Tag Archives: poetry

Openings

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The picket fence between me
and the road blends and
culminates with symmetry of
scenery. Not a barrier like
doors – those of different
colors and woodgrains – openings
with stone thresholds, inviting
and structurally restrained.
Fences with alternating slat/space
continuums – so observation is not completely obscured
but the breach of us and them is there.
I focus on the panels and their monochromaticity,
accompanied by sun-glare and
it makes me move to the open space.
Here are changing things –
blades of sawgrass moving,
birds that appear and disappear
while rolling in the sky,
the maundering of a single
cloud. My mind follows.

Unknowns (Cento)

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The wars go on and on,
invading  your dreams.
Everything you saw
                                 you were,
and you saw everything.
Out of the heart of the ineffable
draw the black flecks of matter
and from these the cold, blue fire.
It produced a wavelike pattern.
All this prodding, so that to an outside observer,
we are the gods who can unmake
the world in seven days.
And just as I need every bit
 of what is seen,

even among these
defractions,
visions that witches brew,
spoken with images,
never with you-
There was never any more inception than there is now,
to go into the unknown.
I must enter, and leave, alone,
I know not how,
but knew love and
know it through knowledge.
-The darkness in the open mouth
uttered itself, pushing
aside the light.
Credits:
Jessica Hagedorn, Don Bogen, Diane di Prima, John Beer, Lisel Mueller, Jane Yolen, Michael Anania, Walt Whitman, Edward Thomas, Laura Moriarty, Helen Dudley, Margaret Atwood

Strings

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To string a harp requires some skill,
nimble touches, and a willingness to grasp
and hold resolute while tightening.

Or to be astute with numbers, theorems-
strings that interweave among
the axioms – truths anchor,
reasons believe.

The twine that twists and loops
as you create, with hooks and pins
to overlap and interplay.

A line to slacken and release
a toy, only to tighten and recall
its track, returned with joy beguiling.

Or words that link by sound
or phrase to sum-splice and describe –
inspire, perturb, dissuade.

Then tie the cord, the knotted ends
that yoke the different threads
we spin and lattice, but not
to demarcate –
The strength’s in bond
and plait.

Walls and Bridges

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Horizons awaken
and to get there from here one must see
where the hills and hollows meet
and the rivers and streams retreat
to dreams and shadows fey.

Please do not build a wall,
the kind where horizons are hidden from view.

Solidified mortar against the weather
against the sun and rain, that blocks
one or the other – when they -the both
of them just work together to ripen
and soak this land of opportunity.

I ask that you don’t build a wall,
the kind where there’s brick upon stone.

Though time will avail itself
The vines and the climbers –
the clematis and trumpets will rise
and entwine, stifling the numbness.
The grout it will crumble
with a shout through the pale
as history teaches – walls are assailed.

Do not build a wall, please forego
this thought of a modern Jericho.

The grindstone of building this edifice-
the structure and reasons abound.
The land and the people in unison
need something better – more sound.
Synchronous dreams and horizons.
Hope beyond now- shared not fought.
Walls will not bring us contentment.
Bridges are much better thoughts.

Summer in Chelsea

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There’s a summer in Chelsea,
a lazy, flush sunrise –
a dew, with its mettle
at morning, then stripped of its guise.
Full glow and blushing
in the mid-day, with nothing
borne except the breezes
that prattle and patter the leaves
and the warm air that settles,
the ardor that thieves.
Just before rain-drops
and thunder arrive on the scene
to swirl and knead everything
before the employ
of the night,incandescent,with hushes
and wants. Pooled sweat and twilight
and intimate haunts.
Indeed, a summer in Chelsea,
and she beams nonchalance.

Reduction

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He sees her wilting coriander
advancing ice and winter weather
casting eyes on cold and anger
like the wilted coriander.

He runs the lathe and turns the marrow
shaving, shaping without sorrow.
What is left but just tomorrow
piled in dust and bone and marrow.

Boiling down the balm and spirits.
Effortless in tone and lyric
words that weep and sounds elicit-
left with tinctured pome, the spirit.

And inside, while cold and bitter
sparks a flame, staves the shiver.
Waits for songs that he will give her
to warm the heart, and mull the bitter.

A question, in advance

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It sings itself, doesn’t it?
the song about love and hope-
the one about couples, and snowfall and candles
familiar lyrics and trope.

Each verse is a longing
request for addition
with vocalese twinges
that wear down, by detrition,
the crag and stone hindrances
built by decision.

Until, yes, the endgame –
the paramount question
asked with charm and sorcery
with little regard for others
just you and me –

Will you dance inside the phrases
and read my poetry?
Hold my hand firmly
as you focus and you breathe?

Can you imagine, here, set free?

*******
The song “What are you doing New Year’s Eve” was running through my mind this morning, and I wrote this as an accompaniment to the song. A tribute to the muse and love in general, I suppose. Wishing you all the best in 2017.

Concomitant

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There is a slight twinkle
near the sun, and it brings a magic notion
down to one. There is a water droplet
near the stream, and it doesn’t bother
or even seem to care if it’s apart-
the teeming, rushing flow reprieves.
A single green leaf among the red and golden sheaves
and fading starlight, tropes in morning dark.
Waving grasses, stand in endless fields
beneath the doleful skies of clouds with daylight, now concealed.
Wisps of raven hair that battle with the breeze,
as eyes (that smile) seek out the day’s reprise.
And this, a thought to consort with the one,
the charm that twinkled with the sun.

 

Segues

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Heading south, I hurried the darkened morning
behind me, and enveloped the sky-
A blush and stretch with her first glance
at daybreak.
A single tree was further down,
gilded- alone among the green and the dead.
It shouted – Hear me! I am magnificent!
The golden leaves shuddered,
and the adjacent pines quivered
and the color cascaded, this moment crowned.
…
Heading north, I rushed to meet the evening
and embraced the waning sun, a yawn and caress
from her last breath of daylight.
In the darkness, shadows stood where trees remain
and I could not tell gold from red or dead from green.
There was no sound,
no opulent style or lonely smile
Only sky and passage into ground.

spirals

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I followed the twisting branch
of the hazel tree, from the end
contorting me through its bends and corkscrew
wrench. I noticed the blue sky
just beyond and lingered there
for just moments and lost my try.

I traced a tangled shoot
from its tip, well into the
mangled form, and noticed a single
leaf – waiting- and watched
it live, forgetting how I traveled
there and where I was destined.

I chased the crooked lines
that overlapped and twined,
becoming one in the matted vines
where sky and sun are dim
and all is mangled and confined.
My words were caught in creviced splines.

I let the torsions lead me in
and angled, changing me instead
remained on a path of helix.
With new braids and spirals wed,
the path led somewhere new ahead
among the hazel twists and treks.