nedful things

Poetry is a mystery to many people, some of whom do not enjoy or employ it in any way. Although many have to endure poetry for some period of time in literature classes, they would never seek it out.  Others find poetry on purpose.  How they view it may differ.

There are two ways to analyze poetry.  The first is by form - counting syllables, analyzing structure, meter, and rhyme scheme.  This method can be taught.  The second way is to analyze what a poem does, instead of the way it was made.  This method is the one that I myself employ.

There are two kinds of people: those who hate poetry, and those who write it. It seems nearly universally true that if someone enjoys poetry, they have attempted the writing of it at least once in their lives. Although not all of those in the second category will be in the running for poet laureate, at least there is something about the art of poetry that speaks to them. Those in the first category will learn what a teacher or professor tells them the poem is about and remember it long enough to pass the test or write the essay.  Those in the second group will remember the images and emotions evoked by the words so artfully crafted to reach into their hearts and minds.

A poet, with an economical use of words, chooses only those which may best strike at the innermost part of his readers.   He writes for himself always, because to render beauty, love, hatred or despair, he must first feel it.  His words must touch the humanity we all share, or it cannot be art.

A poet does not lay his words out haphazardly, even though it may appear that way. ee cummings often left words seemingly hanging in mid-air, attached to nothing, when in fact they were the anchor of his meaning. To analyze poetry one must approach it with the willingness to see words employed in unexpected ways.  ee cummings, by shunning capitals and using punctuation to achieve his own ends instead of in accepted ways, revolutionized modern poetry. Consider how much less effective this ee cummings poem would be without the impact of his strategic word placement.

                 i have found what you are like

        i have found what you are like
        the rain,

                (Who feathers frightened fields
        with the superior dust-of-sleep. wields

        easily the pale club of the wind
        and swirled justly souls of flower strike

        the air in utterable coolness

        deeds of green thrilling light
                                      with thinned

        newfragile yellows

                          lurch and.press

        -in the woods
                     which
                          stutter
                                 and

                                    sing

        And the coolness of your smile is
        stirringofbirds between my arms;but
        i should rather than anything
        have(almost when hugeness will shut
        quietly)almost,
                       your kiss

When analyzing poetry, allow the words to create their illusions, paint their pictures and stir the emotions.  There will be phrases, small bits and lines that attach themselves to your heart and reverberate within you.  If the poem does none of that, it is not for you.  Then you can count syllables, analyze structure, meter and rhyme. Those things are important too.

Young love should come when you are old
Enthusiasm has no time to fade, For-
ever is so much nearer
The heart beats out each moment
Seeking to prevent its passing
Yet can only trace with a finger
Time's signature etched in a beloved's face

Young love should come when you are old
When you own your soul, only
then can it be given
When masks of youth no longer worn
Lie discarded and youth is un-
Masked as a liar, then Beauty
is not Love, but Love, Beauty

Young love should come when you are old
Welcomed as an unexpected gift, Joy-
Full and of mysterious origin
For love is expected when we are young
opened and examined with critical eye
Replaced when it is no longer stylish
Or clashes with(in) the bed linen

Youth claims love unbending, yet
Wavers with a word, withers
Unless constantly attended

Young love should come when you are old
It glimpses perfection in time-
less essences of the soul
Clings faster to the prize
It never thought to hold
Each day a precious memory
It may never have leisure to recall

Easy Writer had an announcement on her blog that was two-fold.  It was her birthday but she seemed more excited about the news that caves have been found on Mars.  Scientists have long anticipated finding caves on Mars, lava tubes formed by volcanoes, in which they might set up future human outposts on the red planet.  EasyWriter asked for poems for her birthday and so I wrote this one, contemplating the possibilities.  I hope she won't mind if I post it here as well - after all, a post is a post.

Artifacts

Deep within ochre walls,
A chasm of darkness.
Until that same light
That rouses sleeping Earth,
Slides neatly
Through ancient doorways,
Grazes the icy blanket
That once cooled forgotten fires
Where molten rivers flowed.

