The Oracle of Gordium
In the light of a common sun
There is notime for.
Time. There is no time for
Space. There is freedom
That springs from cages,
Chains, and shackles.
The floor we pace in shrinking
Circles is forever our floor;
Is never the same river.
"I do not recall the night
In which I broke my maidenhead"
[said sad Friia]
Her leaning head upon an arm
And the circumambulating mutt
Tethered to her ankle charm
asdjfalsdfwent and hung himself.
Idoidonot
Untie.
Will you wish
For me new star
To rule the tangled world.
October 2007
The Farm[ing]
She speaks to me,
In a way to me,
When the leaves have grown cold
When her vine has crawled up to my ears
And made of I a sign less wood than mold.
I am not old,
Old enough. To see a flow'ring
Garden gone to seed. To be an
Orchard throwing pollen to the breeze
The verbs hung swollen from her apple trees.
Mister mister wont you please
wet the fruit before they freeze
dfasldfjasldand spoil forever
oh but you are made of plastic
and can not look up.
She speaks to me,
Threadbare to me,
Worn so to keep out the cold
In these [my] mother's quilts I've wrapped myself
and found that i
and you were naked
plucking icicles that clung
to our lips and fingertips
October 2007
15 October 2007
17 September 2007
Well, look'ee here.
I know that I am now speaking to the void of cyberspace, but I'd like to apologise for not updating sooner. The thing is that I haven't had anything to update with. I laid poetry aside because I was actually content for a while. But, wouldn't you know, I get back to school and life gets all screwy again. Surprise. Well, enjoy.
in Chronological order, from most recent to oldest:
Through the stitched lampshade
I can see the end of my longings.
Cursed are my bones in a
Silent sort of way, laid end to
End; an edifice of pain
Frustration and futility.
A heavy tipping silo of grain
Spilling life into the sandy
Dirt. An empty testament to the
Ubiquity of dust, known to the few
Silent men who sold all their belongings
To chase an empty spoon, a full spade.
Across the faded pillow cover
With whispered words, my jaded lover
Will say to me--
Who cannot leave the lap of some
Melancholy mistress--"Come
Again to me."
The sparrows nest in broken twigs
And pulled out feathers, with no sprigs
Of green to break
The sense of brittle life. A single
Painted hair, my lover, shingles
The house we make.
September 2007
13 hours left
Until one and twenty. One out of twenty-one.
The bright lights have burnt out
To flickering distant bulbs
There is little to do now but wait
For the anniversary of my mother's pain
And my father's name.
I never thought I'd live this long.
Where there is life, there is death
Like the decaying corpse of a barn
With the bones sticking through
The brittle tin skin
And the baby chicks cluttered
Under a dropped eave.
Listen for it, and you may hear
The sounds of dropping stars
And hoof-thunder across the sky.
But that is an old roof, full of holes.
I used to imagine writing the longest
Word I could think of
In the smallest space I could find
With a feather. I didn't even have
Any ink.
But there is so much space now,
And I can't think of a damned thing.
I've walked along the skein for
So long now, rolled it carefully
Into a stained and obtuse ball.
But if I dropped it now, would it
Burn? The tale of many days
And nights there, knots
Here and anon where I paused
For a moment, bits of colour perhaps
When I could, but the lights have
All burnt out to flickering bulbs,
And who needs a mess of soiled
String?
Guess when
You and I walked to where the world was a scrap of newsprint
And you asked me for something sweet
As we stood and watched the earth die.
I gave you a stone.
You laughed at my wistfulness.
You and I lay amid the tufts of carpet in a room
And you asked for something useful
As the sun cut your face in two.
I gave you my hand.
You laughed at my courage
And placed it on your warm cheek.
We went among the vine-ruined crumbling stones
And you asked for something proper
As the worms dug through bone.
I gave you a touch.
You gasped at my irreverence.
Then you asked me for something true,
Where the past lay before us like a dead thing
Twisting into the sand--
I take a stone into my hands and press;
Water drips through my knuckles.
I push you before me into the parched land
And orchids spring up at every step.
We catch and knit the clouds into a thatch
To hang between the mountain-tops.
The winds blow arid over crossed staves
And the hut is home to only lizards.
Twin mounds of sand-frosted rocks
Grasp at the blowing tumbleweeds.
But I give you something true.
August/September 2007
in Chronological order, from most recent to oldest:
Pillow Talk
Through the stitched lampshade
I can see the end of my longings.
