Poetry 1000

Poetry is trying to find
a thousand words without a camera,

to compose an image, more, to capture a
chance alignment; poetry

will serve you better than your cell phone’s
visual “can you hear me now?”

Poetry is taking the time,
waiting for lighting, adjusting the speed

and exposure.  I, on a rainy day,
once found the perfect picture

when sunshine filtered through rolling gray
to give raindrops their color.  Now

and then looking for reason
you discover the art of a thousand words.


from Turning The Metaphor

Moleskin 4.9

The bus rides were round trip tangents, though, that always seemed to bring me back to my summer of unwanted change. But pardon these flash-forwards and circling back again: I am getting ahead of myself and forgetting my lines. And now, my dear other, the point. These shoes you are being asked to try, just to get their feel and fit, will never be your own footwear; maybe they pinch too much or don’t look like anything you’d ever wear. Maybe they’re too old and boring, or maybe they smell with age. So take them off now, and put your own shoes back on: slip into what you know, the life I do not know, and be on your way. Continue with your own summer of twelve, or thirteen or fourteen or forty: but please, continue. There is still more to the story.

Snapshots, 3 through 8

3

precipitation’s plain dull pallette shivers endlessly, above 
below around: today we wait, anticipating better fronts, left 
listening for conclusive punctuation, getting only ellipses, 
gradual premonitions hinting what’s coming: distant booms 
first telegraphed in whiplashed flashes; later followed by 
smells, electricity’s ominous odor, dampened dust, stirred up 
dirt, awakened earth; finally touch, feel: rainfall taking over.

4

rain: cold colorless falling wet hard relentless dominating, 
weather offputting, setting aside coatless hatless daylight 
hours, nature’s nowcast, never mind forecast, upsetting social 
structures, cancelling performances played, attended, 
offering lightning’s unsubscribed sizzle instead, deceptively 
dry; thunder, decidedly loud exclamations without explana-
tion; patter, splatter, drizzle, less music than noise then pour.

5

suddenly walking ruins shoes, driving turns weary chore, it’s 
all souls/machines can do keeping rubber feet/wheels moving 
simply getting home, housed, parked, finding anywhere dry, 
accepting anything, settling, seeking temporary cover like 
poor tired refugees, huddled under square box umbrellas 
with fogged windows, streaked panes: our world’s eyes, 
distorted from unwanted tears, saltlessly wondering why 

6

yet, everpresent, effervescent reason shows itself now, hinted 
within renegade rays of subtlest sunlight revealing rain-
water’s constant beauty: sparkling, living, even as it falls:  
you will see green grass again, these angels say, speaking, 
singing hard working droplets they: we’ll roll those heavy 
clouds away, restore your great forgiven sky, clean slated, 
blue, more breathable, renewed.  holy, fresh, clear water!

7

cleansing, cleaning, washing, rinsing.  (repeating,  
remembering how mother/daughter, taught, still teaches me) 
necessary, yes, she says this was, shall always be,
evermore her favorite time, season, place:  praying amen,
hearing “heavenagain,” feeling particulate waves, 
letting herself become immobilized, moved, emotional,
willingly becoming elementary, simplified, soothed.   

8

reflection...premise...perception...truth, fundamentally faith 
alone explains God’s nature; thus, man’s (woman’s, child’s) 
ritual immersion, each gender, age, every creed’s splash 
therapy, aqua conscience, awakening, rejuvenation; believe:  
reincarnation, return, rebirth, baptism; sprinkling; accept:  
drowning, spiritual surrender inwards, outwards, upwards:  
replacement...promise...permission...life, sacramentally. 


from Turning The Metaphor

Snapshots, 1 & 2

...I, on a rainy day, once found the perfect picture
when sunshine filtered through rolling gray
to give raindrops their color.  Now

1

cameras are useless brushes, should some sudden need occur 
, forever missing pixels, looking past contrast, losing focus; 
paint (oil, acrylic, maybe watercolor?) too cannot capture our 
climate’s spectral shades, frameless moments, shifting facts;
language isn’t any better, not very, but if you’ll pardon
contractions and count them anyhow (allow poetic cheats,
permit imperfections), my pen is drawn.  I’m ready.  I’ll try.  