This is no Lascaux.
No artist lived to scrawl
His existence into the walls
of this desolate womb.
No figures play or die
across the surface of this hollow.
No scribe of antiquity
bequeathed sagacious scrolls.

In this cavernous outpost
Deep within foreign walls,
These new primitives are
Roused by the light as it
Slips into ancient cavities.
Their machines hum and whisper,
Their language a strange music
That echoes in the emptiness.
Their artifacts will wait,
For explorers yet distant.

Learning to breathe                                                                              
                          unnecessary                                             
it's
unconsidered, unstudied
yet measured precisely
its rise
           and fall
a predetermined sentence.
A blue insolence
puffs a cheek
shakes a head
to refuse
but a mocking gasp
cries out the deceit of will
calls me a liar


Objections not withstanding
                                          unheeded
this
unsecured, unruly
life, insists on its course
to rise  
              and fall
and though I deny it
The strong percussion
twixt collar and breastbone
resonates  within
A taut skin
played with skillful finger.
Sings like the confession
of one accused.

Sawing through layers of sleep
the unanswered buzz
drones on
dispelling weightlessness
with the gravity of morning
Dessicated joints creak
as limbs sway with uncertainty
a hand
slaps down the call
A body at rest
Tends to stay at rest
Enclosed again in darkness
Legs, now motionless
May once again run freely

I sat on the railing
just under the porch edge
A silver sheet
streamed
like a shimmering curtain
to my stage.
And I, behind it,
awaited my cue.
In the distance grew
a growling tympany,
stirring the audience
with a drumroll,
throwing its voice
east
to west.
I accepted the introduction and
stepped forth.
The shuttered sky
opened into light,
as I stood
soaking in
the thunderous ovation.

We gathered
chairs encircled
defensively against grief
quietly fingering memories
as the album changed hands
Your hands changed now
to those that can no longer
hold me
I saw you with your mother
and the circle of mothers' days
and daughters

l heard you
in knowing narrative
of younger and youngest
Voices that sang with love
Voices that broke with pain
Held together by shared stories
of teas in the garden
The dress your mother made
that you straight off
(to adorn your new straw hat)
tore that first wearing
climbing the grape arbor
( you plucked an early flower that
tantalized you from a neighbor's fence)

"One year on Mother's Day"
I excitedly burst in
"I planted flowers for her
 along the walk"

Today we left you in flowers
each dropped a peach of a rose
upon the sheen of mahogany
and each turned to another
bonded firmly to family
formerly distant
now drawn together
We gathered
our chairs encircled
passing memories
each to another
in the circle of
Mothers' days

**This poem was written as a submission for a poetry contest last Mother's Day.  It won first prize**

Of what use then are hands untouching? Yet
Ready with reverent fingers they long
To hold the outline of a face,  and with
Gentlest touch trace the lines there drawn
  Join its story of joy and sorrow
  And write a name on its tomorrow.

Of what use then are eyes unseeing? Which
Beholding not the image of desire
Instead through a shadowed view envision
That vessel which holds the means of fire
  The lessons of a heart engulfed they learn
  The cause of its flame and its call to burn

Of what use then are these things to love? That
Fitfully tosses dreams and walks the floor
In anguish it calls its beloved's name
In hope waits for a hand upon the door
  Refusing the emptiness of its bed
  Seeks now only a place to lay its head

While pretzeled in a chair with
cummings you came to me,
you do that (constantly)
you sneak up on my mind
and disguise yourself as an idea

again

(as if it were yours) wrap-
ped yourself around my wandering
so that I was always ahead
or behind you in thoughts

(and were they yours or mine?
it gets so confusing when we're this way)

together

it was ee with a limb tucked under
and just when I (having calculated
that my life had only average
expectations) was as numb as
my leg was becoming

I'm all pins and needles

again

Unfamiliar territory

in the dark
The trees gesture
with blackened fingers
but reveal no secrets
The night conceals
clues of my path
Swallows corners
making speed my dare

