Nov 25, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
I know that I am retreating from what I was – the swirl of these days confuses me – names don’t adhere where I want to place them – even my very own on me doesn’t quite stick– it’s as if I had lost the polestar of vanity in my mind and so saw things both more plainly and bleakly – I am only a leaf among other leaves and the machinery that let sun animate me is worn out beyond hope of repair – that gold bird, the sun, is heading south and autumn plays its ancient script out, a thing of beauty mixed with glory to make an elegy while I cling to my branch – yes, this is confusing, that I am next to nothing, that I do not know when the wind will come to harvest me, only that it will come – there is wisdom, I suppose, in my confusion, in my learning to let go, to let come, to be...
Nov 25, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
Who can tell what is in the head of a young person? Who can tell what lies behind soft smooth expressions? When we are young we are general issue, wearing the uniform of possibility. When I was young there were islands of awareness maybe even an archipelago in the ocean of bafflement Time goes on and life writes on our faces, turns them into masks that hint at what may be inside Everyone is an enigma, but there are questions of different kinds, framed by hope and despair. It is not only that we decorate ourselves with illusions that are dear to us as life itself, our very own lives. We decorate whomever we see, whomever we think we want to know; we pin medals on their chests What is in the head of a young person comes out as life goes along and recedes even deeper as well I look at the young and remember, but remember all wrong, mixing my own elements up I don’t know what’s in my head, I still sail an ocean of bafflement, why should I question the young? I confess when I look at a lily, at a rose, when I take their scents in, questions form in my...
Sep 9, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
As I’ve gotten older, crossing through decades like Manhattan neighborhoods on a Sunday stroll, the angst/insight ratio has fallen a good deal – I see without the same degree of suffering, the same fuss over suffering, which, after all, is only as intrinsic to this life as rain, sunlight, the restlessness of wind, night… My question now is, “Is this wisdom?” just this diminution of a ratio that expresses nothing more than resignation to the effect that I am first and wish only in second place, so far back as to be dwindling to a point… I was once a great connoisseur of wishing, or so I styled myself internally…in agony The summer solstice is almost here and then comes a long lush time as the days begin to dwindle down to the winter minimum, that other solstice that’s ruled by darkness and a wan light from the south… I have made this trip so many times I have stopped counting and that decreases angst, too – less...
Sep 6, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
I’ve lost six of the seven freedoms and can’t remember the name of the freedom that I still have…it goads me on, robbing me of any conviction of my shape or place; it agitates me with each breath, so that I am neither short nor long of breath but syncopated as if a jazz played inside me continually improvising, exploring territory not on any map, lost as soon as found I’ve lost six of the seven freedoms and can’t remember the name of the freedom that still has me…having lost their names, I don’t presume to address the six freedoms: how much the freedom that holds me still feels like necessity, as if there were a cusp, or many cusps where the two met and made points neither freedom nor necessity but the two joined to make something new, free...
Sep 2, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
No one calls these Sunday afternoons It’s a mixture of peace and desolation I watch the light as it keeps changing I watch clouds voyaging the sky I hear the cicadas frenzied in their singing The season is getting ready to shift Too few monarchs pass through heading southwest I sit and ponder, tracking myself, eluding myself Unable to stop doing either one The days are shorter as my days are shorter I can’t say what I may have learned Advice irritates me even when I give it Green acorns fall, first leaves float down In my heart, there’s soft and shy...
Aug 30, 2010 | Free Verse, Poetry |
Into the white of my beardI am disappearing, becoming blank as if my life was a cargo at seathat once seemed to have value and to be heading for friendly portseager to receive it and unload it, to send it off into the commerceof countries that I hardly knew but time has changed the conditionsof the market, the terms of trade so that my life has become quietand completely beside the point I whisper to myself and I hearthe sound of myself escaping me Into the white of my beardI am disappearing, becoming blank perhaps this is wisdom, but notwisdom that can announce anything, not wisdom that can give counselor point to coming catastrophe Should I report myself, I wonder,as a missing person, one among so very many or should I simplygo on going on, becoming only white the color that reflects all light,and disguises all colors in its...
