Sunday, December 31, 2017

Happy New Year

As the old gust growled and spat in the sand
And packed the shore thick with pellets of ice,
It loathed life, loathed death—hell and paradise—
Hated the lights that emblazoned the land,
Pitied mortals and their joy and salaam,
When celebrating passing of the time.

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Shy Flurries

Flurries settle on sleeping lawns—
Refugees in flight from heavens.
Hush!  Hear the halls of light echo
Shy footsteps gliding into life.

Wednesday, November 22, 2017

The Brochure

You prepare the sherbet while I ponder the brochure.
You look so innocent, you look so pure,
As if you could heal me—like you could be the cure
To the infectious disease of my existence.
I am tired.  Tired.  Tired of it all.
You serve me the sherbet.  I blush.
And what if I should say no to this chance?
And what if I should say yes and then fall,
And even if you should come to me in a rush,
It would be late. And if not...oh, I feel so insecure...
And if not, how could you help me—and know for sure?

Sunday, November 12, 2017

Not Knowing

You are reasonably beautiful.
That I intend as a warning.
I'm deceptive as water and sun.
Behind MEN AT WORK signs
I dig myself into a...hole
where dying desires still lurk
like yawning reasonless hopes.
It's safe to die not knowing.

Tuesday, October 31, 2017

In This Poem You Can Be....

In this poem you can be protected.
Despite what you have just said,
Such grand assertion demands
Proof equally extraordinary.
Unless you were to trust me.
But why should I though?
Nevertheless I can only reassure:
In this poem you can be secure,
In this poem you can let go.
Merely repeating it does not make it so,
Nor does denying it or indifference,
But only what is absolutely true,
And in reality what is the case.
In this poem you can be safe,
In this poem you can be you.
Even if so then what about
That word there with that sharp angle
That reaches out for a stirring thought
That still refuses to untangle;
What about the endless lonely spaces
Between the words with distant faces?
You can be safe—just a hope or suggestion.
I believe that no poem is safe if it speaks
To deep feelings as it must, and if it seeks
To connect to the felt universe beyond;
No poem is safe if it claims to have found
The answer to what never was a question
But a courageous vulnerable expression.

Tuesday, October 24, 2017

A Poem Spread Across a Day

Wrote this line when I woke to find myself
soaked in sweat on a raging summer night.

This one composed with the greatest of care
crossing the ol' Pattullo on a bus
in Richmond where potholes are known to bite.

Told Don this line's my reminder to buy
a rhino on my way home...but instead
wrote this and then forgot to get the toy.

Penned this with Donald's vintage fountain pen
I cried when he then took it back by force.

This scribbled on a napkin I had found
in Park Theater where Paterson played.

Can not recount the story 'bout this one
been sworn to strict secrecy by the shore.

Wish there was a way to describe the taste
of sugar-dusted bleeding dark purples,
berries I wolfed down when I wrote these words.

This line I thought in line till heard my name
from that pharmacist's lips picking her nose.

Can't say much here without breaking the law
Can't say much here without following it
but this...I never could finish the thought.

Monday, October 23, 2017

The Human Stain

Par for the course: Hollywood creeps,
threadbare couches, filming silence, cops
that strip...strippers that police: What happens
in Hollywood...
Are we flirting
with disaster?  Madonna:
truth or dare?
The human stain.

Friday, October 13, 2017

Silver Mascara

You apply coats of silver mascara
to the puffy folds about the setting sun.
In the screaming sky mannequins flew.
From the silent soil red flowers grew;
one in the shape of an umbrella,
another: a pointed gun.

Wednesday, October 4, 2017

Rich Cotton Quilt

On a rich cotton quilt we'd lain, us
like chess pieces: knee to knee,
shadow palms and white fists.  In such states
twitching, in knotted broken chains.  Check!
Our words and joints strategically placed—
not touching.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Friggatriskaidekaphobic

The friggatriskaidekaphobic moves
me to pity so much I laugh the laugh
of vestal vultures, homeless houses, grooved
graves, of the blazing blues, of fires, giraffes.

Monday, September 11, 2017

Punisher

I'm notorious
For punishing my mouth
Loving is easy
except myself
This thing here is my throat
disfigured by fury
Hear the agony in my voice
Despair everts my soul
Luckily too numb to moan
When I'm morose I think
I must be physically sick
That makes it easier perhaps
Very sorry if you're amongst
those who've felt what I mean.

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Name

My restless feather-picking cockatoo,
Can you tell why denial veils my ire
(In turn cloaking my fears; and those my shame)
And shame's shrouding my rusting grief? But you,
Confined inside a mesh—of metal wire—
Just raise your crest, that sulphur-yellow flame,

Lift up your wings, then start to pace your cell,
And squawk in bursts, as though your bill’s on fire;
My pet, enough! I care for you the same….
Perhaps beneath my grief some geysers spell
Love’s name!

Sunday, August 20, 2017

Waiting

Sometimes without even knowing
you choose not to do the dishes,
and there you are—I see you—
waiting.
Or you do them right away, do them spotlessly,
lovingly, the way only you know how to do,
but always waiting.
I know I’m not the one you would want
to notice such things, but I can’t help it.  I too have
dishes at home waiting.

