from Voca Me (4)

  * * *

“I hear a recurring note’s trace

  upon the air, but can’t for long

hold that sound as I race

  to catch up with the song.”

“It is eternal no.  The no

  is eliminated, so . . . 

and we are only yes.  I know

  this this.  Is this this also?”

“Today, the swaying tree made

  the wind make birds fly, swell

hearts, and songs of rejoicing fade.

  When it stopped, the birds fell.”

“If the combining of will and decision

  is the valence of faith—the choices

of the past acting upon one’s vision

  of the future—what are these voices?”

“I stood alone in a field of snow

  and watched a tree shatter the sun.

A voice said, ‘This is all you know—

  a dream and its interpretation.’”

“Sedated on the operating table,

  I ceased to be, or to be to be.

Duration after death is a fable,

  I later reasoned.”  “But is eternity

time?  We think it with our eyes.

  You did awaken after all.

What, moveless, countless, lies

  beyond the clockworks of your soul?”

  * * *

“There is a charm in the taste of tea,

  which makes it seem an ideal form,

that in repetition reveals the

  charm of tea to be the taste of form.”

“Every day I tried to find

  one thing through which spirit

that was my heart or god or mind

  could speak and make me quiet.”

“Welcome, Blossom.  Pink petals—

  pale, pale—white, shrivel

around your spent stigma, settle

  into earth without a shovel.”

“Continuum is continuum—

  at each vanishing point exist

space thought time vacuum

  exhaled upon a single axis.”

“The sun a rock among the canyon

  faces, rapids deafening quiet;

tracklessly, I wade.  The hidden

  shadow trembles.  Swifts riot.”

“The breath left my body for the clock

  and held it stopped.  When wind and rust

dissolved the clock . . . and our deadlock,

  my breath inhaled the air and dust.”

“Sunshine floods the room and red

   birds flash across the window frame.

There is no ease in joy.  The dead

  relax.  The mind dances like flame.”

Note: This is two self-contained sections

from my long poem Voca Me (latin for "call me").

It is one of my "voices poems," in which

each stanza is spoken by a different

voice. More sections to follow.

Sestina: The Lake Michigan Shore

I stand knee deep in high waves

And wait for the darkening sky

To loose what it’s long held back,

A cataract of warm rain,

Like a proliferation of clear ideas

A mind no longer contained.

I read a book with no ideas,

A tangle of clouds in empty sky.

I couldn’t read it front to back

Or back to front. All it contained

Was words, single drops of rain

Or particles that were also waves.

The smallest moth is contained

In a cluster of dusty ideas

Within the vastness of the sky.

It clings to rotten wood, its back

As camouflaged as water in waves.

It is not moved by the fiercest rain.

The lake is high after endless rain,

An excess of lightning finally contained. 

The sun sweetly burns my back

Until it slips into a rift in the sky.

I find relief diving — the waves

Drown me with persistent ideas.

The sun slowly escapes the sky

Into the horizon, earth-shadow-contained.

Still air can’t raise a single wave

Or loose even one drop of rain.

All I see is the cessation of ideas.

For the night there’s no turning back.

I’ve known myself to talk to sky,

To write incessantly in rain,

And all I’ve said eschews ideas.

On my last day here I turned back

From the lake with waves

Of farewell, memory contained.

At home, the sky is bereft of ideas,

As the garden is of rain. It’s good to be back,

The lake contained but for dreaming waves.

Beyond, Sonnet #618

There is so little that is right here,

I might suspect there’s nothing more.

Everything grows within the sphere

Of my eye — ocean crashing shore.

What’s far is near, what’s then is now,

Eating a pear is taking a vow.

Can I leave it at that, the I

Looking through the window at trees,

And nail thunderclouds to the sky

With a hundred thousand me’s?

Ego was never so rewarded

Choosing to lose what it’s hoarded.

Some say there is nothing beyond,

Ignoring our interstitial bond.

Villanelle

The moment passed and I forget

The reason why or what I meant

In the exact instant I let

It go like a blank letter sent

To someone I don’t remember.

Even Now is an old event,

Both a flaming and an ember.

To hold, even touch, is to burn

Like September in December.

It takes but a second to learn,

What no-one else will ever know,

That all I am will soon return

If I stand not still but think slow,

Say nothing, and as if asleep,

Allow myself to come and go.

Instead, I cannot help but leap

Ahead to what’s to come and let

My self reach for what it can’t keep,

Moments I already forget.

Eclipse

We stood on the porch at midday

Under a canopy of leaves

As the light slowly dimmed to grey

And the air dropped ten degrees.

The wind picked up, the only sound —

The birds silenced by some command.

No shadows fell upon the ground.

For now the future had been banned.

Find

Mind can’t make up its mind,

Nor the wind-up clock wind,

Nor the found object find.

All comes back on its selves,

Books returned to bookshelves.

As no star eternally burns,

We find all we will learn —

We’re just one eternal return.

One Word

There is one word that stands

Alone from all if’s and and’s,

Which has no face or hands,

Which, like a glistening bubble,

Floats above the verbal rubble,

Floats too high to be obscene,

Moving moveless and serene.

The word has never been spoken

Past teeth perfect or broken.

No tongue has been known to shape it,

Or fools’ babble to leak it or ape it.

Desperation, fear, or hatred’s keening

Can summon the word’s meaning,

But not the name of the word.

“There's no such thing! That’s absurd!”

Men cry — not quite saying the word.

Magpie

A man shot a magpie on the wing.

It fell with a broken wing.

The nock snapped the bow’s string.

The man gave the bird to a priest,

Who nursed it to be released,

Then decided to keep it in a cage.

To release its gale force outrage,

The priest split the magpie’s tongue,

Expecting to hear a terrible song.

Instead he heard nothing but words,

The speech of Man, not birds:

His own prayers and curses,

And profaned Biblical verses.

The altar boys taught the magpie

To ask of everyone, “Why

Weren’t you shot from the sky?”

Bang!, Terzata #43

I slept as the doorbell rang.

When I rose they were gone.

A sweet earworm sang and sang.

Was it really no one?

The day raced by as days will,

A bullet from a rubber gun

With only duration to kill.

If I can’t remember dreams,

What I forget of life are dreams until

Remembered (when they seem

Like hammers and bangs).

But most often they gleam

Afar — frozen gilded boomerangs.

What We Know, Terzata #42

There were a thousand crows

Asleep in their rookery

Before the winter sun rose.

I rise with them, insomniac weary,

And pour into the hollow

Of my brain the blustery

Anticipations to follow,

What I must and cannot do,

And what time will allow.  

One crow caws. I answer “You!

Think you!” as though he knows

The universe might offer a clue.

As he staggers away, it snows. 

Heights, Terzata #35

Afraid of heights, I climbed a tower

Made of steel and wooden stairs.

At the top I watched clouds cower

From the sun. I whistled ancient airs

As I teetered on a platform

And vultures flew by in pairs.

I existed in the eye of a storm

With no lightning, wind, or rain

Blasting my human form.

I refused to celebrate the pain

That grew inside me on the hour.

I saw myself look down again —

Fall like a meteor shower.