Alone

yet over the crest
two red eyes
speed into the distance
under this prophetic sky
Spattered with stars
forming some new constellation

Divined

It looks like tomorrow
until the tiny star that anchors it
flashes red and green
and flies south to land
Eyes in the distance
Speeding under the sky
Tomorrow still

Unfamiliar territory

I tried to write a Valentine's Day poem but I couldn't decide on a theme - should it be funny? romantic? historical? or perhaps, should I just write about the proliferation of pudgy, winged children with arrows and explore the possibility that this is a mutation brought about by environmental pollutants?  After a time spent in the eye-straining pink and red card stores, I finally ended up with this:


I searched the aisles and the rows
of hearts and flowers and pretty prose
For words that said just what I meant
amongst the Hallmark sentiments
There were I "heart" you's everywhere
But does that say I really care?
When a bumper sticker thinks it's grand
To proclaim to "heart" the high school band
And those that "heart" horses and quilting bees
Make the heart's song a wilting wheeze
I needed a card that says that I comprehend
how rarely an acquaintance becomes my friend
When finally I spied just the right emotion:
"Congratulations on your promotion!"

Then while searching through my document files, I ran across this unfinished thing:

Do you see?
I have painted the room in sun-
washed colors, red and gold
I have made your bed
in tranquil tones
I have bathed you in moonlight
and lain beside you  
I pulled the petals from the single rose
and made a halo on your pillow

Which reminded me of one of my favorite poems by Christopher Marlowe:

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

So, there you have a hodgepodge of Valentines, and you can choose from them.

I think I will just go eat some chocolate-covered cherries and wait for a real holiday, like National Quilting Bee Day or something.

Here do we sit
Here do we speak
of the life flowing on
outside these walls
Here does the ocean
come up to meet us
without a trace
of the world on the other side

Here do we speak
of dreams never dreamed
in this timeless prison
but remembered as restless nights
Here do we hold each other's
souls in our hands
and comfort them
soothing our spirits
and resting our minds

Child of the ocean
            I am

feet shod in swirls of
green weed and sand

My spirit rises and falls
to its rhythm
bows in sympathy
with the trees that bend
to the ocean wind

My footsteps

capture a wave
foamy sea pools
in this impression of me
until another rush is made to reclaim it

We have no peace in us today
            the sea and I
 
The gulls bicker
over candy wrappers
and brittle crab shells
the cracked remains
long empty

I echo their unsatisfied cries

I launch my soul in a bottle
with a grain of salt
and a grain of sand

My wheels spin away from new constructions,
Mansion monstrosities planted amongst
the dots of settled two-storied dwellings.
Where stony-faced lions guard the gated way.
No tresspassing foot treads landscaped nature,
These slide into the distance as the road
now is carved around the watchful trees;
suspiciously eyeing the intruders,
limbs reaching out, mournful they stand alone.

The road runs through the years, past the fields stripped
bare of corn.  The spent soil turned over and
caressed by dew to deep brown, a carpet
of jeweled patterns in red and gold
those gifts of autumn bequeathed by the trees.
The road twists and turns, the crests rise and fall
into other worlds I dare to traverse.

A portent in the early morning mist;
It gathers like a cloud that fell from grace
Hangs low and points into the distance
long and thin like an accusing finger
at this incongruous abandonment.
Along a neat row of the disconnected
discarded,dark screens line up for a show.
They dot the edges of the lonely road.
Air conditioners though lying broken,
still have power to change the atmosphere.

No wonder the trees watch through knotted eyes.
There is no escape from this creature, man.
Between two poles a tattered net stretches
like some ancient ruin of a clothesline.
And at the edge of the now missing crop
stands a chair, empty.  Perhaps it is held,
waiting for the invisible scarecrow,
The shadow image of the intruder.

