BACKYARD TREES

Desire, Conception,

    Malignancy -

Wind picking up

out of nowhere 

 

When we knew the body,

  we knew the person

 

Wanting the best 

   Pleading

to be seen, recognized as who

         we really are

 

  *

Yamantaka, Conqueror

   of Yama,

“Ender

    of Death”

 

Each of life’s transitions

Appropriates an ancient offering

 

The head has shifted

   A path to enlightenment

 And below, 

Shoulders of rock

 

  *

My dear friends,

in Narsaq

the one Jew 

arrived on Green-is-land

with wife and dog

to wilderness

 

I have books, 

eyeglasses 

I read, study

 

Sometimes, at dusk

I sense the child

clutching air

without shame

  as if wisdom

were an afterthought.

That was my mother’s hand.

Have you seen her?

She dances with shadows!

 

  *

The news is good.

The house of the Lord we built

         still stands.

Icebergs ferry sheep

across the fjord

Musicians negotiate 

  the music

of the mouth.

 

 

         - for Joe Somoza

         06/19/2024

         Essex, VT

A LOOKING AT, WITHIN (1840)

Guardian, custodian, teacher:

Another damned tutor to get past

Before the intuition.

 

        - De Quncey's "estrangement from Wordsworth" attributed to the latter's

           pride, arrogance, and rudeness - 

                "the whole theory of picturesque beauty"

agitating the taxed cognition

 

                    *

 

Vanished thoughts resist retrieval,

the pitch of words

No more.

 

"Seen from within"

             "Contemplated"

 

each new thought

            lobbed

                    a volley of cannonballs

                                                My Way

                              (the fort's re-enactment)

                                   patrolled

 

"to perceive directly without reasoning, know by immediate perception"

 

a paradigm    

        ghosts    

                tossed about     on lake waves    

 

                    *

 

Follow the breath                further out                than can be watched

            Sit        w/the feeling of finished "to do"

 

Intimation

            Admonishment

Done

 

                        for Romance you shall quest

 

                     *

 

The child never "safe, safe and sound, healthy"

            Left alone        (toying) with hand-me-downs

                        Needs    himself        "to be strong"

UBIQUITOUS (Levinas)

Images led 

their channeled winds

through a canal 

of birthrights

body.  

Another’s crude fingerprint

on the first to bruise

leaves piling up 

 

the particular contractions.

The same yellow slicker.

Park paths.

"Leave-taking self for another"

 

   *

The cobbled street ran along a canal

A man was going into one

Of the yellow buildings

He hung up his raincoat

Sat down at the chair by the door

And peeled off his galoshes

He had passed no one on the street

And the office was empty

There was a coffee machine down the hall

 

   *

No unconscious force

Or historical totality

Survives a military's gauntlet.

 

Fecundity's 1^st Instance

Entirely undivided

Before you pull apart

 

Sugared cinnamon

Fried dough

Loose change

FATIGUE

Many feel depressed. Our times, our truth,

   our pitter-patter. 

Rain clouds         a storm of greys.

Depression not what you want       wet, 

messing with                the innocuous

(a soldier’s boot kicked at the garden)  

Spring buds 

If lucky, brought to bloom.  

wanting to open.

I’m too tired to talk.

The broken-hearted ask, "How's your day?" 

"Amiss” I say, and to the heartbreakers, “I give.”

The bully keeps me up in the air, all his weight 

grounding his end of the seesaw.  

Tell my doctor your concerns.

I've been culling thoughts,

slighting details.

 

Infrequently, some things will clear.  

Always, one thing stays shrouded. 

   Real time bums people out. 

Lots of off base explanations, 

tried out first in a sand box.  

One person who doesn't like herself.  

Another blames meteor showers. 

Neither wants a penalty shot.

Miss, maybe shocked. l 

Tell the professionals of medication 

   I am empty within, where the swelling begins,

just above the groin, and the brain 

has no patience re-routing desire.  

I took up with an anti-virus, 

a consumer of restlessness 

who became lethargic.  There’s no reason 

to get out from under.  

The door is locked from the outside, 

   and guards dress like nurses.  

A prepared person always has a suitcase handy, 

packed for every occasion. 

Sartre's "No Exit," for instance

 

The last café you need requires your portrait

Painted as the absinthe drinker 

recalling the signature sign             a gift

from (gift-giving) Simone de Beauvoir.

Her EXIT could go up on most anyone's wall, 

out of the way and quickly misconstrued.

     

    Here you are to run, there stop.   

    Walk to keep busy.  Move between the lines. 

When nude in traffic.

           Avoid mirrors.

                                                                         

Someone was looking for something in my eyes.

A searchlight was strapped to your forehead

and its’ penciled beam swallowed 

the dark by mistake.

THE 27TH LETTER

alone.

Absolute

nothingness

with only a frightened

heart made sick

by divers spirits

passing elusive will

around words writ

that we do

Love

a little help here

what a mess

in a crowd

wants and remains

HISTORICITY

Cast off 

        emotion         snagged

  beneath black ink

 

Kept to bed, pained by light

bright behind lined eyes

 

Paris, of transvestites,

London’s condemnation

 

We disembark 

a chorus line 

at tidewater

 

Greet the shores’ noisy birds

Crack shellfish open

 

   *

Money went down the Hudson

More was coming up

 

Bequeathed

to its unkempt progeny

a colonial rash of gravestones

memorialize intent

 

   *

If only the houses

could line up

closer together

 

Don’t walk across the grass

seeded distance 

between body and blood –

 

Measure instead yourself 

lurching forward

ERRANT

I was a twin at birth

Half mother, half father

 

each gave me a name

to take apart the world

 

I was a monk

went over the wall

 

and hit the streets.

