A new thing

No

No alcohol but alcohol I imbibe

Yay

Give it to me Dewars

Give it to me Jamison’s

I insist

It’s been it’s been it’s been

It’s been it’s been it’s been

Too long my scotch Irish friend

Let my blood dissolve

And allow me this

To become a moment forgot

And then we can dance

To Kate to Kate to Kate

Whose short life changes all

All

All

The Awl

That popped my heart

I sleep long nights and hope to wake

Surprised

That life has woken

To me for a long night begins

And then ends

Sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep

And then wake

To see the night drench the branch

Of the tree

That dwells in me

Like a family

Ah ha haaaa! Ahhhh!

Yes we do fa fa ma ma Lee

Do you hear the sax begin

And so we draw down the sketch

That might be left

By you

Dare Me

Dare me
Landscape to make me feel.
And so disciplined find words
I can assemble into meaning
For my own eyes to construct
On lines in my head before their
Dissembling to move back into my own heart.

I need my heart to step up its efforts with words’ unmasking.
So, I ask, for landscape
To keep me on the hook, even in winter

When barren domains wipe me out…
My lower vertebrae with its broken wings
After too many falls and now
another
From
Tumbling
Backward
Over a snow bank
Saving my walking friend, the dog,
From the skid steer departing my now plowed drive.

Thumbs up exchanged fleet.
The ache, the slow arising of it,
The spasming reminder of life,
Lingers.

I collect my books, Rilke and Milosz and Szymborska and Sze, to serve me.

And so, Czeslaw has, his first, Artificer, from Poemat o czasie zastygłym in New and Collected (1931-2001)

“This is the only landscape able to make him feel.”

The ache, the slow arising of it,
The spasming reminder of life
Finds its construction in my mind
And begins dissembling to find my heart
Where unmasked, the ache
Becomes poetry Landscape
Demanded from me, a stern teacher
That refuses to let me give up.

It’s punishment would be so cold, my breath’d be stolen.

A reason I look for

A reason I look for
The dog needs a walk
The horse, hay, ducks,
Chickens their feed.
Each creature has its
Cry – I hear them each
Over mine. The boy’s
So deeply hidden his
Mother cannot break
Glass to interrupt his
silence. That boy
Hears from the keys
A melody that might
Draw him out into
The open if the fear
Weren’t so heavy.
A reason I look for
The dog needs a walk
The horse, hay, ducks
Chickens make their
Noise and I listen for
This creature’s cry

Rilke returns…

They become like flies, these memories
So hard to grasp they annoy.
The color of them fading into a grey
Like black and white starkly melting
Into one another. I want to catch
One, two, a handful and add them
Like juniper to the alcohol I distill
In hope of adding a unique flavor
To the drink I toast this day with.

We are not meant to preserve them,
Those memories – they are meant to pass
Into ether and into the blissful mess
That we endeavor to hold on to like
That child; that child who has no idea
How fast it will all go by once it picks
Up momentum. I want to slow it all
down, to raise my glass and toast
This day as never again it will be.

On a Hill in Wales, Father and Son

1.

To the beginning son, go back with me:
Remember how I stood beside you when…

No, you only remember my absence.

Here we return with precision, an arrow
Fired by the great Tell who reveals us.
The apple on our heads, the gift of Eve
Who saw in us the beginning of Love.


2.

On a hill in Wales, my Father enters me
Not with punishment, but his sadness.
Filled with a beauty that consumes me:
Simple sheep graze on green grass on hills, 
Too many verdant hues to name. The blue sky
Feels like compassion and hosts metamorphs: 
Clouds, lurking innocent children of beasts 
Whose anger gave us this green, these sheep.
Gave us wool that warms us in winter.
Gave us mutton that fills our hunger.
Beauty - these gifts represent - enters
Me like my Father returning to the land 
Of his own. “Get on your knees, son, sorrow,
You must feel it now.  These gifts given you 
Lie in waste like blood in scaled veins. Look up!
Through tears, I’ll show you once again!  
I will humble you and you will know Love. 
With it, do good like storm begets spirit. 
Rise up, face the life I called you to live.”