Cursed are my bones in a
Silent sort of way, laid end to
End; an edifice of pain
Frustration and futility.
A heavy tipping silo of grain
Spilling life into the sandy
Dirt. An empty testament to the
Ubiquity of dust, known to the few
Silent men who sold all their belongings
To chase an empty spoon, a full spade.
Across the faded pillow cover
With whispered words, my jaded lover
Will say to me--
Who cannot leave the lap of some
Melancholy mistress--"Come
Again to me."
The sparrows nest in broken twigs
And pulled out feathers, with no sprigs
Of green to break
The sense of brittle life. A single
Painted hair, my lover, shingles
The house we make.
September 2007
September 12
13 hours left
Until one and twenty. One out of twenty-one.
The bright lights have burnt out
To flickering distant bulbs
There is little to do now but wait
For the anniversary of my mother's pain
And my father's name.
I never thought I'd live this long.
Where there is life, there is death
Like the decaying corpse of a barn
With the bones sticking through
The brittle tin skin
And the baby chicks cluttered
Under a dropped eave.
Listen for it, and you may hear
The sounds of dropping stars
And hoof-thunder across the sky.
But that is an old roof, full of holes.
I used to imagine writing the longest
Word I could think of
In the smallest space I could find
With a feather. I didn't even have
Any ink.
But there is so much space now,
And I can't think of a damned thing.
I've walked along the skein for
So long now, rolled it carefully
Into a stained and obtuse ball.
But if I dropped it now, would it
Burn? The tale of many days
And nights there, knots
Here and anon where I paused
For a moment, bits of colour perhaps
When I could, but the lights have
All burnt out to flickering bulbs,
And who needs a mess of soiled
String?
Guess when
Requests
You and I walked to where the world was a scrap of newsprint
And you asked me for something sweet
As we stood and watched the earth die.
I gave you a stone.
You laughed at my wistfulness.
You and I lay amid the tufts of carpet in a room
And you asked for something useful
As the sun cut your face in two.
I gave you my hand.
You laughed at my courage
And placed it on your warm cheek.
We went among the vine-ruined crumbling stones
And you asked for something proper
As the worms dug through bone.
I gave you a touch.
You gasped at my irreverence.
Then you asked me for something true,
Where the past lay before us like a dead thing
Twisting into the sand--
I take a stone into my hands and press;
Water drips through my knuckles.
I push you before me into the parched land
And orchids spring up at every step.
We catch and knit the clouds into a thatch
To hang between the mountain-tops.
The winds blow arid over crossed staves
And the hut is home to only lizards.
Twin mounds of sand-frosted rocks
Grasp at the blowing tumbleweeds.
But I give you something true.
August/September 2007
The Final Days of Ben David
he bears in his pinions as the plain he o'erflies
Naked corpses: now he will sink.
-Voluspá
Naked corpses: now he will sink.
-Voluspá
The stars are out tonight
With eon-dead lingering light.
The road turns on beneath my shoes
And the drift is mine to lose.
The moon's a half-closed rheumy eye
Which I wander by
In and out of its sight
On this, my last night.
I left a dismantled Leyden jar
Upon a table, still charged--
A note for that smiling bone
As the past is never gone;
Hanged with the stars and swinging.
The scattered charge's electric singing
Robbed the celestial cage its fright
On this, my last night.
The grandeur of the broken spires,
Suffering's earthbound choir of lyres;
The stabled winds of gravity
Rocking the universal nativity,
Thrust the hanged god out his tree
Into a quicklime coffin to set the bones free.
My narrow fears take startled fright
Into this, my last night.
Blood worms and feasts for crows
Pungent shells the old wind blows
Dead leaves rattling across my feet
Towards the scythe and corpse-fed whear
The pal harvest thick
The throat laid bare at a razor's nick
The age-old earth writhes with blight
On this, my last night.
The leavings of the elder yew
Along the slow-felt turning of the screw--
Aging suspension which kept us warm--
Screwed us into our nascent form.
We blanch in the empty potency
That frames the shifting galaxy
And screams all we've been left is right
For this, my last night.
And for me, the blind seer
And for me, the deaf, willing ear
The old guy jabbering at a lamp-post
Flailing a net at the glowing ghost
That sits atop,
I can neither kneel nor sit nor stop,
The last to leave cannot douse the light
On this, my last night.
But the stars are out to-night
With eon-dead lingering light
Robbed of their ageless shadowed fright
Hung forever amid the night--
A chessboard black or a chessboard white--
Watch the distant shores ignite
Chewed my the moon-lashed ocean's spite
On this, my last.
