Winter Wind World

Bitterly,
Bruising, fighting, angry
Cold
Doesn't like my skin or maybe it's just damned indifferent

Lord knows I've played the victim oh so well
Lord knows I've laid the victim oh so many times
Singe singing times

Cofee's cold
Cup don't insulate
Against this battered plate
Ice flying like fragile dishes
Landing like shattered wishes

Open ears been boxed
to numbness
Reticent to touch
They will suffer in silence

Singe-singing times

Walking Psalm for Advent

He walks through walls
 walks through Uganda
He walks through Juan
he walks through, opening doors of tragic, breathless spaces

learning there may be scars where the magic

takes place

He walks through the veteran
 undone again
by her favorite plot and mulligan

The spousal abused

 , being confused,

keeps running back with open arms
to those fists who rebuked and refused

But, he walks through

with hands with holes where the palms should be

skin closing in on again and ripped out

by brokenness

Lonely Man, pietrozuco via flickr.

Lonely

man's got a million, you've

got a thousand, I'm

lucky if i could hold on to a hundred for more than a week

But then Rafta
he makes eight dollars a week, hardly any more
and owes nine to the company for room and board

Jesus,

he walks through the empire of America

knowing full well the cost of Liberia

hearing the justifications of every reporter, politician, broker and philosopher

and
the names and the scars and the hairs of every bloodied head in Kandahar

Thoughts for a lazy Sunday: If for a meme

From Gabriel Garcia Marquez, via old blogging friend and current fb friend Alisa:

If for a moment God would forget that I am a rag doll and give me a scrap of life, possibly I would not say everything that I think, but I would definitely think everything that I say.

I would value things not for how much they are worth but rather for what they mean.

I would sleep little, dream more. I know that for each minute that we close our eyes we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when the others loiter; I would awaken when the others sleep.

I would listen when the others speak, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream.

If God would bestow on me a scrap of life, I would dress simply, I would throw myself flat under the sun, exposing not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hatred on ice and wait for the sun to come out. With a dream of Van Gogh I would paint on the stars a poem by Benedetti, and a song by Serrat would be my serenade to the moon.

With my tears I would water the roses, to feel the pain of their thorns and the incarnated kiss of their petals...My God, if I only had a scrap of life...

I wouldn't let a single day go by without saying to people I love, that I love them.

I would convince each woman or man that they are my favourites and I would live in love with love.

I would prove to the men how mistaken they are in thinking that they no longer fall in love when they grow old--not knowing that they grow old when they stop falling in love. To a child I would give wings, but I would let him learn how to fly by himself. To the old I would teach that death comes not with old age but with forgetting. I have learned so much from you men....

I have learned that everybody wants to live at the top of the mountain without realizing that true happiness lies in the way we climb the slope.

I have learned that when a newborn first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has caught him forever.

I have learned that a man only has the right to look down on another man when it is to help him to stand up. I have learned so many things from you, but in the end most of it will be no use because when they put me inside that suitcase, unfortunately I will be dying.

In a sense, although I know that these sound a bit graduation-ceremony-y for me, they still resonate; there's something fundamentally true about them. Even (particularly) these lines: "Everybody wants to live at the top of the mountain without realizing that true happiness lies in the way we climb the slope," and, "I would awaken when the others sleep."

Does this piece strike you as well? What are your impressions?

From the Coffee House performances to your door!

I performed three poems the other night. I kept meaning to post them for posteriorz. Here they are, two links to older poems and the one new, but still incomplete one.

One Day We Shall All Be Free
(This was written a few years ago. Not autobiographical - fortunately - but based on the lives of some kids I was working with. I really try to perform this as a nervous ferocious pent-up, pent-in man. But I forgot most of the text and had trouble not being blinded by the light. It was a bad reading... But people were very generous to me, regardless.)

Mom, I NEED My Two Dollars
(Title partially inspired by classic teen rom-com. Poem inspired by summers and youth and, well, mine. And maybe, just maybe, a little William Carlos William. I like this poem and thought it'd be interesting to read this one. It's short, very short. But a lot of round and open sounds. Quite the opposite from the ferocity of the previous read work. Not intentionally, but now that I think of it, pretty cool...)

And finally... I introduced this poem by noting that I was born right in the middle of the 70's. It's kind of cheap, but so are pop culture and collective memories...