Friday, August 18, 2017

Internet

Get banned, bite the dust.
End it all, delete your account.
Log out, sleep.
                                 In, to wake.
Live and die
                                 by the internet.

Thursday, August 17, 2017

Donne Tell me Not

"Death, be not proud—" "Hey Donne," Death interrupts,
"I'm trying to sleep here!  Don't speak so loud!"

Thankful

I'm thankful for the words
Through whom I've learned to reach
I'm thankful for the birds
Who serenade the beach

I'm grateful for the rhymes
Who give my grief a form
I'm grateful for the chimes
Who salsa through the storm

Been in your debt my song
Who hold my bursting heart
Been in your debt so long
You feel like body part

Obliged to time and age
Who tame events in space
Obliged to pen and page
Who hide and show our race

Sunday, August 6, 2017

The Weird Tail of a Whaling Wail with a White Tale

To be exact, I liked the white tale in the tail,
the wild waves, those sounds, save for the whale of the wail.
Some made no sense: I never learned how the made maid
the sea hare happy housed inside the ship’s pail pale?

When you wondered out loud about the weigh to way
a whale in ship full of hey, and when you yelled "hay",
my mind was somewhere else, not hear. I could not here
your views on whale’s pray either.  Pardon me, I prey.

I had left the animals and there plight right their,
since for sea hair and blue fish I care not a hare—
that’s not write, baleen whales are mammal, I should right,
not fish!—Sorry to air, I’m human…I breathe err.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

Bought the Moon

could not afford the stars   so bought the moon
keep it concealed   fearing burglary
moonlight means not a thing
to me
          having lost
                            my eyes
                                                                            way back              
to        b     r     i     l     l     i     a     n     t              
                            dreams

Thursday, July 27, 2017

A Chewed Up Old Pencil

Perhaps I am a chewed up old pencil
but this body had once wrote beauty,
against the page had once sizzled,
a silhouette of seduction satisfying
the white face with sounds so tender
they melted into memory’s honeyed fountains,
had once tickled the pages with laughter,
once filled them with insights of such richness
no books could contain them nor hearts without
whispering them among silences of wonder―
dazzling celestial bodies in the darkness.
This body but I mean that I also
wrote masterpieces even, my
own Malvina and Vanessa.
Here’s something I have learned in my long life:
Whether or not it is turtles all the way down,
it must be pencils all the way up, for we write,
get written, and we’re the means of writing,
and words that move through our chewed up
bones, will have our signatures too somewhere
deep inside their marrow.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Pictures

Pictures:
             an empty folding chair to the left
                                                        a tart cherry tree
                                            through French windows
                                                                  to the right me and my chai tea
                                                                             my back 
to camera

Monday, July 24, 2017

I Will Forgive You

Forgive you how I did
For all things you had done to me
Now far enough for heart to see
I never felt what must be touched 
Unreachable
                   Unreachable
         Then                        for me
Forgiving you for
                                                     Who you are

Wednesday, July 19, 2017

On the Porch

On the porch the sunshine pours into me
like a bowl of mom’s butternut squash soup
so hot the baby blue table turns white
where scented steam clumps or streaks across but
freezes long enough like a memory.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Emotional Overhaul

How do you overhaul
A mangled self severed
From the fury of libido
Strangling agency
Of ego?

The conscious commander’s left
Those silent bones
Splayed out on the divan
You can see inside
Where the troops have run amok:

Rage in clashes with grief
Paranoia shooting in the chest
Shame digging itself in the rocks
Despair hurling bolts up the clouds
The soul’s powerless but to watch....

How do you into this butchered land
Anesthetize the guarded bounds
Sharpen the sterilized words
Suture these psychic cracks?
How will you doctor
Assemble
                                  Me

                 Back?

Monday, July 17, 2017

I Hear Frogs Croak

A South African lion thundered, roared
at me: Stop! I shall be devouring you!
Shuddering, "When?" I asked the mighty king.
The fiend bellowed: It will be a surprise,
like one's birthday bash…or a fatal stroke.

Oh please have mercy on me, I implored,
sobbing: Is there anything I can do?
The big cat growled back, Not a single thing
can save you, so get up and wipe your eyes,
you look pathetic…man is such a joke.

I stood up slowly—though my tears still poured,
my bones convulsing with despair, anew.
Meanwhile a breeze, perfumed with blooming spring,
passed by, birds sang as sun began to rise,
and spill the warmth of that, that runny yolk.

But what if I kill you, you godless lord,
or end myself, before you could get to?
I’m immortal, the beast began to sing,
and second, as for wooing your demise,
go on, I even lend you my own cloak.

And then the jungle's king retired toward
a red bush, after bidding me adieu.
That mamba hangs as though a tail or string
from some dead-rat tree; here slime lily lies:
split white petals…but those are frogs that croak.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

To Kiarostami

Were you the one driving us sir,
alone, and one by one asking
earnestly...what...to bury you
right there—there!—by that barren sign?
Did you desire to heal, seeking
to find in our refusals lines
that lead to roots, curing you too?
Of what, tell me, your own despair?
Perhaps you were the passenger
who rode with us, the audience—
to whom cinema's for hiding
from self, who hope to find a friend
who'd stop a bit to throw a rope.
But what's the need for this pretense?
I too had seen me in your lens.
Abbas, confess though, was that you?
If not then what are you here for,
close-up or sound take only?  Hope
celestial winds would carry you
to roots at home—or at a friend's....

