A.D. Thompson’s
My Life (as) Poetry
CHAPPED
LIPS, LIES
AND LIVES
L
i
f
e I o n e H n
l o l d I o E h r n e i g
i d i t d y a I e i l o I
n y v a o h r m W e l g ... d …i …e.
e h e h W t a h r a I
W W ? h e m
There was love before
Hate, peace before
war, why should
We have to fight any
Dreaming I’m a philosopher, butterfly, I escape.
Already I’m announcing my own imminent return.
Never knowing how I came to be a babe in the woods,
The cry in the wild that nobody
Hears
Out of memory I forge
Manacles of hope
Perhaps I will persist or
Somewhere rest a moment
On dreams dreams
Nobody can ever guess.
I’ve written many
acrostics through the years for my many names and others’. Most are quite bad. This one, which I wrote on a blackboard
impromptu one day for a writing class I was teaching in
DANCIN’
Come on let’s dance, dance, dance all night before the bright moonlight.
I’m falling in love with a young girl. Her face is exactly like a pearl.
Come on let’s dance, dance, dance all night. Come on and see this lovely sight.
With eyes like pools and lips like roses, looks just like a gift from Moses.
This was written,
obviously, before I knew love—years before.
I like to consider it a Sufi text to the Beloved. Later I would know love, as in this next
piece, written when I was smitten with e.e. cummings:
aNOTHER bEAUTY
another beauty could
distantly exist forgetting,
god, how I just
me, none other,
pounding quickly!
r still tense u?
very wonderful
xtasy, you?
zzzzzzz
IMPORTANCE OF A COMMA
I stand in possession of the field, master of destiny, fate in my hands.
There are none higher than I, yet none are lower.
I am without enemies. Neither have I friends.
There is nothing, a void,
There is no black emptiness
but the lack thereof.
Am I part of that?
Am I all of that?
Am I, God?
Am I God?
COWBOY CAROL
Howdy y’all, yee- haw!
Christmas time is here!
We don’t need warm eggnog,
Just give us Lone Star beer
And make it nice and icy…
It sure is hot down here!
Now that wintry white ol’ Tannentide
Round here ain’t never seen!
‘Stead we gots zesty hot Navidad
of chiles red and green!
Huddlin’ brrfore a yulelog fire
Just ain’t quite the same
As campin round the piñon fire
Out on the starry plain.
Like keepin’ warm ain’t half as fun
If’n you can’t share it with someone.
Now that wintry white Tannentide
Round here ain’t never seen!
‘Stead we gots zesty hot Navidad
of chiles red and green!
After my happy New Age
early days, there succeeded…the teen years!
When, as an angry young man rebelling with many a cause, I found deep
literary expression and catharsis through heavy metal music:
DEATH DRONE
His sleep was troubled, but he knew not why.
Dreams of death- hear the reaper cry.
His bony finger, oh, it beckons and calls.
Chosen of Valkeries, now the warrior falls.
He wakes and stares upon a midnight sky.
Stars hold no future for him- it’s his time to die!
Hear the death drone. Hear it ringing in the air.
Hear the death drone. Hear the singing everywhere...
Everybody sings their own. Time to join dust and bone.
There’s no reason to be brave when you’re entering your grave.
And when you’ve lived your whole life wrong.
There is no question- you know where you belong.
Oh yes you know it; you know it all too well-
You’re gonna burn in hell!!!
Hear the death drone. Hear it ringing in the air.
Hear the death drone. Hear the singing everywhere...
Lucifer has called your name.
Now you’ll sing it just the same!
Death drone- rotting flesh.
Death drone- carrion stench.
Death drone- lost remains.
Death drone- scavenged brains.
Death drone...
When you die, you will look in Satan’s eye!
THE BALLAD OF THE
GIFT
Below the land of ice there froths a lake
Beneath its waves gray impish fiends abound
There I met their Queen with eyes of granite
Under her skull-shirt whined a baby sound
She asks me do I think to leave alive?
I say, “I plumb forgot your gift outside!”
The waves rise up then to chastise my lie
I laugh them back and rub her belly hide
She spits on me a bilious flame of wrath
I coo, baby cries, she falls with a groan
Up in the sun spring warms the grand sun’s house
The lake imps help to carry mother home.
My life was not saved
by poetry, rather by fantasy.
FANTASY AS SONNET
Aryan illegitimately born
Prophesied great by oracle exiled
In ashes hid by birds raised in blue corn
To war-torn kingdom returned to stand trial
For murder most foul from whom he was born
Added rape to the charge of patricide
Maya the princess’ hymen he’d torn
His very own sister it was he defiled
Oracle tell us how can it be born?
The oracle I the poet just smiled.
