toes.
To my delight, the hammer
chimed a transcendance
against the glass bottle
like New Years’ celebrants
toasting a passing year.
(July 10, 2024)
by
I finished “Riding with Rilke, reflections on Motorcycles and Books” by Ted Bishop today. We have recently read “American Rambler” in RFB, which was a book-length essay about a man’s hike from Washington D.C. to New York City, where along the way the author reflected on American history and current politics. So, when I ran across “Riding with Rilke” at Half-Price Books, I was open to another travelogue essay/reflection.
“Riding with Rilke” is structured around the author’s solo motorcycle trip from Edmonton to Austin, then back again. Along the way he talks about motorcycles, mainly Ducati and BMW, learning to ride, the landscape, and writers, mainly Modernist. For me, it started off with too much talk about motorcycles and the difference in small design elements make toward the performance and ride of the bike. But then I have no background in this, so it makes sense that I would not be as interested. Once he starts his reflections on books with a section on Virginia Woolf, I shifted gears and began to enjoy the book better. Bishop is a Modernist scholar, and much of his talk on books revolves around doing archival work at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin.
Bishop wrote the book when he was recovering from an almost deadly motorcycle accident. Overall, I really enjoyed the book.
by
such arrogance, this trope
where we bend a new world
to our image, our doubts
and failings, our belief
we are somehow unique
against which all other
must be compared wholly
is too simple a path
to follow with devotion
who are we to demand
our vision, no matter
how myopic, provide
a luminous clarity
for all who are not us
as if we were small gods
caught up in a turf war
where any loss in faith
begins a slow decline
that in and of itself
becomes a corollary
tangental to love:
so we cower in fear
the mind’s splinter slices
along old wounds to bleed
like stigmata, easy
to hold close, as our days
fall away to soft ash
(July 3, 2024)
I finished Mary Oliver’s “New and Selected Poems, Volume One” today. I found it at Half-Priced Books a couple of weeks ago, and finally got around to reading it. I have not read Oliver beyond her two big hits: “The Summer Day,” and “Wild Geese.” And to be honest I found many of the poems in the book to be more interesting, which of course means nothing other than my differing tastes. Among the poems I liked, and would recommend, are: (no specific order) Entering the Kingdom, Farm Country, Acid, and Lilies. Oliver has a strong sense of rural natures as a source of meaning and metaphor. She talks a lot about the importance being aware in, and of, the world. Overall a pleasant and easy to access poet.
(July 2, 2024)
by
Sun and shadow dapple the ivy
as it unfurls slowly up the wall.
Just a few days after the solstice,
the summer’s long heat rises early
from the damp coolish darkness beneath
the foliage in the garden bed.
Two cardinal couples flit between
the long branches of the chinquapin
twittering love songs through the morning,
while the dogs stalk lizards through the yard.
(June 29,2024)
by
I have been writing poetry since I was fifteen. There were proto-moments earlier where I wrote and enjoyed writing, but those were mainly assignments for school. For almost the last 50 years I have considered myself a poet. Over the last few years, I have submitted some of my work to various lit magazines in a sporadic and random manner. I have even had some accepted for publication. And I appreciate their efforts. I am not making any claims toward the quality of my poetry. Some days I think I am writing pretty well, but when I read it again days, weeks, or even years later, I think: my writing is pretty crappy. Lately I have been leaning more toward the crap judgement. I am not looking for any affirmation from others, because I know that doesn’t really mean anything more than my own opinion of my work. Yet, one must have some confidence in one’s ability to create in order to continue, and that confidence has to come from somewhere whether from others comments, or one’s own arrogance. The last few days, weeks, I have asked myself why I continue to write after all this time. Why do I take the time to work over a poem, to shape it into something I think is a poem. Then I post it to social media, and on my own blog. I get a handful of responses indicating that someone, somewhere read it. For a few seconds, I bask in some stranger’s positivity. I do appreciate those who read my work, whether or not they comment. However, I wonder why I bother. Especially since I am currently in a downward spiral as far as my own opinion of what I write. I have gone through this cycle before, and have always shrugged off the doubt eventually and continued on. I normally say I write because I have to write, but I think it is more accurate to say I write because I write. It is simply something I do. I am not sure what I would do if I didn’t write. Drink more than I already do, become more bitter than I already am? Perhaps. I don’t think I will find out, because I have confidence I will continue to write (good or bad), as I have for almost 50 years.
(June 28, 2024)
by
Truth is thin like breath
along a mountain range
with less to hold it dear
close to the ground.
It is hard to breathe here.
The fear of falling
catches in my throat,
and I cannot speak.
What more is there to say?
Everything and nothing,
Some form of memory
broached near the end
to hang from evergreens
like talismans in the sun?
(June 28, 2024)
I would like to say
I was just visiting
that I had somewhere else
to be where I belonged
a secret place other
than this constant vigil
I would like to say
this was a pleasant trip
that it is time to go
back home again
but none of that is true
I have no where to go
and loneliness is all
that happiness is not
(June 21, 2024)
by
Long vindictive waves
pummel everything
before them like tears.
There is no shelter
from the storm’s dark surge
swallowing the shore.
Like dead jellyfish
pulsing on the sand,
anger’s sting remains.
(June 21, 2024)
I say something.
You hear a window
a smudged image,
vague with familiarity,
despite the angles
of the frames,
or the broken glass
in the dead grass.
We wear our wounds
like overstuffed chairs,
or hermit crabs their shells—
alone and voiceless,
despite what was said,
despite what was heard.
(June 20, 2024)
by
Too many old ghosts walk about today,
leaning against the walls, blocking doorways.
They lounge around the house, reading sad books
they’ve read before, never leaving their chairs.
I wave my hands in the air, futilely
trying to chase them away. Like house flys,
They vanish along the periphery,
only to reappear within seconds.
They are in no hurry to return home,
where their versions of the story can’t change.
They like the nebulous nature of life.
I’m tired of talking to their shapelessness;
I want to slough off their soft vaguery,
and cast them into the unanswered night.
(June 18, 2024)
like the stone drapes
of roman statues
he assumes what
he assumes so do
the others in the room
that what is at the core
is different than what
he presents to our world
what we see is stone
shaped to fool the mind
with polite nods
and sly innuendo
until stone is not stone
but a polite bigotry
(June 13, 2024)
by
Through others we become ourselves.
— Lev S. Vygotsky
We think we are
what we think we are,
because we believe
we think ourselves
into awareness,
that it is us
who is thought
when we think.
I am unsure,
which part of me
is me, and which
part is part
of who I am
supposed to be.
(June 12, 2024)
by
People are always asking ‘what’s the use of poetry?’ The mystery of language, the poetic imagination, and the mind of compassion are roughly one and the same, and through poetry perhaps they can keep guiding the world toward occasional moments of peace, gratitude, and delight.
—Gary Synder
A hammer lying next to a book
of poetry on a table is not a hammer.
The book of poetry is not a book of poetry.
I open the book and read a poem.
I close the book and place it
once again on the table:
Once again into nothing.
I pick up the hammer
some nails,
then go again to work.
What use am I?
(June 10, 2024)