*Abbas Kiarostami, the world-renowned Iranian filmmaker, passed away exactly a year ago, on July 4, 2016.  He directed, among others, the Palme d'Or-winning "A Taste of Cherry" (referenced throughout my poem), a movie about a suicidal person driving around and asking others that should he go through with it, if they'd be willing to bury him.  I also make passing references to three of his other films, "Where Is the Friend's Home?", "Close-Up", and "The Wind Will Carry Us."

Saturday, June 17, 2017

Life's Monorail

Is there a chance the track could bend?
A chance our fates have long been penned?
A chance that hearts would fail to mend?
A chance our meanings won't transcend?
A chance our lives will not extend?
A chance our souls will not ascend?
A chance we've failed to comprehend?
A chance this really is the end?
Is there a chance, my Hindu friend?

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Land of the Dying and the Dead

Land of the dying and the dead:
Dead men in holes; undead inside
concrete sepulchres, speeding tombs,
gold mausoleums, paper vaults....

Monday, June 12, 2017

Anxiety's Tightrope

No matter what there is always a door
and a window or two and walls and floor
and all around you things that you can name
even those times they're out waging a war.

No matter what you would still sense your shirt
or your jacket or socks or pants or skirt
to see or touch or hear its rustling sound
or smell the sweat there or cologne or dirt

No matter what the selfless breath moves through
your body back and forth each time anew
and somewhere far the wind gives life to waves
which come crashing against the shore of you

No matter what there's always boundless hope
for new resources and more ways to cope
and not just cope but be happy and grow
and fly on love beyond your life's tightrope

Trampled

When I walk by the trampled hyacinths
I try to right the flowers that been wronged
When life walks by trampling you underfoot
You find yourself affirmed in little things.

Sunday, June 4, 2017

My Simpsons Song

As Professor John Frink says, Let
the commencing beginulate,
so starting with Homer's foe, let's begin:
We know where Frank Grimes was livin',
in a room above a bowling alley...
and below another bowling alley.
But did you know, that mouse, Bitey,
spent time in Monorail's closet nightly?

The show's animals that rhyme with Bitey:
Pinchy, Stampy, Blinky, Mr. Teeny,
Yeti, Itchy and Scratchy...Poochie!
There are exceptions like Lisa's pony
Princess, Snowball, Loch Ness Monster,
Plopper, Anastasia (the white tiger
owned by lion tamers, Ernst and Gunter),
Jub-Jub, Mojo...Santa's Little Helper.

But it's not just animals: Think Maggie,
Fat Tony, not Bill but Marty, Barney,
not Selma but Patty, Lenny,
and not Chief Wiggum or Lou but Eddie,
Mayor Quimby, Luigi, Sherri
and Terri, Bleeding Gums Murphy,
Charlie, Krusty, and Hyman Krustofski,
Mary Bailey, that Crazy Cat Lady,
Jasper Beardly, and Groundskeeper Willie
who got the "shinning"—but he did...really!

Some names though end in "man" like Hans Moleman,
Bumblebee Man, Duffman, Radioactive Man,
Kent Brockman, and Crazy Old Jewish Man.
But not quite, the one-armed Herman Hermann.

Names, characters...but there's a third factor:
It's about how good is the voice actor:
Now Roger Meyers was voiced by Rocco;
While Shearer did the bus driver Otto,
the school music teacher Dewey Largo,
and that shocking Dr. Marvin Monroe!
Pam Hayden did that bully named Jimbo;
Castellaneta, Guy Incognito;
and one of my favorites on the show
by the guest voice Al Brooks, Hank Scorpio!

But speaking of guest voices, John Waters,
he did not do Waylon Smithers,
but did his date, a guy named John
(scorned by Homer who worried for his son,
and despite that still adored by his wife,
he changed Homer's mind by saving his life).

The characters voiced by Azaria:
Moe, Cletus, Dr. Nick Riviera,
Chase or Pyro, Disco Stu, Akira,
Kirk Van Houten...and, well, Boobarella!

Fine, I was joking about that, as she
was voiced by Tress MacNeille, and Lunchlady
Doris too, though Doris Grau was the one
who did it, though sadly now she is gone.
The late Phil Hartman and Marcia Wallace
did their roles very well...almost flawless.
No longer here, their achievements endure:
Edna Krabappel, Hutz and Troy McClure...

The show features every faith and color:
The black Dr. Hibbert and Judge Snyder,
The Christian Ned Flanders and Tim Lovejoy,
The Jewish Krusty the Clown, Dolph, and oy
that wealthy and conceited Artie Ziff
who tried to force himself on Marge—as if!
The "miscellaneous" Apu
and Manjula...or rather called "Hindu",
Cookie Kwan of the west side who's Asian;
Richard Gere, of Buddhist persuasion,
as are Lenny, Carl, and Lisa, while Moe
is a snake-handler which means...I don't know.