3.

I got off my knees and climbed the mountain
To toss the precious that ruled like a curse
Masking my Soul, invisible to me,
Led me to the river to steal fish
From mouths needing food,
Kill those whose only crime:
The place of their birth.
I became a Monster…

A monster does not know it exists
Until the mirror reveals beyond blush,
Through the mascara of a mask painted 
In green rooms of youth, smudged 
By tears on life’s stage.
Now, the Father, who returns to me, 
Kneeling in supplication, 
Yells:

“Get up! Climb, son, climb. Go find the path
To treasure granted by breath that fills lungs,
Breathe out songs only one Soul will echo,
Love that will be the melody of Life.”

The Fire Wanted

Son, climb that mountain again to hear what you missed.
At the summit, close your eyes this time and feel the wind
As it swirls around your soul, a tornado screaming words
Like a lover’s voice picking up what you discarded, a fire
That always wanted you now lights up the sun in winter.

Son, 
Climb that mountain
Again.

Son,
You can’t stay here,
Broken.

Son, 
Climb that mountain
Again

And 

Again.

Deserts will retreat from the flowers that you grow.
See what you missed, that smile of a child’s dream
At the summit, close your eyes and hear his laughter,
Like a lover's voice that has found the gaps to fill. 
The fire you wanted now holds up the sun in winter.  

Now that Light

Has moved to shine on others’ hemispheres 
I look into night
Seeing the ghosts that sneak a look
At me from behind trees
Like a radiant glow you cannot miss.
I see them
But they don’t know that I do.

The dog hops and jumps in excitement 
Eager to meet a new soul.
I have to tell him no and stop
Knowing as I do that the ghosts
Neither want nor can be met
They must hover above the mist,
Float on twilight’s fog.

This, okay as it is, just is what it is
I don’t know their reality, these specters.
I suspect forgotten parts of me
Hover and float and glow behind trees
Elsewhere, but if so, my ego needs
Not their observations.  I just hope

My ghosts, like those I have found 
Looking into night, 
Watch over them with benevolence 
Knowing how hard I tried
Knowing that I still walk
Through the gentle shadows
Knowing in them are not the fears
As a child I once thought 

Window‘s Open

Transitional seasons
Are those
The windows can be left open
To let air in,
The cool enough, warm enough air,
Air that carries the sounds of night:
Crickets, croaks, coons and coyotes.

Coyotes: like packs of spooky ghosts,
Traveling fast through the shadows of…
Of Landscape that has lost its definition,
Wake me at 2:30 to the thoughts
The air has also brought in to my
Mind’s disarray, losing its definition. 

I feel forgotten, or, worse, erased. 

I want to jump out my window
Join the pack wandering below
The moonless sky, only stars:
Those we always see, and those
We only see when the brightness
Of other things finally dims so we
Can make out their presence, 
Remembering their part in the
Constellations as important to the
Myths told to children as lessons
Of how to live. Don’t erase them.
Don’t let these stories be faded
From our night’s sky’s
Luminescence.  I dare say, these
Windows, opened, let air carry in-
To the empty space inside, proof:

Invisible things exist, diserased. 

A journey readying

A journey readying

Wondering

Wondering

On my knees, my heart releases

The weight holding under every beat

Like a man grasping for breath

In an ocean miles from land,

His ship

Sunk.

On my knees, my heart releases

The shout It held within every beat

Like a child Waiting to scream

at ghosts and beasts

Hiding under every dark corner, unturned.

On my knees I lift my eyes and see

Trees green again,

trees, green, again.

I made it.

Through this wintered disease

That was a plague on my heart,

That was a weight and a scream

That was all the monsters I thrust

Behind boxed memories closeted.

I made it.

And I shout.

I made it.

And I shout!

I MADE IT.

And on my knees,

I finally weep the weeping

Held back for so long.

I made it.