The city crowns them and will all soon be worms
The son is soon born and as soon exiled
Tis thus the heroic couplet met
Applaud not the couple but I the poet
I was obviously
obsessed with form poems in my early years. Tthis tendacious tendency soon disappeared completely and left me
freer to write freer to write.
CRACKS
A child sees spots and cracks on the pavement an adult strides purposefully by- would that I had still a child’s eye, such as I-am-sorry if I touch a touch too much. Living as I do on the razor’s edge, too quick to cut, un-balanced on the tight-rope from the cave...
not your fault I am burning in the fire of self and so I let words fall
like poor hurt little birds I try later to heal to health to never-let-fly-again and I hide I behind others’ words of the Other reflected in a tangle of my own mind- mingled un-deciphered; I will be led blindfolded through the labyrinth of my own mind and I shall know it not, as the prophet said. How do I love thee- with words welled up from before time, beyond me and the manifold limitations of fear and desire, fleeing and clinging, if in the blue abstract of cloud dancing where laughing buffalo thunder, more so in the details with the devil and all- where I can kiss your hump and smell the acrid breath of the tide of you, the moment toward and beyond death by this very act of wanting, wishing you were here now, and again in the orange purple abstract of remembrance- where you dance with a gentle bouncy and sul try sway, and so sass away all night, curl ing into me where you fit tight , so right I can feel your breathing deep and forget if this is not the rhythm of the world, but only the rhythm of my words now that if they ever hope to take flight beyond time, can do so only will so in your love so...
School also saved me
from the harsher fate of some siblings torn asunder. I was most lucky to live with my wonderful
working class mother who valued education and travel. I wrote many a poem to her in many languages
through the years, but she has them all and keeps a watchful eye. Though I shined, high school of course was
difficult:
POPULARITY CONTEST
A man can be president in
If he be red or black or white if only he make so bold.
But he cannot win in thrift clothes even if he be so bent
As upon the post of high school student council president.
He, nay never she, though lacking little, candidate best
Loses dead- but don’t fret- it’s just a popularity contest!
Oh what relief, the man, he thought- okay, well, it was me.
Glad to hear I’m a loser in life, ugly, not just strategy!
I have left the rhyme
and meter as awkward as I was a boy-man then, but the feeling remains and
retains some dignity for it. The thrift
and clean references allude to teasings I suffered
throughout school as a “pink-sliper” (free lunch)
with a Brit mum who thought bathing once a week quite adequate. She had seen rationing as a girl during the
War.
HAIL TO TACONIC HILLS
I cared not for your so called good manners, nor understood your mean
which mattered not it seemed that you were cruel but called you “clean”.
Still it is sad to think, though I moved on and did much good, not great,
Still prouder I of me than of this nation still so in high school-like state.
The principals have abdicated and there are no teachers left, too little pay
In spirit that is; for in dollars it is still they- the pretty old boys- that play
The role of kings and khans and gods and idols and the president
And we cannot even counsel them from the evil their ear is bent.
Not even on the side can we ride the bench of law and framers on our side
But we console ourselves with integrity; they have power, we have pride!
Still it seems a sticky sickly ride behind the madmen at the wheel, they peel
Out and leave burnt rubber behind as the only legacy- our children cannot appeal!
They are the losers, the geeks and nerds unavenged, the loners and the bullied.
They are our children. But we left them in the hands of brutes. We have no honor.
BUDDHA BELLY
Father, mother, thank you! Thank you for:
four limbs that carry me far and hug the trees,
thick chest, big shoulders to carry huge weight,
Leg muscles large enough to swim mountains,
Fine hair easily shaved off my round monkish pate,
tiny eyebrows, a graying goatee, and ear for music,
a nimble hand for ball, drawing, and stroking,
this skin that holds me in and touches the world,
a tongue that loves all tastes and a strong stomach,
a tongue that twirls front and back languages,
a quick smile and booming infectious laugh,
my mind crazy enough to brave myself.
my big nose royal, ancient, bird-like.
eyes that change color like my mood.
a firm jaw set to survival, ears alert,
a back and feet I can mostly forget,
firm seat relaxin’ into earth anywhere,
& my Buddha belly people love to rub.
My brother is an
artist like our mum and my best friend through life. Alas, as teenagers we fought for a time,
hurting each other as only those who love can.
METACARPAL
Fifth metacarpal phalanges- as much as my mental capacities you distinguish me from all animals.
You are healed now but you remind me of a time that you were bro
ken by my rage! When I was no more than an animal you held a fist; hold now this pen and a sweaty memory for conscience...
