Poetry Strewn Along Life's Pathways
spot wherein we are one
The mystery of the morning lingers
as hours play with sunlight fingers
a song so musical I cannot hear
a love so endless I cannot bear
It is the daytime which loses this memory
of the spot wherein we are one
BELOVED! you have gone but never left
I taste your messages in every breath
of kisses which rise from dreams
to linger and then redeem the daytime
memory of the spot wherein
we are one
Everywhere But Especially L.A.
They carry pain in a quiet way, here
The streets are babbling
with an almost monastic quiet
A sign language odor lingers
adrift from tongueless mouths
Under the streetlights at midday
the shadows outline corpora
strewn like cold spaghetti
the sauce a fare for priestly tastes
hic est .... hiccup! pardon me
(lets not be rude!
decorum of the dining room
still survives here.)
They carry pain in a quiet way, here
Across the Southern Sky
the star key is sounded
a clavicle plays a chord of hollowed music
the children dance with their fingers
no lips to hum the tune
They carry pain in a quiet way, here
No crown of thorns
No cross of wood
Simply, the looks from
the ones not yet took.
[7/83]
Family Members
newspaper and magazine stands shout out comfort
laying thick blankets of truth and beauty in black & white
upon the corpse which stands in the foetal line
boldness itched the young man's eyes
he felt like an eagle perched to fly
it was only the tv image which denied
the liquid prisoner on his thigh
piercing like fire in a bowl
she sought a field, a plain, somewhere to go
and undrape the frenzy with her soul
and rip the sky into her fold
the day was quite ordinary, the clock never stopped
this young family steadied the universe to an end
which was unexpected, like
the Last Day of New Jersey
Humps
Humps.
They could be anything
warts on the brow of a snoring moloch
whales frozen in diving and rising
keynotes on a cosmic score
What are those things?
which play with wisps of clouds
which obstruct the horizon with aesthetic contortions?
I drive heedlessly towards them
losing the dark road to tunnel vision
lurching up the first incline
eager to reach a clear spot in their heart
But where when within can one see
the allurements of the profile?
I am lost in stones and boulders
adrift in a sinuous drudgery of mountain climbing
Why is the perceived so different from the seen
as glass cuts the finger which fluidly strokes
a figurine's enticements?
Why must I live afar
and feel so real only in my daydreams?
[9/83]
Jim
(for James William McClendon)
The face that I have seen
bedazzled me with eyes
splattering images of lives
evaporating in rushes towards the sun
It was as if joys and pains demanded his face
be etched by the soul's chisel
so that no pretense, no "trick of the eye"
could be his
This is a man of no cheap comfort
who has tasted the vinegar in palatial wines
one who has made sacrament of a sword
thrust in his side
a man who has died and yearned back
a place in the sun
I have espied him slacking his thirst
in sylvan pools
and I have been touched by his shadow
outlined by the Son.
I stand before myself as I read his message
"....are pleased to announce..."
and I cry for this man of heart
and I hear the crackling sounds of his yearnings
and I accept his gift
that in his re-borning
I too am married in his loving.
[9/83]
Karen, 1983
I met her again
in stable times
amidst disappearing tracks
she brought distilled odors
of intemperance
with lashings of memory
I stood as a gravestone
at attention
while etchings ate at my body
she. laughed (as she had before)
with fits and starts
surrounding herself with sparkle of spirits
I embraced her
(unintentionally...aha!)
between the yawns and the tears
she met me again
in stable times
amidst disappearing tracks
[7/83]
Maine, Minnesota... a church yard
i saw my mother weeping
tears to nourish stone flowers
on a grave mouthful of space
i saw my mother staring
witnessing the eye dance of granite blocks
in shadows at joy's midnight
i saw my mother wandering
hands kneading the twilight
with the leaven of the moon
i saw my mother slumping
heaving the rhythm of the tides
at the moist spot where ocean is sand
i saw my mother buried
alive with her twice born life
in my heart near the pain of conception
i saw my mother
my mother
my mother
[7/83]
Messages
The messages were left at the desk
no signature was required
the colors spoke what had to be said
white for forgetfulness, black for memory
willing i took the elevator and sought my room
the papers danced with my staid fingers
the absence of perfume drew me on
and curiosity was victor that day
i read amidst the alphabet of forgetfulness
that my train was late
you had journeyed south.
a tear died in its root.
i read amidst the alphabet of memory
that you had not studied the ancient tongue
and my sentences had journeyed north.
5000 bursts illuminated.
i placed your black and white
atop a pyramid of fluorescence
and i knelt in rebellion
fearless of all your colors
deep within this memory
i watch the cart and its uncertain victim
disappear into the desert
to bear what others fear
as the daylight saunters
amidst my cold draped skeleton
the moon celebrates
the child of our emotions.
[8/83]
My Son's Hand
they want to tell my son
that the world is no longer any fun
their tale is quite brief
but it lingers on in grief
"Do not begin to live"" they state
"For death owns the real estate"
r />
"Nothing around you is any good,
Would be better if you were born a piece of wood!”
i watch his eyes as the fear takes hold
his slight lips the words tightly fold
a rigidness grips his every muscle
and his heart--i sense--is filled with trouble
yet the man in the boy refuses to settle
for brief stories without any mettle
he stares at them and shouts
"I will kick this evil out!"
their grief is not relieved
such courage is foolish they believe
yet my son walks with me hand in hand
and it is our love which will save this land
On a Sunday
When they come in the morning
and ask me why I loved you
all I'll have to give them are
the words I failed to love you with
I took a piece of a leaf you touched
I bound it round a stone
and I tied it all with three breaths I stole
before your trusting eyes
You asked me why I loved you
but you never said a word
your hand did all the talking
as we envied the freedom of the birds
yes it was a warm and cloudy day
two lovers meeting by a tree
whose shade belied the hearts afire
with a love which laughs beyond the grave
as we talked about so many things
the wind betrayed a truth
that time will never free us
nor words give fullness to our hope
too many others claim our hearts
few offer love to help us grow
if life were only Sunday mornings
wherein our souls commune
and if the world were full of lovers
our hope would blossom in the afternoon
yet as i sit where you have left
a fear moves my heart
for bits of leaves and little smooth stones
even with a lover's breath
is no magic for our times
Oh! but let me not deceive you dear
these words shall not fail my love
let them reveal that you have pierced
my heart with musical eyes
and cast hot fear into my yearning bones
Listen! I'll love you ever beneath the tree
and I'll never lot a cloud pass by
until I steal three of its strands
to wrap my prayer of stone and leaf
and send it on the fire of my love
to find you, wherever you are.
[7/83]
On the Expense Account, Again!
are the bees to blame?
or do we indict the ants?
surely these precursors, these ancients
argued the case and won their just verdict!
"It is Wednesday ... this must be Denver!"
with its Peoria, Illinois Hilton
and Los Angeles freeway imitations
tuned to a scale pandered by MIT
only Boston and some improper arrangements from the past
bear the history of executed architects and planners
hung as Quakers one were on the Commons
is it true, as one ocean merges into another,
that credit cards are the