At the end of the day you must relate
to the characters, be it love or hate.
So, be it Ling or Wolfcastle, one's joy
comes from how you feel for, say, Fallout Boy

I don't feel much for Nelson Muntz or Snake,
but for Milhouse whom Bart can never shake
and for Patches, Poor Violet, I do,
for pale Wendell, even Martin too.
Ralph who called Miss Hoover mommy, ate paste,
and said "burning" when describing the taste
of poison berries, is "learnding", said so,
to Super Nintendo Chalmers.  Although
it is sure quite hard to believe,  when he
still does call a rat a pointy kitty!

Of Homer's immediate family,
I like Herbert, Abe, Mona, not Abbie.
I don't know why but I like Arnie Pye
flying high in the sky. Comic Book Guy
too, the definition of a winner,
so sexy in bed with Agnes Skinner.
The abused Sideshow Bob and Sideshow Mel
despite the former's penchant for eevell,
get some sympathy from me; and Old Gil,
and Cecil, even Kodos and Kang will.
The Rich Texan, C. Montogmery Burns,
which of these two ruthless men earns
our love and liking more than hate instead?
A noble spirit, Jebediah said
embiggens the smallest man.  Right or wrong,
fine words with which to end my Simpsons song.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

First Visit

I know the unyielding nature of the beast,
its sticky and yet far too slippery texture,
made more challenging by the disguises it wears.
Some find themselves awakened to nihilistic truths, others
find sleep every hour a siren song impossible to resist,
and some like the young woman here today
so detached from her own body by these layers of fat,
has no suspicions at all that that she—she—is alive,
but I suspect, no I’m sure, that she is, somewhere
in there screaming in the clutches of the beast.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

Cherries

The crystal bowl full of cherries
sat proudly right in the center
of the walnut coffee table.
Handsome men in expensive suits
and their beautiful ladies
sat in grand chairs with legs of gold,
while I felt lost among adults,
standing there eyeing the cherries.
I leaned forward and suddenly
a dozen smug eyes fixed on me
dissecting all my graceless moves
as I reached into the tangled
stems of that rich cherry jungle.
So with no time to think I picked
the ripest and juiciest one,
when all at once a loud chorus
shouted at me and I sat down,
ashamed of having mistaken
artificial fruit for real ones.

Thursday, May 25, 2017

The Empire of Fire

Falling asleep by the dying flames
of a faux-stone fireplace,
I found myself inside an empire
of fire, of faceless soldiers in flight,
the clashing embers above the ashes,
raging meteor showers, shooting lights,
sonorous lamentations in the air
above where ashen parents lie,
and I heard peaking hollers
of children burning with desire
to join the ranks of fighters in the night.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Tock-Tock

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock….
Old Adams and Eves on the ageless rock
awash in oceans that spit shells and muck.
The shrinking Earth can never run nor walk
as wilful living do around the clock,
so it must spin and spin as timeless talk.
***
It’s late at night, I’m counting sheep, a knock,
it's wind? I thought of Keats’s sweet hemlock.
And sleep has fled.  A tick…though not a tock.
My kitten's, on the windowsill yawning
enframed by stars where no human race is,
no Eliot's cat, one who could disconnect
nothing from nothing. Sleepy…nothing...tock.

The Lab

We're waiting to hear our numbers.
Later we brace ourselves for stings.
I saw mine smacking its thin lips,
Looking like a fat greedy fly.
All around I see perspiring bodies
That fear how they'll be graded
Under judging microscopes shortly.
There never is an essay portion,
Defending your brokenness.
This feels like a beauty contest,
No chance for old hearts and livers.
The red ink is most unforgiving:
Fix these and come back again,
Say the numbers looking very grim.

Friday, May 19, 2017

Pieces of Me

Some were left behind like the ones smeared on
backs of teachers' heavy hands in autumn.
Some where lost like the ones in red petals
of those tulips risen among the rocks,
my childhood springs in the construction sites.
And between cars beneath mulberry trees
lining the back alleys, in the presence
of us all playing ball in late July.
In Panchatantra, and Jules Verne's fancies,
in goodnight kisses every single night….
But now I stand a  porous skin only
wrapped around absence that festers and spreads
a nameless disease that tears through the past.

Thursday, May 11, 2017

Saturday, April 29, 2017

Earthly Carnival

I revel in repetition, I do,
like revolving around the lovely sun.
What Earthly carnival of life, these pine
valleys, these rural grasslands, rolling plains,
velvety rivers, groves of olive, beds
of wildflowers, these woods where lions roar.
This Ferris wheel of soil contains souls too—
in wrinkling skin, pumping their failing hearts,
who hold on tight as Earth circles and spins,
and sun takes in the sights and smiles once more....

Thursday, April 27, 2017

To the Thief

I'll be brief.
This, to the thief
who stole—to my grief—
my Kobe beef
and ate it here
guzzling my beer
with no fear
that we will hear:
Your worse crime
was adding the lime
and all my thyme!
Hope you do time!

Think

Think Belgian chocolate, caramel, fudge,
pomegranate pistachio, mango-peach....
Think ice cream melting and a stranger's touch,
think taste of salted skin, a moonlit beach
that licks the foamy whites of ocean's reach,
a breeze perfumed with rotting kelp and fish.
Think waking cold and hungry...no, don't think!