I Got More Than a Feeling

I got more than a feeling

less than excited

I jump right in

upside down dancin' on the ceiling

tonight i'm reeling

reverting back to my childhood

as if i'm sleepin' at grandma's with the old grandpa clock

always feelin' that somebody's watching me

I was passing by these glory days in the
heat of the moment and they asked,
Isn't she lovely? I smiled, stalled, looked past, head-jerk

Born on the bayou, loved by few, she broke on through
it was love wrapped her in its arms
and told me to carry on, carry on, wayward son

Don't bring me down now,

down all the way down to the funk side of town
I heard she wanted to be in, wanted to see them

little pink houses

but never expected to run the interstate down nobody's front lawn

being born on the bayou

she knew she knew better

it's saturday night, not too late for fightin''cause

we don't stop believing
don't stop believing

and i applaud, we love loud

talkin' bout our generation

city, world, state, nation

raise your glass, Lo-lo-la-Lola

drinking this all my coca-ca-ca cola

sometimes when we touch, the honesty's too much...

John Donne had some of these in his closet

Clearing through my mega-mess today and just found this throw-away poem from my latter undergrad days. Just a lark, I'm sure.

It's 7 in the mornin'
the sun come thru, it's warmin'
my head - roll outta bed
grab my dashiki
ain't got no time for eatin'
my cornflakes
i was late - in such a hurry
news caught me in a blurry
from a time last night
and my girlfriend cried
my brothers laughed
my mama almost had a heart attack
"Oh my,
I'm sorry mom"
what i guess i failed to mention
and i promise 'twas no intention
me and my dashiki
went out streakin'

The Waste Land, the Seriel, pt. 3

Unreal City,	60
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.	65
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying 'Stetson!
'You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!	70
'That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
'Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
'Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
'Oh keep the Dog far hence, that's friend to men,
'Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!	75
'You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!'
II. A GAME OF CHESS THE Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out	80
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;	85
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended	90
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,	95
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale	100
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms	105
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.	110

The Light Above Cities

The following poem, written by Jay Leeming and found in his book Dynamite on a China Plate: Poems, is stolen from Garrison Keillor's The Writer's Almanac public radio broadcast. Hat tip to Jeffrey Overstreet.

The Light Above Cities

Sitting in darkness,
I see how the light of the city
fills the clouds, rosewater light
poured into the sky
like the single body we are. It is the sum
of a million lives; a man drinking beer
beneath a light bulb, a dancer spinning
in a fluorescent room, a girl reading a book
beneath a lamp.

Yet there are others — astronomers,
thieves, lovers — whose work is only done
in darkness. Sometimes
I don't want to show these poems
to anyone, sometimes
I want to remain hidden, deep in the coals
with the one who pulls the stars
through a telescope's glass, the one who listens
for the click of the lock, the one
who kisses softly a woman's eyes.

Eliot's 'The Waste Land' - a Seriel, pt. 2

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,	20
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,	25
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.	30
Frisch weht der Wind
Der Heimat zu.
Mein Irisch Kind,
Wo weilest du?
'You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;	35
'They called me the hyacinth girl.'
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,	40
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Od' und leer das Meer.
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,	45
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.	50
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.	55
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Eliot's 'The Waste Land' - a seriel

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965). The Waste Land. 1922.

The Waste Land

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering	5
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,	10
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,	15
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Both Starbucks and I Needed to Get Our Priorities Straight

The coffee is still bitter

And so am I

Love - VI

If you were coming in the fall,
I'd brush the summer by
With half a smile and half a spurn,
As housewives do a fly

If I could see you in a year,
I'd wind the months in balls,
And put them each in separate drawers,
Until their time befalls.

If only centuries delayed,
I'd count them on my hand,
Subtracting till my fingers dropped
Into Van Diemen's land.

If certain, when this life was out,
That yours and mine should be,
I'd toss it yonder like a rind,
And taste eternity.

But now, all ignorant of the length
Of time's uncertain wing,
It goads me, like the goblin bee,
That will not state its sting.

- by Emily Dickinson

cooties

things i can't understand
freeness, newness, ampersand
the way of a woman with a man

the way she touches the hands,
the sweat glands pool and
puruse fingertips to tend the land

finds merely solely the chasm
warm undue, damp too fast
rome's raided, sword in hand

Heard about Heard? (hyuck-hyuck)

Finally getting around to listening to Sufjan Stevens' Illinois (Also known as Come on Feel the Illinoise - yep, a pun, and being a native Illinoisian, a bad one. Please, people, don't pronounce the 's.') Lovin' it. My man Adam has a... I don't know what you'd call it. Maybe you could call it a post. Anyway's he wrote a post on Monday where he reveals that he's been listening to too much folk-rock.