2

subtitle: 1,000 imperfect words; thesis: an impossible sudoku.
opening paragraph, initial sentencing: possessive noun,
adjectives, subjective action verb, adverbs, et cetera...  already
elliptical critics would criticize, deconstruct, misconstrue &
decompose what I’ve proposed / begun composing: 
meanwhile, earth’s atmosphere weeps / continues weeping;  
another imitative artist cries, his ink unerasably flowing. 


from Turning The Metaphor

Beyond Speech and Silence

How can one describe God?

What wins the argument?

Speech is limited to comparison,

Silence is sworn to dereliction,

Reason travels far to reach amazement,

Zeal arrives at self-enrichment,

Imagination cannot find the truth, and

Understanding turns to vanity.

The prophets are confused by God,

the saints are stupefied.

God is the mind’s desire

and master of the soul,

the devotee’s commitment,

the disciple’s goal,

but all of this is beyond where reason goes,

exists above existence, acts

without regard to the usual bounds:

There is no “in” or “out”, “how” or “why”.


from Walled Gardens

After...

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (TWL), lines 322-330 





322 I.e., after the fire of Section III, with its river sweat (line 266), red sails (line 270) and incessant burning (line 308). 

✭  Lines 322-330 reflect the HOLY WEEK narrative; see also notes 71, 366 and 393, and see Luke 22: 39-45: “And he [Jesus] came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweatwas as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow.” See alsoMatthew 26:36, placing this prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane; and John 18:3, adding soldiers’ torches to the scene; compare these to the torches in Whitman, Memories 6 (see note 202 and Appendix A).

323 I.e., after the water of Section IV and its association with the drowned girl in the hyacinth garden (lines 37 and 38). 

324 I.e., after the earth of Section I, with its stony rubbish (line 20). See also Matthew 13:5: “Some [seeds] fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth”

325 I.e., after the air and talk of Section II (see note 76.5).  

329 See Brooks**, noting the limbo of those “living ...now dying” in split levels of life and death.

from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with annotations (and other explanations)

Silence

Silence is an empty peace; Violence is a pointless war. No one ever dies for silence, No one ever wins with violence, But there is peace worth fighting for As there are wars that fires may cease. Fires that blaze leave deathly silence, None to claim the spoils of violence And the pointlessness increases When the battlefield releases No one to pick up the pieces, No one to put up the score, No one fighting anymore. No one wins an empty war.


from Thirty Birds

Sealed

To put face to feathery form, the nation...

An eagle, on the wing and rising to
the sky, a field prevailing azure, blue revealed by golden glory breaking through the argent ring of clouds aligned anew above the bird: a halo made of stars now taking place and rank among the powers, the power of peace before the power of wars, all sovereignties reordered after ours, a nation reckoned by a blazing sun: and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won. The eagle tips the balance towards peace: its dexter talon rightly won’t release the olive branch; and peaceward does it face forever to its honorable embrace, and yet the raptor holds its arrows fast within its eastward talon to avast what sinister designs may come to pass; it clings this bundle, ready to the last to stave all threats before they are begun and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won. Behold the eagle’s shield, the chief and pale held front and center by their own avail, the two most honored ordinaries hailed to mark the great escutcheon unassailed, a symbol for the way the eagle rules: the azure chief a congress for the whole above a pale of stripes, argent and gules kept closely unified: so speaks the scroll of our perpetual creed: “Of many, one,” and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won. Within the eagle’s beak this Latin pun becomes our purpose and criterion, our everlasting oath beneath the sun: E pluribus, of many, unum, one, and thus our fate is sealed, all battles won.


from Thirty Birds

Moleskin 4.8

Our original dad was still in our lives, but from a distance now that was usually shortened to phone calls and letters and a few weeks of vacation time. But suddenly, one Christmas break, I was deemed old enough to get on a Greyhound for the first of a series of year-end visits. It was a sixteen hour night run from Chicago to Minneapolis to Detroit Lakes. The bus culture was more than my siblings could endure, at least not in my care, but for a kid turning thirteen and fourteen it was an adventure my mother and stepfather were willing to allow. On the other end my real dad never questioned their wisdom and was simply happy to see me. And I enjoyed those bus rides, talking for hours with whomever I was seated beside, learning how to sleep sitting up, eating more vending machine food than was good for me, taking curious note of the people who seemed to live in and around bus terminals, but best of all, going to see my dad.