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

At Last to Feel Regret for Having Killed

At last to feel regret for having killed
myself, flesh and soul, systematically
over the years, though slowly and with care;
to peel that onion, drill through the numbness,
discovering jagged fossils of rage;
with surgical precision discharging
the ancient grief blocked by congested pain;
to find the core of self-flagellation
concealed within a fog, now lifting, rain
soaking my face, to bless me, thus washing
away the guilt and loss, dissolve their chain.

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Childhood's Monsters

Beneath my childhood bed myriad monsters
lurked nightly in darkness, hidden horrors....
Oh how simple was life for the young me,
life's monsters confined in space and in time.
Mushrooming they've colonized every inch
of my insides now, of the world out there,
blending in when need be, profess honor,
ones that look like me, ones in modest robes,
in Kiton suits, fatigues, dirty tatters...
some even capes!  Who to trust when I've known
monstrous hearts in some, some their monstrous brains?
But monsters live too inside chance and fate,
deep in the deafening hush of the world
where air, with or without you, keeps its form,
the sun's forever sun and the moon moon,
childhood's monsters gulped as if breaths in storm.

Do What You Love

Looking back at me, the slight counselor,
her head framed by thick shelves of dusty tomes,
strands of her grey hair stuck to her collar,
her crinkled dirty-blue eyes twitching still,
too dim to guide my heart’s drifting vessel,
said to me, “Do what you love,” in a tone
as though coming from bottom of a well,
not a shout, but an echoless whisper
of love that lives only to speak these words,
for when it stops it’ll recall the thirst,
heart afloat in ocean of salty tears.
So she drank her coffee and asked, Who’s next?

Monday, April 24, 2017

Faith

Winter’s loitering...
Ice is asleep on the soil...
Hush! Blossoms whisper.

The Story of a Young Man who Furtively Penciled a Snail with a Man's Head in the Margins of a Medieval Manuscript

There was a young man of some artistry
Who penciled illustrations furtively
Inside of the margin
When somebody barged in
So fast was the shrinking (and shamefully)

Sunday, April 23, 2017

Two Elevenies (Sentence and Chaos)

Sentence
Demands order
Inside the bars
Of consciousness and universe
Escape
--------------------------------------
Chaos
Destabilizes perceptions
Here and there
No there and here
Graspings

Last War

Entangled roots
And barren tongues
A ground with bounds
Buried in soot
Corpses unsung
Gaspings of young
As grudge is crowned
Failings compound
The selves construed
Get gutted good

Saturday, April 22, 2017

A Fable (The Proud Eagle)

An eagle, famous, glorious and proud,
majestically descended down toward
the water, caught a common carp, between
colossal claws, but then before it climbed
toward its kingly nest high on the peak,
a voice had spoke, “Sad you’ve settled for me.
You whose dignified name would chill the sharks.”
Offended now but not finding the carp
worthy of answer, thus choosing instead
to drop the carp, go on seeking to find
a carp worthy of filling such gizzard.
It circled ‘round a few times till it found
a bigger carp, and caught it in its claws,
just perfect for a proud respected king.
But soon the mumbles came, “Consume me fast,
you bird whose name had truly scared me once,
so others won’t witness such disgrace,
ruler of skies once now here eating this!”
And so the bald eagle circled again,
and struggling harder with the latest one,
each bigger and heavier than the last,
while growing hungrier, and much fatigued.
At last in picking up the biggest carp,
it lost control and sank into the sea,
unwilling to let go and so became
a mess of rotting fat without a name,
and food for worms that laughed at vanity.
There’s lesson in this if you want to hear:
Let go of pride that weighs you down to death.

Friday, April 21, 2017

Growing Tomatoes (a georgic)

To grow tomatoes one needs fertilize the soil
Five pounds per hundred square feet, five pounds of limestone,
then mix them into the top layer of the soil.
Choose robust dark-green seedlings only, and choose short.
Plant in rows four feet apart.  Don't plant when it's cold,
they're killed by frost, when it's 32º or below.
They need an inch of water a week, and eight hours
of sun each day.  You can apply mulch to control
the weeds.  Farmers, don't forget to pray for showers
and praise the sun and the moon and the blameless soul
of the universe so that your plants grow in full.

The Wastebasket

A black colored wire mesh basket—
Inside which some words on crumpled
pages I’d forced into arranged
marriage of rhyme and rhythm, jump
now for joy though it’s hard to see
their friends crossed, some torn to pieces,
thus they taste bittersweet freedom,
saved from the ever scheming mind
of I the struggling poet—sits
in the corner next to my desk
across from the open closet,
where I keep stacks of lined paper
and many dozens of black pens,
and holds words prisoners, those words
who refused my orders and rules,
rejected my concepts and plans,
endured my threats and abuses,
were free at last to simply be.

