Poetry is
about to take form, become an animal;
poetry is
a shorter, heavier word.
The poem’s a small room;
poetry
will gain access.
a small room
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Category Archives: free verse
I read your note once
what / should I fly
what
should I fly
unto
my senses
delight
with
crowns and rich apparel
dance and then depart
show
what magic can perform
and do
a thousand
deeds?
I
shall
I gazed into my wine cup
(After Li Po)
I gazed into my wine cup
Till after darkness fell.
Out of that dark pool
The vines grew up
Twining me around
And the wine was in me
And I was the wine.
Then I dreamed I stood,
Lost in the wine’s dreaming,
And the moon was there
Beneath my feet, there
Where I walked, midstream.
Somewhere an owl hooted
But nobody was there
To wake me.
backseat stationwagon
the endless susurrus of tires
strove with us through the night’s great room
we trusted to its purpose: home
as a kid i always knew the wind was up to no good
as a kid i always knew
the wind was up to no good
for all it never did me any harm
in the stories it was always
driving the hapless schooner on the shoals
then becalming the shipwrecked sailor
who clung to a spar a ragged shirt for a sail
or it was sidling down back alleys
and through the branches of landlocked trees
under moonpale clouds in the dead of night
squirreling away skeleton leaves
ghosts of plastic bags
and stale shreds of news
to deliver them unlooked for
months and county lines away
or it was whipping up prairie dissent
sometimes slamming a straw straight
into a phone pole
like a hammer drives a nail
or it was snooping up water for later
then freezing it to hail
the size of golfballs
pelting houses and cows
and fleeing into the stratosphere
so i knew not to trust the wind
even though it might never get around to
marooning you or
slamming a soda straw into you
ponder the still eye of the storm
you ll see what i mean
Under the hood:
Visiting the Taoist Priest Dai Tianshan, but Not Finding Him
(after Li Po)
I heard his dog barking down by the creek, but when I tried to follow
A hard rain fell, scattering the peach blossoms, hiding the path.
I’ve long since lost the dog, the creek, the path; I can’t hear the temple bell,
And one stand of bamboo is like any other.
I think it’s spring now, or will be soon: it’s greener, anyhow,
And sometimes I see deer, off in the woods.
No one else can tell you the right way to go, that’s what he always said;
Meaning, I thought: Trust yourself. See where that’s got me?
o no na po wri mo
the month of april
which is poetry month
is insupportable and ill timed
it’s still nearly winter when
words didn’t help us get by
it’s still nearly winter now
there was a season that made sense
that stoppered life that held us to
one single obligation just to last
to ride it out and not to
burrow so deep that there was
no coming back
to the surface again
that was wisdom that was
really a better idea than this
I never trusted spring
this coinflip season
spring with its rotten
ice and its seepage
spring with its alarming growths
winter was better better
to hide out better to live small
to listen to the wind
and the rain passing better
to be a clever animal
better to wait out the cold
better to forgo what sunlight was given
easier to survive then
than to live
now:
If I Was Ever Going to Say It
Last night, everything still,
I still, all the people still, the world still,
A dream slipped in
Like a memory, not a dream.
He didn’t say Hello
He just said, Hey.
Hey. I got over it,
He said. The way you do.
It wasn’t so hard, or so bad.
And the time we live in now
Is the important thing
When nobody has to say I love you
Which is really Goodbye
Because nobody’s dying.
Then he told a joke.
Then I learned there wasn’t
A single moment
I could have changed.
Just all of them.
Later the stillness broke,
I waking, the whole world waking
As the line of dawn runs around the world
And the sky brightens and then
Everything starts to hum
Like there’s something inside everything.
That was the time to say Goodbye,
If I was ever going to say it.
A Message from the Future
Not quite the end we thought we’d get, is it?
Where is the monster rising from the sea?
Where the single earthquake that sucks Gomorrah into the earth’s bowels?
Where the finger-and-thumb of God that pinches the sun out like a candle-flame?
Is this all of it, this the end-time carnival, these rickety rides, the blarey music,
The paltry freaks barked up for all they’re worth and more? This too-slight sleight-of-hand?
Where is the burning wind from off the desert sand,
The trumpet blast that screams the Temple down?
They said that there’d be no stone left upon another stone,
That mountain ranges might just crack like skin and rivers run like blood,
And that we’d see the moon hatch like an egg and what’s inside unspool.
When will it come? And will it come? And when?
No, no, says the slim man selling candy floss,
You must have misunderstood the invitation you were given,
You must have read some inappropriate books as a child.
Let our instructors disabuse you, since
We have the finest educational system in the world.
Let’s all settle in for story-time now,
Mummy will give us a kiss when she gets home
And then we’re all for bed.
Listen to me, I will do the police in different voices
and the bankers in different voices
and the software developers telecommuting to Silicon Valley jobs and reading Ayn Rand in their spare time in different voices
and the day-care staffers in different voices
and the Live at Five reporters and the Eye in the Sky reporters and the political pundits in different voices
and the parish priests and Archbishop of Los Angeles in different voices
And when I do them, whenever I do them, and whoever is done,
They will all sound like the same voice, trying to sound different.
I will do them all, listen, listen—listen up! You! Yes!
And then the drawing for the after-hours show,
The first month free, after which you may cancel at any time.
Meanwhile we reserve all rights, meanwhile
We may employ tracking tools, we may
Combine your information with information from third parties.
Meanwhile the World-snake sleeps in the warm bathtub of the ocean;
Meanwhile the Horsemen, having abandoned their inefficient mounts,
Drive to work in fuel-efficient hybrid gas-electric cars,
Have their pay automatically deposited;
Meanwhile Ragnarok, having run over budget, having fallen behind schedule,
Is still in the works, will happen in due course, assuming the political will
To accomplish this great work does not falter.
Meanwhile Mephistopheles has taken to the airwaves mumbling,
Trust us, smiling, eating a candy bar, asking, want one? Have one,
They’re good,
Try one.
And then for bed. Sleep tight, sleep tight,
After a story, before any dreams.
And if I die before I wake
Some shall cry, and some shall take
If I expire here in this cot
Who shall acquire what I have got?
I should have prayed not to be dead
Should not have strayed into this bed
Away from here I should have kept
Or better, dear, have never slept.
Meanwhile this is not the end we were promised, this
Is not the end we thought
We’d get, this is
Not the end we
Deserve not
This
Bag of Anything 