Gross...I fell headlong into folk rock...been listening to a lot of keaton simmons and denison witmer and Over The Rhine and Nick Drake and Sufjan Stevens <---his voice grates my nerves in large doses...

I kid you not. The night previous to this, I put in the order for some old Over the Rhine and new Stevens and Witmer. I also got Mark Heard and Bill Mallonee (not the Godfather of Bluegrass, but the man behind the Vigilantes of Love). I'm somewhat responsible for getting him on this trip. It's a good break from his sola rapa christiana dogma. I plan on getting some Bowie next (why I don't have anything from him yet boggles my mind). But then maybe Nick Drake won't be such a bad idea. Simmons, though? Too many weird Simmonses out there for my taste.

I'm spinning Sufjan's stuff for the first time. I'm liking it a lot. Even the voice. Maybe I'll give some short reviews later, after they've soaked in. (I don't have quite the demand others do for Cross Movement reviews, so I have to create the demand first, right?)

But I do want to speak of Heard's poetic lines, since I am familiar with those. They certainly put me to shame. Mark Heard died thirteen years ago. He was an engineer, producer, musician, thinker, artist, writer-extraordinaire and pretty darn funny. On Satellite Sky he had the privilege of working alongside David Raven (of the Swirling Eddies), Michael Been (the leader of The Call), Buddy Miller (Emmylou Harris' guitarist, and with wife Julie, right hand), and Sam Phillips (Singer-songwriter, T-Bone Burnett's ex-wife). Bruce Cockburn speaks indelibly high of him. But this is what I know. These dang, haunted lyrics.

There's an oasis in the heat of the day
There's a fire in the chill of night
A turnabout in circumstance makes each a hell in its own right
I been boxed in the lowlands, in the canyons that think
I been pushed to the precipice and dared not to blink...
Knock the scales from my eyes
Knock the words from my lungs
I want to cry out
It's on the tip of my tongue
(Tip of My Tongue)

I will rise from my bed with a question again
As I work to inherit the restless wind
The view from my window is cold and obscene
I want to touch what my eyes haven't seen
But they have packaged our virtue in cellulose dreams
And sold us the remnants 'til our pockets are clean
'Til our hopes fall 'round our feet like the dust of dead leaves and we end up looking like what we believe
We are soot-covered urchins running wild and unshod
We will always be remembered as the orphans of God
They will dig up these ruins and make flutes of our bones and blow a hymn to the orphans of God
(Orphans of God)

And, in case you think it's all sad-sack, Heard does recognize beauty-lost ("Long Way Down," which argues that the naked beauty of the world is "lies hidden on the teeming shores beneath the burned-out Chevrolets") and beauty-lived :

Scarlet is the color of her heart against the night
Prism of her innocence fracturing the light
She will take her stairwell down to dark and heartless streets
And spend her season singing songs to infidels and thieves
("Love Is So Blind")

Buy yourself a copy. Let's not bury this treasure. Send it sky-high.

Sorry this post wasn't funny either.
What's wrong with me??

False Sense

the second floor facade

pushed out forward,

like a box some kid, anxious,
kicked from his
Hoovertown fortress

while silhouettes always in back
and tableaux move back in progression

Where does movement become inert?

and the subject become a lesson?

what grabs us
pulls us to push?
what forces us
to forward thrust?
what relieves us
to lend us to trust?

-a special realm
an ingrained belief relief-

"It was self-defense...," he says, not quite sure if he cares that i don't or do believe.

"Not what they say...," voice trailing in and out like morphine.

"...It was self defense..."

explains


"...I was a soldier in 'Nam."

Civil

What our knowledge does for us
forcing us to rent space in the back of the bus
burying new skins in old soil of a naked nation
rent in two by reluctantly rising emancipation

Mileage in the shotgun
Revolving a cause to Become.
As old as a whore
as American as Ford's
Given all we could piece,
Nature, she wants more

Releasing the hounds
Civility in bonds,

on the run

raging, making less with itself
than we could live without
For we have been in need
of all sons living freed
- prized in sheols we dug too deep

Knowing nothing but the hope
it won't be this time
Immersion in mercy
bathed in rouge liquid life

Poemic updates

Just looking through some of my unfinished (and still to be finished) works from the last couple months. I'll post updates within the day. Actually, I'm a bit more pleased with a few of them than I thought originally. "cooties" in particular; I like the playfulness more than I realized. I also added titles and made some fairly small changes to a couple of other works. The first draft of "False Sense" could be read here and the second draft of "Civil" could be caught here.