June 2007
With eon-dead lingering light.
The road turns on beneath my shoes
And the drift is mine to lose.
The moon's a half-closed rheumy eye
Which I wander by
In and out of its sight
On this, my last night.
I left a dismantled Leyden jar
Upon a table, still charged--
A note for that smiling bone
As the past is never gone;
Hanged with the stars and swinging.
The scattered charge's electric singing
Robbed the celestial cage its fright
On this, my last night.
The grandeur of the broken spires,
Suffering's earthbound choir of lyres;
The stabled winds of gravity
Rocking the universal nativity,
Thrust the hanged god out his tree
Into a quicklime coffin to set the bones free.
My narrow fears take startled fright
Into this, my last night.
Blood worms and feasts for crows
Pungent shells the old wind blows
Dead leaves rattling across my feet
Towards the scythe and corpse-fed whear
The pal harvest thick
The throat laid bare at a razor's nick
The age-old earth writhes with blight
On this, my last night.
The leavings of the elder yew
Along the slow-felt turning of the screw--
Aging suspension which kept us warm--
Screwed us into our nascent form.
We blanch in the empty potency
That frames the shifting galaxy
And screams all we've been left is right
For this, my last night.
And for me, the blind seer
And for me, the deaf, willing ear
The old guy jabbering at a lamp-post
Flailing a net at the glowing ghost
That sits atop,
I can neither kneel nor sit nor stop,
The last to leave cannot douse the light
On this, my last night.
But the stars are out to-night
With eon-dead lingering light
Robbed of their ageless shadowed fright
Hung forever amid the night--
A chessboard black or a chessboard white--
Watch the distant shores ignite
Chewed my the moon-lashed ocean's spite
On this, my last.
June 2007
17 May 2007
Tut mir Leid, für die lange Verzögerung.
Here are the poems I have kept buried in my notebook. I hope you like them.
Music Box
A camphor rag
[Dance the dreaming dance
For the ever-coming dawn]
Laid across the forehead
Smell the sick--
The dead,
The living--
Cut off the swollen calloused foot
And the head will survive;
A bobbing cork adrift
Upon a placid sea.
"Leave your red padded shoes behind the door
Can't have muddy tracks across our floor.
We're all barefooted dancers here!"
Chained to the wall
Spinning like pulled tops
But I, we
A coyote from the steel-trap
Tooth marks on the dripping bone
Limping towards a still
Silent paradise.
O death,
How long thy fangs have grown
O grave,
Restless patience has become you
Beyond the buzzing fence
Pacing like jackals knowing,
While glutting itself within
The greater beast, on entrails.
-April 2007
Bananas, figs, and hothouse grapes
Grey worms, beside the red brick wall
Swept in heaps upon a sodden pyre,
No more to drown in earth
Only air, and death by water
Perhaps be ground into a sole
And wiped again onto the green, damp
Grass.
Flame does not catch--
Wet ash piled on rot-grey flesh--
Earth cannot consume--
A kinsman's hand against the pine--
But I still do not have the spine
To bear the weight of your support
As I watch the jhator of worms.
-April 2007
...now for something completely different!
Mother Earth [hehe]
A tree sprouted from fertile soil
May faster grow and wilder;
Sooner it will reach its limbs
Up and out to catch the sun--
Each varied ring surges upward
Further from the womb of earth
That kept it till it germ.
But for all its height and breadth and strength
A tree must draw its life up from the ground
And cannot leaf of anything
The earth has not supplied it.
A copse of pines upon a sandy hill
Will grow in anything. It shows.
Soft, white wood, fit perhaps for starting fires
But un-withstanding any wind
And simple drift of snow will snap them.
But an oak alone amidst a lovely clearing
With flowered ground to prop it up--
Dark and gnarled, but sound and solid through--
Can better suit the craftsman's hand
Or keep a quaking body warm and cheered
Throughout the dark and bitter night
Or stand amid the laughing waves of grass,
With leaves that whisper tempered joy,
That makes you itch to rise and walk among
Violets in the fragrant loam.
-for my mother, 13 May 2007
To a cross-eyed wife
I love your lips upon my cheek
Just left of my words
And the trailing smiles tat tango
Wild about your nose
Where others waltz in practised steps
To a dozy three-four plod.