As an adult, I
returned to
WHAT MEANING MADE
What meaning can be made by overheard conversations,
raindrops, the place of a fly on the page,
a blind man trying to make his way through an intersection,
technology, privacy, the reoccurring owl, the absent skunk,
the ring card, watermelon house’s closed doors, the Law,
Meaning is made in context- ok- but when
you can stop the world,
shut out the insistent riffs, decide whether to attend to the
anthropological discussions d’à côté and eschew the
political article, then THEN suddenly
you SEE the rain- on table tops blue & black,
and orange chairs, see the way
they splash into puddles- see as we saw as children
(the intimate informants)-
can you get into the skin of- the blind man?? Cool, wet,
prickles, slick, attentive, scared?!
Forgetting to make your list, check your calendar, think
where you’re going next, in life,
but there you are, speed through the yellow light,
cursing at that moment, lucky-
did you feel it?- not hit, no collision fatal, this
time, because you paused for a blind man,
a sigh, a second-
thought
O PAGE!
Can I write my love out- spill in ink not semen my need and gift,
to create not impotent pleasure- but what? empty thoughts that go nowhere,
not shared- lived words only will not do- I must hold, touch, kiss, dance, eat...
Oh- it’s been sooo long: to feel the comforting touch. Of course it’s a high to write,
to create- but a comfort? At the base is a very deep (original) pain that must be healed-
I did not create it alone: could I thus repair it- the breech, of trust, a gaping hole
in my life where you must be, my love- I need you- protector, nurturer.
When will I see my love of Self spilling over everywhere reflected in her smiling
teary deep understanding eyes- equanimity All- ok but hug a stranger get arrested-
yet I have that Nature need urge- why? Shouldn’t I, we, All?!
Shall I stop up my love, smother it in my sein self?
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Try to guess the chapter break Novels- Rewritten- in- Haiku- form (answers at end):
A high healing air Mighty odyssey
Refuge for a man insagn All in one day one in all
From world wars to end… #1 I need a Guiness! #2
Man rapes all
As foul, as sun as a bull Lawyer redeemed as avocat
Goddess is jealous. #3 Madame wants his head! #4
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Or bal bordel! I ain’t danc-
In’ revolution!
CITY OF
City of
Before and during
college I had the honneur to study in
THINKING PLACE
I’ve gone to think where thinkers go
beyond the rain
beyond the snow
not to the mountain
not to the plain
To the inner reaches of my brain.
I’ve gone to dream where dreamers stray
it isn’t near
or far away
or at the end...
or at the start.
At the secret place within my heart.
I’ve gone to live where dead men dwell
no not in heaven
no not in hell
search not your body
search not your mind
Look in your Self your soul to find...
Somehow these two
distinct language poems demanded to be together, after which one written
actually in both languages, all the rest in French, then translated by me.
MONDE TRANSITOIRE
Dans ce monde transitoire, néfaste
Understand the mystery of your heart.
Qu’est-ce qui reste que moi?
Do not care for sharing what.
Et qui suis-je sans origine
you cannot comprehend
sans destination, sans chez moi?
Do not bother where you start
Peu importe si je cherche ou si je fuis
or where you end
j’y suis. Partout ou je cherche je me trouve...
or where you start. A circle has no heart.
différent. Peu importe si je change le monde
The world outside can smile or laugh or cry
ou si le monde me change moi.
Don’t you stop to wonder why.
Tout change et n’est jamais le même.
Only wonder why you feel
Ainsi l’eternel dillème- qui change et
the same. Understand this mystery
se change juste pour changer,
of your heart, a circle with no end
le constant inconstant
and without start...
je ne puis m’échaper.
L’HOMME ET L’OMBRE ME AM MY SHADOW
L’homme est son ombre. Man and shadow are one.
Je m’écris, puis une question Writing my story I query
se pose tout de suite: cette histoire, myself now is this history
n’est-ce que l’ombre de ma vie of my life o’ercast or
ou est-ce que je ne suis que l’ombre am I only the shadow
de mon oeuvre, plus que la somme de of my works, the sum of
mes actes? Ni l’un, ni l’autre my acts? Neither for it’s
car il est midi point. full noon.
Le soleil est au zenith et il n’y a pas The sun’s at its peak and
d’ombres de tout. Est-ce moi qui écrit as shadow nears feet
mon autobiographie d’ailleurs ou bien I ask if my work does not
est-ce que mon oeuvre m’ecrit moi et perhaps write me. Now
qui lit? Allez! Il est tard- puis, au lit! it’s late, too late to read.
Partout où je fuis, j’y suis. Partout où je flane, there I am.
Partout où je cherche, je me trouve. Partout où j’ere, I am there.
Partout, partouze: Tout par, tu pars… And parting is part sorrow.
Les amis s’en vont, et viennent. Friends come and go
Ils se cassent, comme mon coeur. and depart of my heart.