It was an early snow,
soft spun cotton
in the nostrils.
It descended upon things
still alive,
tried to smother
their last breaths.
The limbs still hung
heavy with leaves .
They bowed low under
a weight they could not bear,
making them scrape the ground
and beg for release.

my hand
could have shaken them free
but there they lay

This morning, sun
teased with renewal
the roots of tenuous life,
that have not yet
ceased to feed.

For the liar sun
they are dying.
I see already
the shroud of brown
that surrounds
their golden faces.

Solitary

In your crowds
No eyes see me
shoulders jostle me
without recognition
push me aside
though I do not
stand in their way

My tongue
plays with words
feeling their thin skin
flakes of a lip
chapped and dry
until I am tempted
and bite them off

No one sees me
but the words
are naked
no flap of a coat
to pull against the cold
no pocket into which
to jam that clenched fist

They wait here
met only by
sideways eyes
glances that skim
the distance that
hands must carry
these hearts around them

Through these woods now aflame more brightly than
When a warmer sun made their filter green
My wandering path a stone fence follows
Of the unknown someone who held a deed

I want to see the hands that built this wall,
The construction of his life's boundaries
Chose one stone and rejected another
So neatly set one next and one upon

Were his hands like the hands of my father
Craggy knuckled mountains and blue rivers?
The rough hands of a farmer and framer
Whose work separated but does not fall

Though seasons and frosts may cause upheaval
And feet tread where they were not meant to go
The tresspassers were taller than these trees
When it was built and dryly set in time

A winding marker whose lines no longer
Make declarations, call the land by name
A simple and lowly expression of
The land's adoption and yet, by whose hands?

The ground was thick with it, Nature's litter.  Trees that once were plush green, had put on one last fiery show and shook off what they could no longer support. They settled for clean lines and a greyed minimalism; settled in for the grey austerity of a long winter.

"Autumn is not death" she said."The sweet smell of decay. The forsaken leaves, the fallen, unwanted fruit. This is the preparation. It only seems final, because it may be our last chance."



The snow came down slowly, silently, danced carelessly and without purpose.  Each flake disappeared at contact with earth, succumbing to the warmth of its landing site.  It was late October and the preparation was not complete. It comes back to me now. Each word strikes my memory as my feet strike the cold pavement and the echo of an uncertain gait returns to me from hollow streets. I wonder how many times I heard, not understanding?


"Winter symbolizes death" she said.  "But if this were death, I would die readily. A death soft and pure.  A death too beautiful for me."

I could only stand and look at her eyes, glacial and tearful.  I wanted to know what she would not say; wanted to know that which she protected from my discovery.


"Spring is not rebirth, only exhumation" she told me.  "It is a falling away from grace, it is an unearthing.  Beauty and serenity melt away.  It is my death."

The wind
was a tight-
stringed seventh
shredding the night.
It tore the
anguished leaves
from fragile branches,
Swept the rain across
black streets in
undulating waves
like riffs of a blues guitar.
It played her
drenched soul
like a Slowhand
in its bass line.

"My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it."
Eric Clapton (interview 1998)

She's the moon called Harvest.
Indeed, the corn field's stripped
a whiskered stubble that rolls
over the chin of the hill.

the world wears shadows
in the dusk

She hangs heavy, this moon
full and lingering low.
On the horizon she carves
a hole in the darkening sky.

the geese glean in the field
hollow stalks and husks

Harvest moon, sun's imposter.
Spilling golden light
as if to apologize for
being unfashionably early.

If my soul could speak
the flame it holds
would ignite the dried fields and
the trees would be as torches

But I am the tiny flicker of stars
long-dead, whose burning heat is
consumed by this distance
and only a cold whisper of me
may sing to this sky

Moon of reflected fire
shares no warmth.
Indeed, the stars beside her
shiver and tremble.