Oh, do not wear those windows
That put up walls between us
And lay my poor words naked
Upon a single pallid sheet
Oh, do not wear those windows
And cut your blanketing heart
Where I have only one mouth to kiss,
You have two.
-April 2007
...don't ask. I don't know.
Music Box
A camphor rag
[Dance the dreaming dance
For the ever-coming dawn]
Laid across the forehead
Smell the sick--
The dead,
The living--
Cut off the swollen calloused foot
And the head will survive;
A bobbing cork adrift
Upon a placid sea.
"Leave your red padded shoes behind the door
Can't have muddy tracks across our floor.
We're all barefooted dancers here!"
Chained to the wall
Spinning like pulled tops
But I, we
A coyote from the steel-trap
Tooth marks on the dripping bone
Limping towards a still
Silent paradise.
O death,
How long thy fangs have grown
O grave,
Restless patience has become you
Beyond the buzzing fence
Pacing like jackals knowing,
While glutting itself within
The greater beast, on entrails.
-April 2007
Bananas, figs, and hothouse grapes
Grey worms, beside the red brick wall
Swept in heaps upon a sodden pyre,
No more to drown in earth
Only air, and death by water
Perhaps be ground into a sole
And wiped again onto the green, damp
Grass.
Flame does not catch--
Wet ash piled on rot-grey flesh--
Earth cannot consume--
A kinsman's hand against the pine--
But I still do not have the spine
To bear the weight of your support
As I watch the jhator of worms.
-April 2007
...now for something completely different!
Mother Earth [hehe]
A tree sprouted from fertile soil
May faster grow and wilder;
Sooner it will reach its limbs
Up and out to catch the sun--
Each varied ring surges upward
Further from the womb of earth
That kept it till it germ.
But for all its height and breadth and strength
A tree must draw its life up from the ground
And cannot leaf of anything
The earth has not supplied it.
A copse of pines upon a sandy hill
Will grow in anything. It shows.
Soft, white wood, fit perhaps for starting fires
But un-withstanding any wind
And simple drift of snow will snap them.
But an oak alone amidst a lovely clearing
With flowered ground to prop it up--
Dark and gnarled, but sound and solid through--
Can better suit the craftsman's hand
Or keep a quaking body warm and cheered
Throughout the dark and bitter night
Or stand amid the laughing waves of grass,
With leaves that whisper tempered joy,
That makes you itch to rise and walk among
Violets in the fragrant loam.
-for my mother, 13 May 2007
To a cross-eyed wife
I love your lips upon my cheek
Just left of my words
And the trailing smiles tat tango
Wild about your nose
Where others waltz in practised steps
To a dozy three-four plod.
Oh, do not wear those windows
That put up walls between us
And lay my poor words naked
Upon a single pallid sheet
Oh, do not wear those windows
And cut your blanketing heart
Where I have only one mouth to kiss,
You have two.
-April 2007
...don't ask. I don't know.
10 April 2007
Don't know what to name it
I live in the little bones
That grow from the tips of my fingers
And catch and tear away the veil
To reveal the blank wall beneath
I drag a stool across the floor
And sit as though at a window
No less One than the Other
Or more.
The light-bulb filament fizzes
And with a glass sound goes out,
But my view is not diminished.
Was there even ever any power
Jumping through the walls?
With my little finger-bones
I slowly chip away the legs
So that the slightest shift of weight
Would send me to the floor
But I sit still on that precipice
Watching the wall within my eyes
Or distant waiting in the dark
Hoping for a cataclysm
Utterly afraid to move.
10 April 2007
That grow from the tips of my fingers
And catch and tear away the veil
To reveal the blank wall beneath
I drag a stool across the floor
And sit as though at a window
No less One than the Other
Or more.
The light-bulb filament fizzes
And with a glass sound goes out,
But my view is not diminished.
Was there even ever any power
Jumping through the walls?
With my little finger-bones
I slowly chip away the legs
So that the slightest shift of weight
Would send me to the floor
But I sit still on that precipice
Watching the wall within my eyes
Or distant waiting in the dark
Hoping for a cataclysm
Utterly afraid to move.
10 April 2007
21 March 2007
Tonspielen, mit Entschuldigungen zu Lao Tzu und dem Untergrundenmann.
Dust and Essence
and watered the whole face of the ground.
-Genesis 2:6
[Formed earthen jars]
To Water we go,
[We drink and disintegrate]
Our songs of Water,
Sing to the apocalypse
Of dust.
Some from out of emptiness
A round hollow moan,
Some from holding until full,
Shrill, sharp sibilance.