Qu’est-ce qui reste, que moi? What’s left, any me?
Je reste meme quand je m’en vais. I remain having gone.
Le constant eternel, The eternal change,
je ne puis m’echapper. I cannot escape.
The English word
‘core’ (as in apple) sounds close to the French ‘coeur’
heart.
BIENVENUE HI
THERE!
Parfois on se demande, Ever wonder to yourself,
a soi-meme qui seul nous the only one listening
écoute attentivement, with attention anyway,
à travers les ages through the ages if any-
si personne parfois peut nous one could ever have
entendre au fond, heard us to the core,
et sans parler de comprendre, without speaking of under-
répondre au fond. standing, answer at core?
C’est ainsi qu’on se promene So it is that I write
sa vie sur papier, my life on paper, a
c.v. sans visage, faceless resumé,
pour chercher sa place seeking its place in
dans ce monde disperse this disparate world
et qu’on entre anonyme and enter anonymously
dans le café chercher son coin my coffee house corner
ou semer son coeur to plant my heart seed
en mots sur papier, in furrowed lines,
paroles sans son, sans echo, silent words unheard,
plume envolée ou
que personne écoute jamais. no one ever listening.
Et cependant un jour Then one day slinking,
qu’on cherche à glisser inattendu, we hope unseen, we are
on sera interpolé called out in a symbol
dans une langue symbole tongue forever and
abordé difinitivement ever named at core
sans doute au fond... of course…
Peut-on ainsi jamais vraiment Can anyone, even us, ever
comprendre, ni répondre capture us or hope to know
au fond soi-meme? our core selves?
IMPERISSABLE IMPERIAL VAIN VICISSITUDE
Les ailes no sont pas The wings are not
Brulées par le soleil incessant Burned by the ceaseless sun
Rompues par le vent bienfaisant Broken by the battering wind
Dorées si loudes qu’elles cassent Gilded so heavily that they rend
Les ailes ne sont pas s’attachées Not bound to each other
Les ailes ne sont pas arrachées Nor torn off one by one
Les ailes ne sont qu’oubliées They are only forgotten
Et c’est cela la plus tragique That is the most tragic
Car les ailes servent encore That they work still pulsing
Pas à battre l’air nuagé encore Not beating the cloudy air
Pas à monter en dessus surtout Not rising above it all at last
Pas même à flotter sur le vent si Not even to soar on wind so
Inattendu, inconnu là-haut unexpected, unknown on high
Mais à proteger seulement But to protect only
Dans un nid à l’abri de rien In a ground burrow free
A cacher aux enfants affamés Hidden nestlings starving
Qui dans le ventre s’étouffent Suffocating in breast plumage
Affamés par terre comme les Under wings starving grounded
Vers dans leurs lits enplumés Like earth worms dirty bedded
Ils n’apprendront jamais a voler. They will never learn to fly.
After my year at the
Sorbonne ended, in order to stay on in
CONTROLE DES BADGES
Oh, un beau jour à l’aube
me trouvai-je
la tête pleine de chimères
au poste de garde
àa centrale 2 à Noissy-le-Grand
pour contrôler les badges.
Il vint le premier, s’ensuit un autre.
Ils attaquèrent
cette nouvelle journée
comme des machines,
des machines humaines, dirais-je,
Et je souris!
Je me flatte si je me crois poète
malgé moi,
mais ne suis-je qu’un agent
d’exploitation, exploité moi-même
par une vie qui me fatigue,
comme fatigue la vie,
je souris.
A chaque passante
non plus à
qu’à une autre je souhaite
la bienvenue, le bonjour.
Et alors?
Mais je souris...
Et voici le produit
de mon ennui
je vous prie-
un poème pourri!
TRAHISON TRAITOR
Le visage, façade, portail au monde This face, front, world gate
audela de l’âme dedans before the soul within
enfermé un instant closes off at times
et creusé, sévère, usé par la vie caved in as an old mine
écroulé par le temps et les accidents eroded by time and tragedy
qu’on appelle évenements, peel out like scars
ne traduit pas la gentille beauté doesn’t let out the timorous
que je sens ou veux sentir beauty that I feel or want to,
en moi en verité. in my true soul house.
Cet aspect dur, qu’est-ce What’s with this hard mug?
et qui l’a fait, choisi? What bad potter made it?
Pourtant, je le porte I lug about this armour
comme la maille origine, as a rhino does its horn
garlande d’amour, but strung with flowers,
et je l’offre à vous tous to offer it to anyone to
à contempler et à diviner: ponder. Try to guess
qu’est-ce que c’est? the hoary secret of
Ce portrait d’un homme the portrait of man
qui s’appelle Gaoussou? in this case, named Dan.