Devotions

But he answered and said to them, 
“You give them something to eat.”  
            Mark 6:37 (NKJV)

1

You, one and all of you,

nameless counselors,
collective observers
adding little to the sentence,
barely part of the plot,

yet there you are, pronounced
in every translation,
prompting response and
preceding the action.

Feed my sheep;
as the day begins to wear,
give them something to eat.


2

You, second person,

the emphasized imperative,
God’s audience specifically
commissioned and directed
to a singular assignment:

having first observed,
be ready to serve;
as the Lord has called you,
hear that holy word:

feed my sheep; 
they do not need to go away,
give them something to eat.


3

You, Christ companion,

one of the twelve 
on a failed retreat
and a broken rest,
your Sabbath overtaken
by a hungry crowd:

having seen the need
but unsure of the logistics,
you’ve been firmly turned 
around to see the deed:

feed my sheep;
all these sheep without a shepherd,
give them something to eat.


4

You, fellow traveler,

being stirred one morning to the life of follow,
pulled by a pulse to leave hearth and hold,
drawn to the shepherd’s call and still
at the shepherd’s feet as the day grows old:

here in the hungry gather,
observing the surround,
with an echo in your stomach
and the journey on your shoulders,

feed my sheep;
lie them down in these green pastures,
give them something to eat.


5

You, faithful follower,

making your way from practical to miracle,
turning attention from mortal to divine,
being taught to pray, to teach, to heal,
now learn your greater discipline:

take these five loaves, these couple of fish
let them first be blessed and broken, then
give thanks for what you’re given
and let the people have their fill:

feed my sheep;
with all of your devotion,
give them something to eat.


6

You, just as you are,

one of the sheep
having come this far,
knowing the hunger
and needing the rest,

you give it all to Jesus
and Jesus answers
with a bit of a challenge,
a bit of a test

putting you front and center
to be God’s hands,
to show God’s love,
to prepare the feast:

feed my sheep;
for the love of God, they’re hungry,
give them something to eat.


from Stillwater Symposia

Coronata

Whiplash migration, filling the branches one day, on their way the next, so quick it seems, four weeks flying by as fast as the flash of their yellow posterity, moving in dreams from south to north to south again with stops and light refreshments. Free music. Dancing. Life, nothing fancy, but sweet all the same, the simplest warble and a two-step shuffle, easy going charity with yellow patches on the elbows of their sleeves and in the press of their hats. Plain folk simply passing through with an unexpected splash of country flare, nothing fancy but sweet all the same, and only memories with the next flight south.