Thursday, April 20, 2017

Accident

He seemed, well, almost good today.
Toivo, you can't get your hopes up.
Yes, but his face wasn't sallow—
Is that one yours?  I take mine black.
Yes.  No, this one; with two sugars.
The doctor though was such a prick.
They love being told what to do.
He's my only child!  Just because—
Don't say the word Kukka, please don't.
I think your coffee's getting cold.
Rest assured I will sue the guy.
Kick him, myself I'll knock him out!
No need, I will do everything—
A mom's knuckles can beat blind courts.
I hope his surgery goes well.
He's a boxer!  I need a smoke.
I need air too...stuffy in here.
Don't forget your coffee, let me—
Oh, do you see that leaf in front?
The scarlet one?  One on the car?
Yes, Del's lips used to be that red
Where's my smoke?  They will be, Toivo.

My task

She quoted someone whose name I forget,
something about her tasks being akin
to the torture of…someone…Sisyphus!
Speaking of endless repetitions, clean
becoming soiled and then the soiled made clean
over and over and over again….
Staying in Germany then with the kids,
still in my 40s, she in her 30s,
one of us had a lot of growing up
to do and now I know it wasn’t she.

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Just a Game

We sit by the unlit fireplace
the crystal chess set between us
I say your move Lilith oh you
coquettish devil I'm thinking
to myself hope you don't recall
my blunder in the opening
So that's why you called up my ex
Yet you chuckle as you punch "that"
then take my white knight and roar check!
"Well..." I start but is that a trap?
Let it go or explain myself?
We're even now bishop for knight
The exchange though easily won
too tempting so I make a move
make up an elaborate tale
take your rook with my other knight
Right away you say mate in four!
Oh never leave your king exposed
Then add that your ex called today
played our recorded call for her
From here on every move is forced
adding you badly lose this one
but remember it's just a game
You leave I notice I'd been forked
My heart and brain I'd lost them both

What will grow in Aleppo? (a 5-7-5 haiku)

Life born from Tigris,
yellow asphodels, tulips.
Scent of sun-dried blood.

Memories

memories are bones we find
inside unmarked burial grounds
when digging for fresh water

memories are Frankensteins
fragments forced into sense
their last words your lips her scent

memories are misleading brochures
tales with no beginnings and no ends
sickly ghosts needing doctors or priests

memories are abandoned rusting rails
they’re circuses of snapshots and sounds
floundering zoos of beauties and beasts

memories stretch from depths of the brain
through blood and flesh and through bones
like a meandering poem looking for home

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Fingertongues

On the paper I walk on my fingertongues
this is no way to live I wish I didn't have to
hunt for words all about me
and jump from one to one as though a frog on a pond
my fingertongues projecting to swallow the meaning
before making another jump
here on a lotus leaf enclosed by stagnant waters
of unconscious white page I fear
falling in.

Life of a Poet

Producing poetry is like pushing an empty pen
Right into your guest’s sinless heart
Write as the horror in their eyes
Dulls engulfed into death
But pray at their dargah
Notice it is your own
We poets worship
Ourselves first
We murder it
Again and
Again

Monday, April 17, 2017

Sunday, April 16, 2017

Dictatorial Systems

Some system circulates
propaganda and sh*t
What must be excreted
instead force-fed
People can’t be trusted
to digest unprocessed…
The system’s immune yes
but is nervous no less
reproducing itself
forever and ever
The system-muscular
does not fear the hater
but people who still care
want to help each other
as though this foul world were
a functioning body.

A Rubaiyat

In smiles you've shared here penning lines that speak
Your kindness, nobly shared, when all is bleak;
In words that soothe as petals from a rose,
Lip-smacking as a drink in Furnace Creek;

In letters that you've sent me, graceful prose
Of promise lining where your spirit flows....
Drunk on your vision, virtues of your will,
I'd love to read the life your eyes compose.

A pebble, but inside your words a hill;
A weed, though in your eyes a daffodil;
Digest my cosmos for my open beak!
Postman's my dealer, your mail's my pill!

Friday, April 14, 2017

Money Doesn't Grow on Trees

At daybreak sauntering along a blind,
My eyes were drawn to something odd behind
the silver gates there, giving off a sheen,
a soaring tree with leaves of grayish-green.
I saw...but no!  It can't be that...it can't!
That Mr. Andrew Jackson?  Franklin...Grant?
Saw thousands of them swaying in the breeze.
Let's go, dad said, money don' grow on trees!

De Niro

Mr. Robert Anthony De Niro
Has always played the tough-guy type hero.
They say when his daughter said her first word "daddy",
He looked severely at her: "You talkin' to me?!"

Eliot

Where did Eliot write his poetry and prose?
At home or maybe some coffee shop close?
It's safe to assume he'd take his black coffee to go
Should women there be talking of Michelangelo

Thursday, April 13, 2017

Another Night

Outside the library some dogs in suits
were chasing nimbly after Pokemons
Inside a charming Persian cat was caught
on hidden cameras stealing a mouse
I don't recall my other dreams at five
Whose hands are these that wring this drenched pillow?
I still do try each night only in vain
with sapphire pills to put to sleep this self
Despite it all the morning stiffly comes
its sunny gong and birds chirping the time

Sky Ghazal

I saw my lover's face in light at dawn
The sky's visage in candlelight at dawn

Sky's face dyed with streaks of rose and lemon
As though a bursting dynamite at dawn

I wish I could reach up and touch the sky
Just like a rising delta kite at dawn

If I could breathe in the sky's scent up close
How I envy the birds in flight at dawn