Et qui est le vrai: ce devant Which is the real one the front
par derriere ni Janus ni masque caché behind the myth or the masque-
ou ce fonds amable voulu sympathique rade man or the self well-mean-
d’un puits plein ou vide qui le vrai? ing empty full or fake?
On se nomme pas soi-même We don’t name ourselves
mais moi, j’ai un nom pour moi-même but I have a name only I know
secret que personne ne connaît and you get no guesses
que moi only I know
ni moi or do I?
The following poem was
written snaking all over the page in a way I was unable to re-produce in this
text, therefore I leave it longhand as many later poems would become:
QUAND
Quand tu ne sens plus la force de continuer sur la route que tu as suivi, poursuivi, pour
When you no longer have strength to follow your road that you held to, you had to, too
suivre trop longtemps sans savoir pourquoi, sans se demander, sans raison... Quand tu ne
long without knowing why or ever even asking, without reasons… When you only walk
fais que la tour de ta vie trop connue, que tourner, retourner dans un cycle prevu que la
traces of the tour of your guideless life, well known, turning, returning, in a prepaved
tour de ta vie trop connue... un jour, leve-toi, te regarde bien dans la glace, et souviens-toi
cycle your auto-life… one day, get up, look yourself in the eye, and remember yourself;
de toi; et crées ton propre nouvel chemin dans l’espace infinie de possibilités vers un
and create your own new road in the infinite space of possibilities towards a future
avenir toujours ouvert...
which is always open…
The middle of this
last poem turn round in an ever-repeating circle, the last lines at last
breaking out, free, unlike the tomes in
a U.S. ‘French’ café I once saw glued down!
PAS PERMIS INTERDICTION
Il ne nous sera pas permis de lire. No reading will be allowed.
Les livres seront colles aux murs, devenus Books will be glued to the walls
de simples décorations comme les fruits like tinsel after xmas decorations
plastiques derrières les vitres qu’on or plastic fruit in a display case re-
vend aux êtres plastiques qui seront les flecting plastic consumers with
seuls qui restent à pouvoir les acheter. hollow plastic credit to burn.
On aura à ecouter la musique vapide de You’ll have to listen to muzak
cuivre qui pend sans cesse une atmosphere all the way down forever. You’ll
à balayer les croutes! Que c’est bon-aigre, sleep on tiny crumbs you’ll feel.
doux de miel royal. Le feu aussi est vrai. Sour and sweet honey fire alive
Ça brûle l’essence, gas qui jette dans burning gas chamber metal-eating
le bois de metal là-bas, qui consommé dinosaurs in oily woods that never
jamais, n’ont pas d’odeur. Néanmoins end odorless. In the museum mean-
au musée même, et dans le parc autour, while and in the park around it those
ces amants qui ont volé et à l’argent et lovers who stole from silver and
à l’éternité une miracle minute de eternity a minute, man, woman, of
loisir s’embrasse, et l‘herbe n’est leisure to screw sur l’herbe no longer
plus pelouse sous leurs dos mais feral lawn, yard grass stuck to their feral
encore et les nuages refuseront sweaty backs and clouds which take
toute image et forme qu’on voudrait no form no matter how hard you try
leur donner- même les plus imagines. or how innocent you imagine them.
Et la plume danse au main du poète The pen in the hand of the poet
et va plus vite que l’esprit et plus dances faster than spirit and goes
lent que le coeur. out slower than the heart.
For Christmas holidays
I visited family in
FAKE FLOWER
How little you are to carry this story
of the stranded at Christmas
you might seem of little worth to some,
aluminum foil stem and crushed tissue
paper petals green and red,
shiny bright and festive,
Indeed you have your price:
sixty-six proper British pennies,
you were worth every one
not much but what a fortune then to me,
my wallet and passport lost myself somewhere
that I gave to the old woman
who approached me at the tube exit,
placing you in my button hole saying
“Please sir, for the orphans at Christmas.”
I held you tight and you comforted me
through the cold night.
I clutched you like a charm and all luck changed.
Wallet and passport all were found.
Got the last ticket to my family up north
a Christmas miracle but true
for sixty-six pence
silly fake flower
My travels in Europe
were modest as befits a poor student but did include a small tour East in
Spring thanks to a good friend living in Germany who had a car we could sleep
in when cheap hostel could not be found.
Our misadventures are too many to recount…
CHEESE
I think of photos not taken.
Many a true happiness
escapes posterity for others.
Did they happen then? You know.
Rare are true smiles in photos.
Smiles hide as much as cameras.
Look, here’s me on Spring Break
in the perfect gardens of
where the hostel bar stays open all
night and forgives naked Aussie
tourists but tickets one-way cars.