from Thirty Birds

Kissing the Earth

     “Go at once...stand at the crossroads, bow down, [and] kiss the earth,” instructed Sonya (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 433, 1866, tr. David Magarshack, 1951). It was a command heavy with implications, and at first Raskolnikov refused to comply.  What was she asking?
     First, to stand at the crossroads implied that he was to stand at the center of Haymarket Square, the busiest part of the busiest city in Russia.  There he would be where the whole world could see him, making himself completely vulnerable to whatever reaction his confession would bring.  They might laugh, they might scorn and jeer, they might attack him there, or even stone him; they might just pick him up and take him away, never to return again.  But he would have no way of knowing their reaction until he carried out the instruction.
     At the crossroads he would be at St. Petersburg’s point of orientation,  where there would be street signs and mileage and direction signs; and this would also be his own orientation point.   There, based on all the resulting changes in perspective, he would be able to sort things out. 
     And he would be able to determine his future, for it is at the crossroads that one decides direction.  As much as one tries to plan such decisions ahead of time, it is only at the crossroads that the choices are actually made and the steps actually taken for the journey’s continuation.
     After Sonya spoke these words she offered Raskolnikov a cyprus cross to hang around his neck.  “We’ll suffer together, so let us also bear our cross together,” she said (435).  Here then was another implication of “crossroads.”  Confessing and asking the world for forgiveness is a praiseworthy religious act and a testimony of faith, and yet it is not an easy step to take.  The cross to bear along this road is heavy and entails a deep humiliation; it conjures no magic remedy before the symbolic  crucifixion, no preview of the resurrection.  Yet, Sonya inferred, it was a necessary step for the sinner to take. 
     Thus Raskolnikov was to stand at the crossroads: he was to bear his cross of repentance, stand in front of all people, recognize where he stood, and determine his future. 
     And he was to kiss the earth: “...the earth which you have defiled,” Sonya said in full (433), implying that at the crossroads he would be making his apology directly to the world.  By murdering, he had not only wronged his particular victims, who now lay under the soil, he had also sinned against all humankind across the globe. 
     Furthermore, kissing the earth was a demonstration of the deepest humility.  He was to bow down and prostrate to the world as low as he possibly could, showing with face to the ground that he deferred to everyone. 
     By touching the soil this way he would also atune himself with “Holy Mother Earth,” from whence he came, upon which he walked, and whither he was going.  Thus, in one action he would recognize his origin, his existence and his mortality, acknowledging his defilement with respect to all three. 
     But finally, kissing the earth is more than a humble, atoning apology.  It is experiencing a purgatory cleansing by bringing sensuality to its fullest: the taste, the smell, the feel of city dirt next to one’s nose and on one’s lips would stir the soul.  And indeed, when Raskolnikov put Sonya’s directions into practice, his sensuality was so dramatic that one observer remarked that he was drunk.  “He simply plunged... into this new and overwhelming sensation... tears gushed from his eyes... and [he] kissed the earth with joy and rapture” (537).  


from March to December, Dostoevsky Final (Russian 141, 11/30/90, Prof. Rubchak)

Understanding

T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (TWL), Section V:





          V. What The Thunder Said

                    Eliot's note: 

                    In the first part of Part V three themes are employed: the journey to Emmaus, the 
                    approach to the Chapel Perilous (see Miss Weston's book) and the present decay
                    of eastern Europe. 

                    For the journey to Emmaus, see TWL 360-366, although the theme begins to 
                    appear at TWL 328-330; for the decay of eastern Europe, see TWL 367-385; 
                    and for the approach to the Chapel Perilous, see TWL 386-395. These themes, 
                    and the more prominent emergence of Eliot’s own voice without allusions (see 
                    TWL 331-359), will lead to the poem’s “thunder” culmination, beginning at TWL 
                    396.  After the sections of earth, air, fire and water, this might be called the 
                    quintessential “spirit” section of the poem, in which the poet begins to find 
                    understanding, or more properly a peace that passes understanding (see note 
                    at TWL 434).

                    This section's central metaphor of THE VOICE OF THUNDER comes from 
                    Prajapati’s lesson in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad (see TWL 400-423), but 
                    see also the note at TWL 44 and lines 327 and 342, and see also Revelations 10:4: 

                    And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: 
                    and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the 
                    seven thunders uttered, and write them not. 

                    See also John 12:27-30: 

                    Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour: 
                    but for this cause came I unto this hour.  Father, glorify thy name. Then came 
                    there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.  
                    The people therefore, that stood by, and heard it, said that it thundered: others 
                    said, An angel spake to him. Jesus answered and said, This voice came not 
                    because of me, but for your sakes.

                    And see Job 26:14: 

                    Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of him? 
                    but the thunder of his power who can understand?

                    Finally, see the "thunder of infinite ululations" in Dante Alighieri, Inferno 4.1-9:

                    Broke the deep lethargy within my head
                           A heavy thunder, so that I upstarted,
                           Like to a person who by force is wakened;

                    And round about I moved my rested eyes,
                           Uprisen erect, and steadfastly I gazed,
                           To recognise the place wherein I was.