My love for sky's sweet face keeps on burning
Yet all Arash can do is write at dawn

Wednesday, April 12, 2017

Confessions of a Survivor

They say that shame is a global judgment
On the bad self which devalued now shrinks,
Or wishing to at least hide from the eyes,
Powerless to veil its bared worthlessness.
Thus shame's debilitating beyond words,
While guilt's a judgment on actions only;
Discomfort thus much easier to bear,
The good self freed should it choose to repent,
Sacrifice, pay the cost, repair the harm....
Oh how foolishly assuring must be
To make distinctions in his fancy ink
For one whose boiling blood is a bright red,
Not curdling darkness lurching forth blindly,
Unconsciously circling, somehow feeding
Mindless machinery and all aiming
To keep alive this thinking squishy thing
Where souls in solitary confinement
Ask why me and not him, why him not me?
Why this and not that, why now and not then?
Why breathe this air and take up this space-time
When each single hour the lives of all kind
End mid-breath without a reason or rhyme?
Oh what do scientists in lab coats know,
What do therapists, what do preachers know....
What does anybody know about survival guilt!
When they all know nothing in the first place
Of why they're born and living anyway.
Only the criminals must feel guilty,
Or they should, they say, but nobody else.
How easy it must be if you fear no
Punishment for living your random lives.
How many cold dead hands are caressing your thick throat?

Funeral

Long ago at your old friend's funeral
Outside through a soft snow flurry I saw
Your flawlessly fine face faintly aglow
Your arms full of the fairest fresh flowers
Your gloved fists and your gorgeous gloomy eyes
Braving the ghoulish cold getting ready
To bury a very scary fairy
Tale of love that's wild and willful and wrong
This wilted willow has wasted away
For too long so here I watch you and wait

Tuesday, April 11, 2017

Moon and I

For years I stayed awake for you my flame,
So we could play a game of hide and seek.
Behind the clouds I'd see you slowly peek,
And spotting you I'd laugh and cry your name.
And so each day you left and night you came.
Till once I saw a thing that made me weak;
I've since refused to play with you or speak,
Though now I know I've but myself to blame:
The pearly glow I thought was bold desire
To join your light together with my hell,
Was just your lover's, sun's, reflected lust;
I'd thus mistook the source of passion's fire.
I hope my letter finds you loved and well,
I've found in me a heart concealed with rust.

Monday, April 10, 2017

Portrait of a Robot

I feel nothing for you
I’ve known your cold metallic bones
The arms of steel that fixed my bike
I feel nothing for
Your rusted eyes leaking thick oil
And when you lost your legs and had to crawl
That annoying clicking sound of your heart
When you laid too close....
Last night they put you away
Maybe into the ground
What do I care I
Feel
Nothing.

Recounting a Traveller’s Tale

Traveling down a parched rural road
I came across a rank eviscerated trunk
Its ribs as though jutting from soil
Ivory stems doused in ebony blood
Blindly walking forward away from the bones
I looked back to the stories in paper
Odorless words like sanctions and bombs
While the merciless sun shone brighter
And the wind trying to twist away the news
As though I were in some Aesop’s fable

Years later when I’ve recounted the tale
Often enough like a sailor fighting off doubts
I can no longer be sure what I saw or whose

Friday, April 7, 2017

Impossible Discovery

The teacher adds, “I’m very sure
Oxygen had been discovered
During the seventeen hundreds—”
“But no!” The student interjects,
“Professor, with all due respect,
What then did people breathe before!?”

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

It Sulfur Charity

"It Sulfur charity, they want to go to Polonium."
"Lithium go", you said, and now the boys, all of them,
Argon.  The Copper said they tried to get Radium,
But he Krypton after them from Francium
All the way to Germanium, just to Cesium.
"When will Uranium in?"  I often asked you about them.
But It's too late now, it's time to Barium.

Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Moon-Sun

Every nychthemeron the sun
Ascends a set of fluffy steps
With the same grace and dignity,
Gives another soliloquy—
Golden words of luminous warmth—
To all blooms and beggars alike.
But what begins must end and so
The sun descends behind the rocks,
Changes into snug pajamas
(of vivacious phosphorus white)
And so it begins the night shift
Do not judge! It got stars to feed!

Monday, April 3, 2017

Exhibits of Love

Gloved hands probing deepest of wounds,
Valiant hearts and committed minds
Wrestling with death each moonless hour;
The mud-caked faces, bloodied claws,
Of the firemen that dig and scour
Through charred rubble for silent bones;
The voices that uphold such laws
Protecting every assortment known
Of skin or faith, of age or kind;
The truest exhibits of love.

Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Fear

Fear is the bleeding yarn
Fear is the fleeting dawn
Fear is the grave of sleep
Fear is the fiery yawn

Fear is the naked plain
Fear is the shield and chain
Fear is the spider's creep
Fear is the lion's mane

Fear is the godless leer
Fear is the throaty croon
Fear is the missing sheep
Fear is the icy moon

Fear is the crack of bone
Fear is the dark unknown
Fear is the drowning deep
Fear is the dying moan

Fear is the perfect line
Fear is the senseless sign
Fear is the patterned beep
Fear is the curving spine

Fear is inside this yarn
Fear has knit my rhyme
Fear oh you fool...
My will's as sharp as knife!