Can you read theft, hang-over, in
our Sound of Music smiles?
We climbed so high to get the
photo of the fairy tale castle that
I began to see crosses marking the
dead in crags as we climbed. Can
you catch a glimpse of mortality in
the frozen smile on my meditative
face as I sit full lotus atop the
Hard to believe it’s Spring in the
next photo as I stand triumphant
up on a snow mound,
King of the Hill,
the snowball terror.
I’m on my way to Eagle’s
place where Nazis met and
plotted where I play, removing
the “Danger: Do Not Enter” sign
from the snowy road. I want
to climb a hill but my friend is
too tired. Later there is an
avalanche at that exact spot.
Can you see it in my smile?
We leave for cocoa and cake.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
System crash romance They were a farmer,
Luckily he had a pal, A priest and a long way from
Maid and helm to don #5 Home but brothers still. #6
To kill a lender Hell what the fall
Spared the squad at last sec Red orange yellow green blue
Lag off you gu now… #7 Indigo violet #8
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
the tree in the yard
has bloomed overnight
bright white
in the morning light
POETRY n.
pontificating profoundly upon pretty petty or putrid points with progressive print & punct uation?
for that’s all there ever was, boy was
the pitter patter clitter chatter of raindrops rhythm
Poetry is, the Nature of- before essence, existential
expressionistic/impressionistic- ex/in
exhale
in hale breathing cadence
Tone Texture Tone Deaf
And the Echo
Pure Art- onanistic self cycling hollow
Ah, the echo, alas- like Sisyphus
classical allusions illusions, similes like smiles
roses red-color- blood beets beat menstrual
Identity- to understand upon the universal singular
and thus such & such- suck-me-OFF!
Poetry is Power, after all- and that’s IT. ...or is it?
back to the rhyme, shit.
Ode to an ode- metaphysics- symbols signif
holistically the moon beam on lake’s sheen unseen eternal
grace hologram, thank you, ma’am- Automatic Echo
To the People, the old songs- march- two, thr3, 4- Ho!
Or lyrical-limericks
There once was a leprechaun named Big John!
Censure Self peel back the skin of Life
Avant la lettre, that’s better
What is poetry? An interrogation?
A feeling- fleeting- the Nature
of Reality. Echo.
Thank you. Mantra. Chant. Paean. Lord it just goes onandon
accumulationencyclopedicennumerationcataloguinglistsetcadinaus
Portraits to, the nose knows, non? Catharsis- description
narrative epic story, scene- don’t make a scene. What is poetry,
You say? You won’t find it that way- you’ll have to read, write,
exhaust the language, the code then somewhere somehow
as the first waking awareness but still asleep in slumber all known
all encompassing peace where poem and poet are born one and indivisible
and suckle the warm nourishment, fulfillment even- praise be- of the Poem,
self-evident for that’s all there ever really was, boy was.
Most of the poems here
were written under duress. In college I
took one elective in creative writing and it required us to spend half our time
on poetry, not fiction as I had wanted.
We should never get what we want.
Our teacher was a wonderful author who wore a necklace of giant red chiles and wrote Travels of a Nuclear Whore, I believe.
ART HAIKUS
the sleek orange seal
glide easily, carelessly
through purple water
an odd green camel
his legs, head, and hump cut off
in the sand and sky
the lumpy blue frog
sits so still contemplating
the unseen blue fly
two headed tigers
snarl wildly at each other
blood drops everywhere
a huge mingled pile
of red seal bodies blending
together as one
The course was taught
in the art building, which had a café in it, in which hung the above spackled
haikus. We did not linger in image alone,
but were asked also to engage. But
first, one indulgence, an automatic writing I did one fine spring day in same
said café.
AUTOPILOT
zebra chair empty yoghurt
flower there blue notebook
two gloves a Snapple juice
strawberry to tell the truth
square table but I’m unable
to write again
got my yoghurt spoon
ain’t got no pen
GLOBAL PROBLEM POEM
A social political problem poem concerning
poverty, the environment, education, all violence,
the proper raising of children, and male/female and
inter-race/culture/religion relations:
Why do we struggle so?
When peace comes naturally
when trees and children inspire love
and all people love
when we all share the world
and everything in it
when happiness and harmony
are our universal destiny
and all is in us already...
R U 4 RU486?
Pop a pill, it’s the right choice!
Une femme enceinte need not walk the gauntlet en route to
la clinique where she swallows two pilules, and her tumor goes.
Women who live in the land of the free can only look to Lady Liberty
through hazed eyes unable to imagine another’s future, her own.
Her doctor is dead at the hands of right-to-lifers
The doctor lies dead for unlived non-lives.