The throaty gulp grows into
An empty air-sucking shriek,
As I am distended and drained,
Dilate and constrict.
Clods that shatter against stone walls
Or dig into the soil
Beneath us to become it
. . . .
[mud, from mud
Holding is— crack and shatter]
[water, to Water
Movement is—thinning the blood]
Cloddy arms, shrieking mouths,
“This is where the trumpet sounds...”
Wet earth, dirty Water
“That one’s dead, let’s try the other”
15 March 2007
She's back, if only briefly.
Bird at Night
I
The strangled cry of the night bird
And the footsteps of leaves in the air
A dot of sound in a voided sky
Where lights obscure smaller, greater lights
And over-saturate the eyes.
The solitary cry of the night bird
Like a canopy thrown over the dark
I know this bird but not the sound
I know this sound but not the bird
As each pins each upon the sky
There is a sea into which we
Throw out doubts to sound them out
To judge the splash
And measure the ripple
And despair that there is neither
II
I look down upon the sky
And see myself
A point reflected
I long to burst into flame
The air is cold and the shore is far,
I wonder what a falling stone feels,
To pass from sky to reflected sky
And look up upon the water
And see again the voided sky
Unblemished
I scream, I squawk a two-tone prayer
Fold and burn my feathered hands
But the wind is deaf and I am stranded.
I cannot see the shore.
O I wish, I wish
I wish I were a fish
III
I look out of empty pages
In the vast room laid with books
And ask, like the crab,
"Do I dare disturb the Universe"
The answer echoes:
"No.
Skipping stones is a game
For boys."
With the cry of the night bird
I am chased by the footsteps
To the sea,
And strangled, curse the calm sky.
10 March 2007
"Als das kind kind war..."
In-flammable
It is dark,
I am dark,
But darkness is not any thing,
It is simply the negation of light.
O this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
But I've neither the match nor the inclination,
Only the reservoir of oil.
I am a darkened lantern, or
Better, an unused one.
Fresh from the factory but left on a shelf
For some dark and primeval night
So that I can cast away the not-thing
And give direction to action.
The wick has hardened,
And the glass grown dusty,
All I do is emphasise the black
By showing what it is not.
What I am not.
Stick a searching finger into me
And you find it viscous and thick.
I leave only a residue
That is not easily wiped off.
Oil is only removed by oil,
But squeezed of a different thing.
A struck match does not inspire
A flashlight does not enhance
They only show what did not exist
Until ignited.
Don't let Satan blow it out.
If I only negate, then I am negated.
Who is to say which is preeminent?
Without light there is no dark, and
Without dark there is no light.
There are enough lit lanterns.
I am happy to sit on my shelf and not see
Not things.
27 February 07
...and for something a bit less dreary, and quite a bit better, I was surprised today to receive this from someone.
Violets In My Lawn
I have violets in my lawn
I didn't plant them there
I planted them years ago where they no longer grow
I used to scold them "stay where you belong"
But now I like them growing in my lawn
Like little surprises, little presents, little loves
I want to stoop and kiss them sweetly
-Paula Willis, March 07
It is dark,
I am dark,
But darkness is not any thing,
It is simply the negation of light.
O this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine
But I've neither the match nor the inclination,
Only the reservoir of oil.
I am a darkened lantern, or
Better, an unused one.
Fresh from the factory but left on a shelf
For some dark and primeval night
So that I can cast away the not-thing
And give direction to action.
The wick has hardened,
And the glass grown dusty,
All I do is emphasise the black
By showing what it is not.
What I am not.
Stick a searching finger into me
And you find it viscous and thick.
I leave only a residue
That is not easily wiped off.
Oil is only removed by oil,
But squeezed of a different thing.
A struck match does not inspire
A flashlight does not enhance
They only show what did not exist
Until ignited.
Don't let Satan blow it out.
If I only negate, then I am negated.
Who is to say which is preeminent?
Without light there is no dark, and
Without dark there is no light.
There are enough lit lanterns.
I am happy to sit on my shelf and not see
Not things.
27 February 07
...and for something a bit less dreary, and quite a bit better, I was surprised today to receive this from someone.
Violets In My Lawn
I have violets in my lawn
I didn't plant them there
I planted them years ago where they no longer grow
I used to scold them "stay where you belong"
But now I like them growing in my lawn
Like little surprises, little presents, little loves
I want to stoop and kiss them sweetly
-Paula Willis, March 07
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