Neither Adam nor Abba,

 

Wisdom nor Eve

called me back.

 

I was lost

In the grit of a wind.

 

I wrote for my mother

and cooked my father’s books.

 

   *

All the love coming my way 

Going to save me from the blues someday

SIDEWAYS

Nothing works 

As quickly as the mind

Hurries along thoughts

The electric goes out

Filleted and breaded

white fish scraps floating

in a blues soup - 

Poisoned eel blood

Her parents had wanted to meet me

They laid towels out

on the Queen's bed

in the attic

The surprise, an argument,

Our parting:

I always expected the body 

To end sideways

At the edge of the universe.

Once more, it's fall.

I stand in front of the window

On and off all day

Hoping to catch a glimpse

Of meaning.

DUPLICITOUS

Mickey Maniac had a side no one ever saw.  

Or was it Roger’s Maris? (Etruscan, infantile.)

Slides and swings belong in a playground,

Until they make the difference

between winners and losers.

A sleepy barn has 4 sides, an open door on each end

And one “reason for being.”

The farmer (son of Heracles)

never caught on  

as to why climate change meant “forking the hay.” 

Was the sun 

Rising

into Heat?  Everything true 

had been eclipsed:

earth’s shadow, earth’s shadow. Ducky-wacky. The two 

fell behind my horse. 

I picked up the tab, put on my shades, and left the bar. 

The next time I see you at work, I’ll say “hello.” 

REDACTION

You followed the path as far as it went

Along the lakeshore, only to turn back.

Dusk forced the concession;

Fortune wouldn’t butter your bread.

He was leaping in front and behind you,

The little man, frog-like, who gabbled on.

THE 4TH WEEK IN EASTER

    Sensei has gone on retreat.

No one sits on the cushion, teaching.

    At dusk, a pair of geese squawk,

alighting in Spring's low alfalfa - 

                Refuge!

SLAPSTICK

Mentors and bourbon and ladders to heaven;

Eight lives lived, this one to go.

 

Worthy or not, there’s no looking down;

I had a target tattooed on my back.

SHOULD YOU WANT A SHAWL FOR THE NIGHT

Should you want a shawl for the night

(As the temperature drops, and your foot measures light)

Where better to retire, than to a forest floor?

“Unto thee I bequeath my decomposition.”

- Laugh it off, oh boy, or I’ll drawer you in compost.

In like shrooms

    brooming deep.

Some leftie you turned out to be!

Guilt sourced from not giving it all away.

Just try taking it away...

Every territory deeded to “Personal Use Only.”

Does fear come in on the in-breath? 

Spreading out the tarp, lengthening sleep 

  across bedrock. The first transparency of H2O:

Our dreams split along a jagged seam.

I enjoyed them halved, but I couldn't tell

If we were singing "harakiri" or “Hare Krishna.”

The trees had grown taller overnight

and moved closer together.  

Arose from the dank place of pain in your chest,

a charitable hue of greeting.  

1.24.2020

for Michael Chorney

POEM, written with Michael David Jewell

Days, weeks, sometimes years by, 

when challenged to "feel the love”

clouds will draw us from sky

into the presence of ritual’s refuge. 

Time-lapse becomes a moment of stillness. 

We cut up pieces of bread 

to toss out in the snow for birds 

hunkered down in the hedge.

Their chirps off the old block.

A QUESTION OF VOCABULARY

He was talking to himself again.
What was he saying?
The words that came out of his mouth
registered no meaning,
as if his thoughts had been translated
onto a foreign tongue.

THE COMMUNICATION

You said the poem was spectacular

then let me know

you would be going home

once more.

Your body’s failing strength

left only its mind's

clarity for you to return with,

which you did, offering

its spaciousness to others.

At the transfer station,

everyone clings to you,
but you no longer cling to anything

while everything about you
points beyond –

to the Mother's final solstice

and her pairing of two cardinals.

I see the female first;

swooping in at my window

under the porch roof,

hovering mid-flight.

Then the exchange:

its mate, melodious,

his red head – the color of ribbon –

poking out

from inside the center

of the Christmas wreath,

not to be removed, not yet.

Spring snows would fall,

and over the mountain

at Mad River Glen

I would drive past skiers

and cars with out-of-state plates,

as if shaving my face

for the first time in a month.

for Kathy Eldergill

1953-2017

INTERROGATION

What’s in the head

with the library?

More than a corpse.

Words meander

over circuits of breath;

a shade moves

up, then down.

Are you naked?

Stepping out from the shower,

a ghost hitches up its scars.

Talk, damn you!

Once upon a time
our eyes closed

in tandem, in silence.

THE SPECIMEN WORLD

A rifle shot comes

from the direction of Main Street,

but the sounding doves outside

the bedroom aren’t startled,

and the noise of traffic

hasn’t stopped.

I should pull the window shade up,

let in the eye-riveting light,

call again for help

from one of the strangers

who moved in.

The darlings keep busy.

They must be struggling

to make sense of the laundry

hung out to dry on the porch.

I will give the sheets names

for when it gets dark,

and give them a piece of my mind, too,

for their flirty bedevilment.

I’ve always known my husband
couldn’t be trusted.

He has hidden their letters from me,

in the magazines and books

left lying about.

I tear off their pages

and make my rounds,

scattering tiny piles of ripped up paper

like bird seed, throughout the house.