Women without two pills must play mother martyr
besieged by the fervent who kill and threaten and say they save,
mobbing, chanting and cruelly menacing, raping, pillaging
their ads lies to deceive the desperate,
their lives lies to deceive themselves, their gods.
They do not do day care in fact the moms they now berate
were unwanted babies forced upon the world before their suicides
Desperate, dying womyn march through the deadly battle lines
into secret clinics where weary doctors work their magic against all odds
Women went to the streets for their rights in
In
Changing tone, we went
to the Nature Preserve behind campus to write one day:
CALL OF NATURE
Who can resist?
Searching for solitude
I feel the pressure,
the need of escape,
to ease this pain,
the pressure-
on my bladder!
Searching for solitude-
a place to piss
for who can resist
when nature calls?
UNBEARABLE
In a spot such as this I sat as a boy
alone and afraid and in need of a friend.
I found no comfort in birds’ distant cries
nor in the buzzing of the hidden crickets.
The still of the lake was un-bear-able
for I had no silly old bear like
Christopher Robin’s to wish me
Happy Monday & Tuesday &..
DAYBREAK
Sunset dusk does day
Descend to dark down...
The fruit hangs heavy on the broken bough.
A donkey now stumbles beneath the plow.
I hear the cracking of the trees’ thaw.
Along a bare black branch I saw
a single shining dew drop slowly slide,
hang agape, agaw.
To alight in its nest will gently glide
the sparrow; its seasons too subside.
As breath and love both moon and sun
in time
must fall
as to dust descend we drowning
living
all.
Now we to space and beyond aspire...
Losing thus our teacher in a sudden rain
-of fire!
As Icharus had to fall to show, swoop
down now,
Beast!
Upon Prometheus’ glow-
Devour!
We taste the fruit of the tree, our will,
as, to forever, crests constantly... Sisyphus...
the Hill...
highest
high higher
high rise again
glide and
into the deep sky fly and dive
fall
Ho! Dawn, awake- up, up! to fly to fly forever...
GET BACK
One of the first days of Spring
timid, innocent, all the more seductive
charming nymph sneaking in
the first rays of morning bright, warm
The snow still on the branches, melting
now glistening, all a’sparkle
a shiny dew drop forms, slides down along
the bare, black brown branch bone
slowly captivated, timeless, enraptured
You watch it hang on the tip, ready to drop
the eternal drama of nature’s rebirth
Your life seems to hang in the balance
as it hangs heavy now, the first of
many, you see it... Phone rings!
You answer- work; Bob’s called
in sick, can you pick up his shift,
hurry over? Hang up, for God’s
sake, your wife screams- will you
help get the kids off to school
The baby’s sick!... and you
er will get back to that dew drop
SILENCE, SPRING
Cease your incessant singing.
The sun does not shine on me.
I am in sorrow’s shadow.
The birds do not sing for me
nor the flowers blossom.
If I could I would wish a
Winter eternal upon the World.
Let all be frozen, dark, and dead
since the Spring cannot
thaw a heart that once loved me
rekindle a fire that warmed me
brightened eyes that once shone for me
renew and rebirth
a love lost
A love forever locked in an icy, dead
Winter of memory and longing, and despair
Yet Spring bubbles forth anew
frolicking and dancing with delight
and brings me no comfort.
And I cry as birds sing
and tear the flowers
for she love me not
and I die beneath the shining sun
and still Spring sings uncaring-
Spring, sing no more!
My tender heart ran to
melodrama and why not? Clumsy style had
to follow. All of us would erase many a
word, whole scenes, if we could, but I would not erase one dewdrop.
WHY?
Why can’t I write these tears I feel
for love of you?
this gentle, wrenching mingling of
pained euphoria, longing...
I cannot conjure your image-smile,
laugh, cry, scream, moan, slope back,
naked neck, mysterious eye hiding,
inside legs lifting, inside
The hands- I never look at them- to feel
so much- God, why can’t I remember?
Look at the hands alive
To feel you
I do not even reach out past my
coffee cup
So much do I love you, desire loving you
more still
-a thing inside me
my love for you
But I need around me
You- so far away, reaching
as I remember
holding, groping you
Together at least joined
I inside you
You around me
That is life!
Who could I tell
and must I forever more
spill myself out on paper
flat and blank
for want of your Ear
that once bent to my nibbling
Love spill forth
whit I could never fill
You and if I am so Empty
whence then this for you?
Answer me! Anger me! Kill me
with your kindness without which
I do not know how to Live...
NAPE
I will stir the sauce on the stove by the sunny window,
warm inside on a wintry day.
You will chop the vegetables in a flowery sundress.
I’ll be singing quietly to myself.
You’ll be sipping your coffee in your calm, gentle way.
I’ll turn and stare at you warmly.