It doesn't matter anymore
it doesn't matter when
the words
the spilling
spread me
thin as onion skin

(the dry shed skin
the fragile wrapping)

un-veiled
un-dressed
un-known

changes)nothing(changes

So I leave it there
I can leave it on display
for the voyeur
uncomfortable
for the passerby

all the empty eyes)having(
no vacancy) filled

(I am not) here

It was a day that might have been run out
Under one of those seamless summer skies,
Or in trees whose low branches invited
A good climb and a comfortable seat.
From there she viewed the world as only she could;
Child monarch, with the reign of a season.

With a choice of memories to be made,
She abdicated this throne of childhood

To journey with the man in overalls,
Whose scent was always that of dust and wood,
Whose view was always to a creation,
Whose half-creation followed him that day.,
To a house; solid, but aged and creaking
In spots where it had collected the steps

Of all that walked their history through it;
And told their tales in its groans and echoed
Empty for the day. Yet to her, whispered
Of lives that filled it in other hours
In a boy's unmade bed and the coffee
Still warm in the cup, near by the paper.

The carpenter starts his work, fashioning
New constructions to store the stuff of lives,
Frameworks for the memories they will make.
The child's hand proud when occasionally
Called in to hold a level, or steady
A two-by-four cut to exact measure.               

The carpenter lives for accuracy;
His joy, the beauty found in a plumb line.

His child's hand ready to assist the work
But when unbeckoned, bangs at the upright
In the parlor. That which might properly
Be called a Living room, when in it is
Clementine played so haphazardly and
Joyfully on a day that could be spent

Breathlessly run out along stream and field,
Chasing clouds under a wedgewood sky.

Days will come when memory starts to fade.
When the carpenter forgets a kettle
He has set to boil. He remembers not
The gathering where final goodbyes said
And the flowering of a limousine
Mean his wife will not be returning home.

The names and the times of his past return;
Melding in a hazy place, where he
Keeps these lives, and tells his stories; where he
Plays a fiddle on a Saturday night,
The horse that bit his shoulder, and the field
Needs plowing and the potatoes brought in.

This treasured memory of the man, who
Taught her the lessons of pride and work and
The true application of a hammer -
The child now grown, holds up like a mirror;
Measures her life against the memory
Of a man whose measures were always true.

And now grown old, knows that she too, will pass
Into the years and fade from memory;
And the day that she held so lovingly
Will be gone with the last one who knew it.
But the sturdy construction of his hands
Will outlast the years that overcome flesh,

Beyond her time will continue to stand
Silently holding that day forever.

                       
                 (My Father's passport photo)

Amidst the cacophonous clatter
of keyboards being struck
with weighty matters and a
monotonous fervor of discipline

a symphony of voices greet
jangling cries for attention
meet laughter, anger, frustration
(each has paid for an ear)

"impatient people
needing immediate assistance
with inconsequential questions
may press zero for transfer
to a higher authority"

coffee consumed like elixer
is the facsimile of life
for dark-circled eyes that
that mirror coffee ringed desks

and watch the clock
that balks and stops
refusing to advance and
relinquish its eight hour reign

conveniently divided into
how long?  until break
how long?  until lunch
and
how long?  

until reluctantly, Time
ticks over the minutes
it held suspended and
calls it a day

If...
You say "Good Morning"
only to be told you're half right
(and the clock tells you which half)

and you say "oh, I wish the rain
would stop" and in reply you hear
"I am going for a walk,
 I want to soak myself
in the cool spray of the day"

If you throw out verbal trinkets:
"I like that color on you" or
"what a lovely dress" and you
are told it was $2.00 on final
clearance and
"I didn't feel like
ironing so the wrinkles are my
statement of general apathy towards
making a favourable impression";

If you cannot even get away with
the simple "How are you?" and
avoid the puzzled stare as the answer
seems to totally escape the one asked,
the answer decided upon finally being
"I don't know, I am not ready to commit
to a status"

then I can probably guarantee
you are talking to me.

