Boxes

Please do not move, you hear? Stay there
while I move
these boxes of white paper home, said the stranger.
Under the yellow streetlight,
and surrounded by a thickening fog
descending so late at night,
with my back against the idling flatbed truck
I heard some cardboard box bark.
Which one—and did it bark?
Under the disapproving yellow light,
and unwelcome touches of a philandering fog,
I heard barks again and felt boxes crawl
toward me. Or was it my fingers
crawling toward them? But did I not hear howls?
—Stay there while I move, barked the stranger,
this last box. Stay, stay there, there, the stranger said,
pointing to the revving flatbed.
But did I not hear labored breathing, a coughing dog
or dogs? Did I not reach into a box there,
tongues licking my fingers?
Dozens of puppies, one sick, some sick, some dead,
boxes swollen with sounds, with woof, woof—
Do not move! said the stranger.
Boxes in search of something, something other,
maybe a hero, a savior. Only white papers,
barked the familiar stranger.
But if not barking then what was it the boxes said?

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.

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

An Old Man on a Swing

An old man on a swing?   

I used to think 
that's nothing much to write
a verse about.
Until I saw a mural, one

by Goya.  Gazing at the man,
it seems as if
he's lurching forward, leaping off 
the wall,
exploding through the shattered plane.


Or maybe just

detached

and dangling, hanging on for life.


He's out of breath.
The frenzied eyes, elated.  Or

just maybe full

of horrors caged,

or Furies' rage,

The savaged sunken head atop the arms and legs belonging to a human twice his size,
cadavers or
a beast perhaps.

The mouth distends beyond all human bounds....I fear
that evil leer,
that spreads below the hollow holes, the ghosts inside, possessed....
Some say a self-portrait! 

I hope some day, some poem I create
in black and white, below my name,

can haunt you just the same.

Short Poems #1-2

I live inside a box I've formed of sounds 
of letters—meaning-making music, bounds 
of human-living—written (voiced), to rhyme
and rhythm.

************************************

Existence: Side effect of death, decay.
So many never birthed; but birthed, all die.
Thus life is fall from death; but death is whole.
Death is the soul; and life, entombed remains. 

Voice

I crammed the words in tight iambic feet.
"Speak in feet or hold your peace," so addressed
me then, a voice like mine‒but one distressed.     
I speak in pain, of loss and rage that eat
my bones, at night; each day, fatigue my heart,
they twist my soul...and drain my love‒"Silence!"
said the raising voice relentlessly, roared,
"I guard your heart and soul.  This pain you'll not
contain without my aid, your rage impairs
all your sense, so fear emotions unchecked...."

Silently out the words I let, freely roam, 
atop my pain galloped we past meadows in rain,
the air had bled seventeen quarts of cherry tart, 
the cawing ink (heaven-spilled, erased by time),  
directed me, my face (tear-soaked), home. 

Paradise

Eagles encircle my paradise. 
Icicles drop from the evergreen,
pomegranates bounce on the trampoline....
Witness the poets: They're paralyzed.

But Not to Boss

Work is a funny word.
But not to boss.
To work off debt,
it's said, you have to go to work;
where working as a clerk,
you work your way up, reach the top.
You work around the snags you come across, 
and working in the office never stop
to work away at them with all your heart, 
till your report's a flawless work of art:
Intense and smart.
But not to boss.
You work out quickly, getting set
to soon depart for work, and yet 
you end up working up a sweat.
It's funny how that works...
But not to boss.
Then there's the "work it in" to write,
which now I'm working into this outright. 
By "this" I mean my poem, song,
which, by the way, I've long
been fond of working on.
But does that count as work?
It's never work, it's said, 
but only if you do 
sincerely love the work. 
But not to boss.