I dreamt I had a hundred arms
And drifted with the algal swarms
On a concordant sea;
Oh, but the Maelstrom reeled me in
To wake here in the deep again
Restless, unfree.
The Natural History of the Kraken, part 2
Reply
Rodin’s Gates of Hell
The Thinker contemplates a moveless turbulence: men, angels, children, women
agonize eternally, leaping or cast
from shrieking Hell into a lesser torment, seeking what can’t last
beyond this frozen moment. Here are long hands, long arms stretched tight of bone and skin
in knotted ecstasy of pain; tight mouths caught too tight to scream;
sleek writhing forms trapped bursting through the gate that swells and thins to let them pass
for this caught moment, too fleeting for relief before Hell draws them back,
back below the seething gate, back to the wailing dark and the company of the damned.
It must be balanced; an opposing Heaven must exist:
a timeless, flat, cool, blandly pleasant place, where no stark weathered bodies strive
for respite from the blasted murk, that lacks this endless
doomed struggle. Perhaps this is what the Thinker contemplates: that Hell is,
and so Heaven too must be; that somewhere men, in sculptured bliss eternal as
these damned he watches over, are content: are blessed: are not so much alive.
Sestina for Hero and Dragon
I.
Out with you! In Christ’s name, dragon,
Out! Come from your hole and face my blade,
For I would try if dragon’s-blood be truly black.
From grieving lands beyond the sea
A hundred hundred dead cry for your death.
Hai! Out! I’ve not come such a way to face but empty air!
II.
O erring, misinformed! This so-called empty air
Is rank with camouflage, could shelter many a dragon.
Shall I appear? Do you so earnestly seek death?
For face me, and you die — nor brightest shield, nor sharpest blade
Can alter that. Heroes have come before across the sea.
They lie about you: armor shattered, bones charred black.
III.
A cowardly reply for one with heart so black,
A murderer whose very name befouls the air.
Come, worm: between the mountains and the sea
I stand to challenge you! Will you not try me, dragon?
Your claws against my shield; your hide against my blade.
Or do you fear to meet a test of death?
IV.
I having slain a hundred hundred men, think you one more death
Means aught to me? I come. The sea boils and the clouds turn black
Before my coming. My mouth’s a cavern, every tooth a blade;
My breath a conflagration, and my wings breed hurricanes into the air.
Man, behold a dragon.
My bones are stronger than these mountains; my blood is older than the sea.
V.
Dragon, behold a man! The clouds and the sea
That feared your coming shall rejoice to see your death.
These mountains are not so strong as my rage, dragon,
The sun is not so hot, nor Hell as black.
Could you but hear, the wailing of my kindred dead fills the air.
Now they will be avenged. I swear this by my blade!
VI.
I shall unbind your body’s several elements; come, try your blade.
Your bones shall mingle with the earth, your thin, cold blood dilute the sea,
The smoulder of your burning dance inconsequent upon the air.
You speak of death? You have not learned to speak of death.
Death is mightier than your rage, hotter and more black.
I know this, who have killed a hundred hundred men. Death is a dragon.
* * *
The dragon claws for purchase in the sky; the man holds tight his blade,
As clouds scud low and black above a furious sea.
In one of these is death: the dragon’s stoop; the bright sword that cleaves the air.
Air
The air was cold that I breathed in
That swirled across her scented skin;
And as the air swirled into storm
She stole my breath to keep her warm.
I Wrestled Fire
I had wrestled fire the day long
But now the sun was gone
And as the night came on, fire grew.
The full moon watched to see what I would do.
And nothing went as I had planned.
The element of fire was out of hand
And hungered for the earth, and ate the air.
The full moon watched to see how I would fare.
I made a wish for rain to fall;
The smutted sky ignored my call.
The flames ate trees and darkness, and grew tall.
The full moon watched above it all
Until the fire was brought complete
To perfect light and perfect heat:
All that was left to gain was my defeat.
I fed the flames myself, and was consumed
Under the gaze of the curious moon.
no / Really gone
(poem written with a found pencil:)
That small perfect photograph of him
From before disaster slow-motion struck
And took him away leaving
His aimless eyes behind
From before his mind began to turn in on itself
Not even turning from fear or indecision but horribly
Turning and turning again because he’d simply forgotten
Which direction it was going before that moment
From before death went to work on him
The way a child with a big cheerful pink school eraser
Goes to work rubbing out words written on damp paper
It’s gone
It was in this locket
I’d swear
If not for this evidence
The empty thing
Fool that I am I thought
I could reach out
Find a bit of stone-smooth happiness
Shore up the present with the past
Then I found it I opened it I looked inside it and it’s
Empty
Contents gone like a magician’s borrowed coin I thought at first
But no
Really gone
Gone like a child’s prank of pulling away
The chair just before
You sit
The End of Life
Upon collecting up these million grains
Of sand all that remains
Is to sift them out onto this beach
Again, to cast them out of reach.
On Writing Well
Improve your Writing? Nothing to it!
Find an Adverb and eschew it!
And Adjectival abolition
Aids most any Composition!
Widely concurs the Writing Tribe:
It’s better far not to describe;
And rare’s the Pundit who disputes
That Things should not have Attributes.
In Praise of Adjectives, Adverbs, Asides, Verbal Gewgaws, Blandishments, Rhyme for Rhyme’s Sake, Flummery, and the Like: A Demonstration
Consider the alternative:
The sun glinted off the waves. It was midnight.
The moon was up. Everything was still.
The Walrus and the Carpenter were walking.
-Damn, said the Walrus.
-Yeah.
They walked for a while.
-It’s a lot of sand, the Walrus said.
-Nothing anybody can do about it, said the Carpenter.
After a while they met up with some oysters.
-Why don’t you boys come with us, the Walrus said.
The oldest one shook his head No but the young ones came along.
They walked for a while then stopped by a rock.
The Walrus wanted to talk but the oysters wanted to catch their breath first.
-Sure, said the Carpenter.
-Time for a snack anyway, said the Walrus.
-But not on us! said the oysters.
And the Walrus:
-Nice night, isn’t it?
And the Carpenter:
-Pass the bread.
-Kind of tough on the oysters, don’t you think? said the Walrus.
-It’s tough, said the Carpenter.
-Hard times, said the Walrus.
He pretended to wipe away a tear but he was really hiding the biggest oysters behind the handkerchief for himself so he could eat them.
-All right, said the Carpenter.
-Ready to head back?
By that time they had eaten all the oysters and it was still again.
The end.
One day this
One day this
will be recalled (if
at all) by you
as a golden
day a beach of pure
sand and flocks of
majestic white birds that
spreading curved wings
rose at first
imperceptibly then
inexorably into
aching flight as
we watched them knowing
all would be well and
no one will be left to say
that’s
inaccurate
since my present vision of
this will perish
lacking the heft and
polish of history but
for the record here
is what breaks my present heart this
little girl now running across
low tide’s litter now daring
those greasy waves now
scattering the dirty gulls that are
yammering and (I can
see it all
now) about to
take off
clumsily into an
implacable
future.
Bag of Anything 