Something in my eye
bends the light and
blurs the lines until
It's all the same
it's the pain that seems so wry
I can't tell the difference sometimes
between the knife and the feather
they come from the same place
grew up together,  
play in the same heart

sometimes my jokes are so funny
they hurt

The temperature charges
a slap of air insults my face
stiff and unyielding
Like a smothering blanket
The day swaddles me, breathless

The road attracts, it
pulls me over hills and curves
the climbs are tortuous
strong as urges
Of a sultry summer

A sudden sky bursts
plasters fire to the asphalt
of slick and sweet decay
pulled from tree limbs
The wind won't wait for October

The car is airborne
does not tread asphalt
the brakes may not apply
suspended above the hotplate
In this fiery September

A bullet spray
purges the scorched road
oily steam rises thick in my nostrils
smells like the heat
Of lovers in collision

The fastidious gardener hates a bloom,
That breaks forth like a rash of yellow suns.
He hatches schemes 'gainst every sturdy stem,
His garden, well-trimmed, does not wildly run.
But the weed again, overcomes his plan.
From roots, deep and solid, again it springs,
And stands forth yet until it finds a hand,
To set loose on the wind, its progeny.
The fastidious gardener hates that bloom,
That turns its face in time from sun to snow,
With one breeze it fires generations,
Shooting a cluster of feathered arrows.
The gardener sets to his war again
Prepares his weapons, a battle to wage,
Against the onslaught of order's enemy,
His strategy ready with sharpened blade.
But another there is, who loves a bloom.
Amidst nature's golden triumph she stands,
With eyes the color of a liquid sky.
A treasure she clutches in tiny hands,
Bouquets of this inconvenient glory.
Now the blade, its usefulness set aside,
Undesired and unemployed, stands still.
The gardener's love is not for order as
Nature unfettered, plays upon the hill.
His love set now, not in the garden's groom
But settled all on one who loves the bloom.

I haven't been feeling very well, feverish in fact.  In my febrile state, I decided to write a sonnet, a Shakespearean sonnet.  Well, more like re-write a Shakespearean sonnet.  This one.  I am too sick to finish it.

In my delerium, I am blogging it.  Please forgive me.

On sum'otha day, may I call you, June?
My homies tell me that you ain't that hot
Would I blow your mind if I speak too soon?
Rent falls due and you would stay, but cannot.

Eyes that once were steely purpose
Now tearful, unfocused by age and care,
And hands once strong and useful
To their work, now wring bony fingers
One over another, or brush at
The straying of white cotton wool.
A nurse, officially busy, hurries
Through mazes of chairs and her
White-haired duties and has not time
To stop and attend to the stories
Of each and every life that once lived
Somewhere on foot and ran past age
In its youthful indifference.
She doesn't hear the frail voice,
Struggling with conscience and mind
"Who pays my bill?" it calls out and
"Do you know?" From every pounding beat
Of steps she inquires, eager to find
An answer fit for eyes of purpose.
And hands that working a trade still,
Furiously wring out upon the tray
Then cover eyes, clouded and red-rimmed
As she cries "Who pays my bill?"

Back when Summer mornings kissed my face
with a child's lips, soft and unlined,
history unwritten
They stretched themselves out
like promises along
the track of the Boston & Maine
shaking me from my bed
with freighted rumblings
We ran ahead of it, our childish laughter
mocked its plodding
our youthful agility a gift we took as a promise
history unwritten

back when afternoons baked summer
ochre into our skin and we colored
our dreams with the infinity laid before us
history unwritten
our music cicada's chainsaw
cutting through the trees
the call answered
by the carpenter's hewing buzz
when uncertainty was weighted only
on the end of a plank
our sawhorse mount

when evening held back as long
as the sun could be cajoled to shine
and when it fell was light upon our minds
no fearful thing lived in that night
the stars, re-lit by unseen hand
burned holes in its curtain
and if one dashed across the sky
it carried our happily everafters
in its lightning wake
history unwritten

the tracks of smooth and seamless days
the maps of our childhood's path
disappear into jungles untended
erasing ties to days of abandon
and trains move swiftly on new tracks
as youth gives way
to caution, dreams to schedules,
as age takes the pen
racing the lines down the page
before history writes the end