Sitting and Standing

My spine falters again.
Whose orders I obey?
Must I of all people
hold up here, these heavens?
My lungs against them too,
Struggling, swell, then fall.
My breath's chased down a maze
Where flesh contorts and aches,
Where echoed sighs are felt,
Escaping bony caves.

If sitting drains me so,
Perhaps I need to stand.
Should standing feel the same,
Might help this man to know
One day the struggle may,
Despite incessant doubts,
In time with grit and faith
That spring from love within,
Sustained by that without,
Let true acceptance in.

Monday, March 13, 2017

Wish

I wish for peace and happiness,
For safety's hug and hope's caress.
I wish for fast and full relief
From aches, abuse, and suffering.
I wish for strength and well-being,
To live in kindness that endures.
For grit and grace in times of grief,
Freedom that heals and love that cures.

Dressings

This is the only absolute bible....
And so the voices worked out the title:
Revolutionary.  Latest.  Breakthrough.
Complete and up-to-date.  Revised.  All new.
Basics.  Fundamentals.  Bare essentials—
Written by a grave face with credentials.
The ultimate authoritative guide.
The best-seller, recommended worldwide.
Art and science of.... Step-by-step how-to.
From the only expert...doctor...guru.
For dummies.  Idiots.  Morons.  Brainless.
Solutions.  Tips and tricks.  Hidden secrets.
A powerful book—good too for your health.
Gives you better sex, success, freedom, wealth.
As usual I've happened to digress:
The subject?  Salad dressings that impress.

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Doors

In hospitals here are countless doors
that lead nowhere.  Nowhere!  I know the ones
with numbers on them maybe make you think
behind must lie some truth or certainty.
Like the ones down the hall with names on them
or doors beneath the glowing exit signs.
Do not be fooled by such decorations.
They close and open but they lead nowhere.
These doors here now I've gone through more than once,
they told me these ones here, the swinging type,
ones colored baby blue—I don't recall.
But once inside, I'm sure, I've never left.
Some say our minds and hearts they too have doors,
and long corridors made of nerves and veins.
It's far too easy getting lost in there,
when things out there, a touch or sound, a light,
become a sense, a feeling, form a thought,
become a part of you, and loop inside,
and set off countless other loops of pain....
Once you're in here, you're never ever out.

Friday, March 10, 2017

That Shark

Between the feverish shiver
of sharks, and the approaching spout
greedily slurping ocean's waves;
with green and orange colored canes
(as though the sailboat's veins; or snakes
that crawled from dark of reachless depth);
with stranger of a schooner there
nestled on distant foamy crests,
with every kind of beast and bird,
a sight from future, maybe past?

You hold your head up with such grace.
Please tell me this:  Are you content,
sitting, reflecting on your life,
on goals of lawless motion, sense
in ages, hours, in this moment?
But leaning back you look composed.
How soft your feet and loose your toes!
In chaos all about have you
at last secured yourself a home?
Oh tell me how, please tell me how!

You look dignified, look so sure.
Am I wrong though, are you in pain?
Did you give up, believe you'd failed,
to now be looking back, away
from kismet's open drooling mouth,
your will in pieces like your mast,
your soul is torn as now's your sail?
Don't stop the fight, don't give up hope.
In awe of you for now, it's I
that shark who's looking up to you!

Inspired by:
"The Gulf Stream" by Winslow Homer, oil on canvas,1899.
http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/11122

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Winslow_Homer_-_The_Gulf_Stream_-_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.jpg (wikimedia public domain)

Thursday, March 9, 2017

The Only One

A mount of rice, many peaks of saffron,
the myriad skewers of ground lamb kebab
with basil and sumac—wrapped in sangak—
and barbequed tomatoes.  For dessert
black mulberries in sugar, in golab,
and then ruby seeds, freed of skin and pulp,
garnished with lemon and Persian hogweed.
Then comes sholezard, sohan, and halva.
A child's hand reaches for tahdig.
It's painted red.  She's almost six.
Her searching eyes see things blurry.
She's the only one there, the young
lady stands in silence and waits.
Outside the home in the heavy rain
an old argument has broken out,
someone's been shamed, another
disrespected, a young woman blames
her own kind heart, a heavyset man mumbles
something to God, looking at the moon,
a boy shouts something that seems to have wounded
his own nephew's pride.
An old woman groans, and there
A quiet man with a thick mustache
bends over and cries; and then blubbers.
Inside a lady is reaching
for tahdig, for food, for something.

Thursday, March 2, 2017

Good Old Days

Like rice one throws at weddings, fists of ice
Were flung against my own bedroom windows.
I rose in fright, my face drenched in mirrors.
Although I looked the selfsame as before,
That gusty dawn when I woke, I felt old;
As though a crucial threshold had been crossed,
As though was wed to Chronos now, shackled
To pounds of sagging flesh and porous bones.
Back in the good old days my body formed
The (veiled) foundation of my strength, freedom.
The worthless box that held the priceless stone;
The papers of my love letters; scaffolds
To build my dreams, they'd now become gallows.
Back in the good old days I didn't know.