You’ll glance into my eyes a second, smile radiantly.
Then you’ll bend to your vegetables and I’ll slip my arms around you,
kiss the nape of your neck.
You’ll giggle and scold “sweetie!”
And the whole world will be alright.
I am proud to say I
moved on from my heavy metal phase to folk, then grunge hit. Appropriately enough, I worked in the dining
hall dish room, also for our college radio station. My irascible and irrepressible German
neighbor upstairs sat in his $100 car outside my window with the neon laundry
sign flashing, blaring what we then called music. Blame him for this poem and also insomnia
brought on by loss of first love.
ENEMY INSIDE
You say I scare you.
My moods are changing all the time.
I scare me too. And I can’t escape my mind.
My moods keep changing. There is no reason.
Changing like the season. Now it’s Winter time.
If to be yourself is treason than I’m guilty of the crime.
Guilty in my mind. I judge me. There is no escape.
I can never be free. My mind is churning all the time.
The machine is eating me alive. How can I survive?
My problems are my own. I create them in my mind,
my eye, my life. I keep wiping at spots in the picture.
But the spots are in my eye, my mind, my life.
I can never be free. I can never see clearly.
The enemy inside is me.
On Staten Island sits
one of
CRAZY NIGHT OF
INSPIRATION GRACE
pear pie faced priestess (shades of before) on one leg watched standing
center open mike glazed a water bird watching fish telling stories
at our table a French painter, a Saharan, balding guitar man
women in black mc’s with music growth work between deep blue
sea radio and devil dad with anecdotes aggressive, a recovery trait list
sweet fat lesbian Grace (scared girl singer) sweetly intoned the African ghost
the old poet guy with his fusion word melded
one tall Irish singer without band screams subdued, a clarinet guy quiet and shy,
American as apple pie and... I will write your stories
my poor friends at adjacent tables.
You cry out to exist! I will invent you then.
Forget everything you thought you knew.
The world exists for me. Alone.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Damn you dirty pig, Damn you the horror,
Be master of all the beasts, Did you not hear the conch shell?
Make a five year plan. #9 Homoerotic #10
Watery wench, ghostly Hey slave! Wanna paint
Dad and doomed messengers Way
down the
Stab the curtain man. #11 A white fence for me? #12
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
In dark flood soil
soft
lays Passion in hurls
crushing
silence silence sigh
BLISS
I love life! Like truck stop pie!
The jazz of the multiform nations
played out in my café house...
Lying under the infinite night sky
in the country no noise but singing
a distant clapping dance
no light but the stars of promise-
I wanna eat them there stars!
I always loved school
and I best loved university, but I read the most in my life as a Peace Corps
volunteer in
CHARM HARM
No! No! No! It cannot be! My love, my own true love,
in a note, by her own hand- leaves me!
So I go to see the healer, singer, charmer, medicine man,
the old sage vision lore keeper gris gris fellow
in his smoky haze full of tokens and trimmings
so much stuff! I tell him what I want and why
I want her to love me unquestioningly, purely, forever
to never leave off loving me again... He put in a pot:
honey and vinegar, essence of mountain, sky drops,
marrow of wild tree, first snowflake of the desert,
horn of toad, hair of fright, a ghost’s keys, this,
that, the hidden treasure, essence of essence, a word,
wind, broken promise, secret stone, soup of mother’s love,
mind milk, a griffon gem, a siren’s silent scream... and on
and on ad nauseum... Came out a knot!
Said: she will love you, or love you naught...
He gave it to me, told me- slip a drop in her tea.
Then I heard the cherubs chant:
splish splosh oh my gosh gimme gimme good god ...
splish splosh oh my gosh be careful what you wish wash!
I slipped a drop in her tea one day, then
tracked her down to say say say my peace-
she heard me out and nodded out whispering,
“I love you,” slipped away- passed away...
Gone to come no other day! She loved me and left me.
Tricked, I thought, that old charlatan, but-
I’d gotten what I wanted, he said,
for in the great beyond, and only there
this then is how they love and only there
infinite love unrestrained without conditions
forever, just as I’d asked, and only there...
There, there, there... glorious There! DEAD.
But for now I’m alone again, left and lost and
then I heard the cherubs chant:
splish splosh oh my gosh gimme gimme good god ...
splosh splosh oh my gosh be careful what you wish wash.
GHAZAL
Radif the caliph smoked a fig leaf in his hookah.
He saw a worm, smelled its germs, and asked Kaca the crow—
Where do the dandelions roam and trees fly?
Where can I catch a chocolate wildebeest?
Where are buildings inside out and do the rocks grow?
Where do buttermilk slippers wait?
I want to get young and sick the heels, so…
Tell me crow--singing pee