                    True is it, that upon the verge I found me
                           Of the abysmal valley dolorous,
                           That gathers thunder of infinite ululations.


from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land, with annotations (and other explanations)

Meditations of a Waiting Room

Today we meditated: father, son
And waited on a Wednesday afternoon
To see the doctor of attention spans
Whom we had hoped to meet at four pm
But found her overbooked and in demand.
We found ourselves within a waiting room
Of fellow patients of psychiatry
(And those of us along for the support)
For two full hours, and ironically
Amid the stacks of social magazines
And with a background television on,
Among a sampling of the population
Listening to hear their names be called,
We meditated. Unexpectedly

My son, the one who never could sit still,
Is starting to mature before my eyes.
He’s waiting here more patiently than me,
And I begin to wonder anymore
If he’d been diagnosed with ADD
A bit to hastily back in the day
When he was acting all of eight years old
And telegraphing his apparent need
For Adderol, if we have come this far
Again to have his old prescription filled
More out of habit than necessity,
And if there isn’t better therapy
In meditations of a waiting room
Than medications of amphetamine.

Today we meditated: everyone
Who waited with us had a different need,
A different habit, if their trials be told,
And yet we seem to be so much the same,
At least as far as anyone reveals.
I don’t begrudge the doctor for her role
In getting us to recognize ourselves
And realize how simple life can be,
How we all need this opportunity
Of time, however given, to reflect
On simple things, like having empathy
Or understanding our maturity
Or sitting in positions of support
Or being patient in a waiting room.

My father once was in a waiting room
For me. The wait was relatively short
And our trial was a different one to tell,
A different diagnosis, but the same
Prognosis: Give it time, give it time.
The doctor didn’t specify these words
Or scribble his prescription b.i.d.,
But as he had my father wait outside
He talked to me a while, and then he asked
If I played chess. This took me by surprise,
But I said yes, and so the troubled teen
And the Psy.D. played chess while the old man
Was waiting in the hall, more patiently
Than I appreciated, until now.


from Stillwater Symposia and Turning the Metaphor

Brooding Barn

The brooding barn was an old hen perched
On a tilting nest at a hillside farm.
Her eggs were lifelong memories,
To the very end kept safe and warm,

And now that she’s gone, the eggs are hatching,
Generating chicks dispatching
Hungry peeps with a sweet refrain:
The barn’s expired, but we remain.

So, trouble not at the season’s end
That the hen is dead.  Remember how
She was a shelter from the rain,
She was a friend to horse and cow,

And when they left, the children found her,
Rebuilt her nest and ran around her
With energy that’s still sustained.
The barn has fallen, but we remain

To never forget how that barn stood tall
And caught the sunrise on the hill
And defined the farm.  Or so it seemed:
There is a windmill creaking still,

Just one mile north of Yankee Hollow,
And still an easy pace to follow
On Sawmill Creek at Loyalty Lane.
The barn is gone, but there remains

The Andrew Path, the winding trails
The planted pines, the budding oaks,
The setting sun, a billion stars,
And time to visit with the folks,

And the lasting word from Dick O’Brien
Who has no time for country cryin’:
Enjoy! Sit back! Don’t give a darn!
The barn is dead?  Long live the barn!




from Calendrums; photos from Calendrums

Moleskin 4.7

Meanwhile, for all the resistance to change this old man was showing, my own world was like Richard Nixon: full of it, with a banner headline of unasked for, unexpected news. Not only the house and the dad, but we were dropped into a new neighborhood with none of my old friends. I had to give up the paper route job, and in the fall I would be going to a new school —a bigger junior high school, no less. We started going to a new church, a Baptist church, where my mom was now working as an organist and where my step-dad was the treasurer. And the change kept a-coming: I was given chores: mowing the lawn, taking out the garbage; and a behavior code: being told to speak more courteously to adults, or better, not to speak at all. At ages eight and five my malleable, eager to please brothers seemed impervious to all this, but they had not had more than incidental friendships and didn’t have to quit a job and were still in the first half of elementary school. But I was almost a teenager, brimming with angst and anger, and I did not want all this change.

Windmill Creaks

from Calendrums