lullaby afar -- draft 1

Good night, good knight;

My whispers landing light on your ear

 -- sweet sleepy droplets of moon

floating slow, clear to your soul --

I hold you dear, echoes of stars ancient 

flow draping your absence 

in waves of blue, of gold.

I whisper goodnight, 

and the night folds distance til you are near.     

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes... because for those who love with heart and soul there is no such thing as separation - Rumi

Bronx 1: words, dumped.

Only the first stanza written - 8 months ago now. 
Sunday's tragedy brought the poem back into focus, though it had never left my mind.
'Don't give it away' he said. Don't give my writing away... So the poems stagnate in covert detention. The side product of writing, not a product to be read.

A train rips off a track and heads to water. I'm doing the same.


Bronx 1

"Luck is a bend in destiny"
his finger traced the lock framing her cheek
as Metro North curving the Bronx tip at Spuyten Duyvil
etched madness into the edge of sleep.

-----

For you, brave sailor finding Me
come spoils of love 
invisible to those who blow too weak.

The white gauze furled
2 bodies on boards
"Mi cielo."
His eyes traced the curling water she sliced

As swing bridge breaks the Empire corridor
aiding the unruly, breaking vice of the Great

In the Midday Dusk - 2nd iteration

In the midday dusk of snow curtained skylight,
I remember the morning sun
leaking her blood onto my breast;
droplets gliding slow over the lip
of torn skin,
filling the exposed cave of my chest.

This luminous pool of magma still smolders
charging my bliss,
linking me to the universal mix.
My gold expands into the golden ocean
and I am filled of You.

In the Midday Dusk - first draft

Dark days teach us to love the light. I have learnt that with light inside, no days are dark.


In the midday dusk of snow curtained skylight,
I remember the morning sun
leaking her blood onto my breast;
droplets gliding slow over the lip
of torn skin,
filling the exposed cave of my chest.

This luminous pool of magma
smolders still
charging my bliss,
linking me to the universal mix.
My gold drips into the golden ocean
and I am filled of You.

Self as lotus

Learning to see three sides to a story 

learning to listen to truth between words 

learning to grasp the air as my lover 

learning to live in the light between dreams

Winter Sweater - draft 2 + 3

Lyrics for a song

Left with nothing to say,
I knit this winter sweater.
The thread of you already done
maxed out with blunt end at the
three month premium.
Yet looped into the previous,
already the next one begun;
The stitch of a day
A  meeting, perhaps kiss,
Neither bind nor cast - 
the constant clicking dance of the wrist.

The bits we shared the dares the songs
All now woolen loops 
Row upon row.
Put the emotions in a poem
Said an earlier one, the words stitched
In stripes of turquoise and indigo.

the three month stretch -
then a three month stretch -
see you again when the next three is done.
when you find she too isn't the one

But if in a still moment with needles down
I speak a truth, it's this:
what I loved was the me in you -
the joy and beauty I was, I still am
knitted into cloth of glacier blue,
knotted with some hope in your carmine hue 
though all along I knew you weren't the one.

I'll keep up with the thread, keep knitting my yarn
til one day they bury me in my sweater, still not done.
still warm with the love I have for each one
each stripe
each color
each dear storied man
who loved me for a season,
a three month yarn.

the three month stretch 

then a three month stretch

see you again when the next three is done.

when you decide she too was just for fun

and I in soft progress have looped a new one.

Winter sweater - draft 1 (initial word dump)

Lyrics for a song

You with nothing to say,
I knit this winter sweater
the thread of you already done
maxed out to a blunt end at the
three month premium.
Yet already the next one begun
looped into the previous;
the stitch of a day
a (birthday) meeting perhaps a kiss
neither bind nor cast, just click
continue a dance of the wrist

The bits we shared the dares the songs
all now loops in woolen memory
row upon row.
put the emotions in a poem
said an earlier one, the words stitched
in his stripe of turquoise and indigo

the three month stretch
then a three month stretch
see you again when the next three month is done.
when you find she too isn't the one

but if in a still moment with needles down
i speak a truth it's this:
what i loved was the me in you
the joy and beauty i was, i still am
knitted into cloth of glacier blue
knotted with some hope in your carmine hue
though all along i knew you weren't the one.

i'll keep up with the thread, keep knitting my yarn
til one day they bury me in my winter sweater, still not done.
still warm with the love i have for each one
each stripe
each color
each dear storied man
who loved me for a moment
a three month yarn.

the three month stretch 

then a three month stretch

see you again when the next three month is done.

when you find she too was just for fun

and I in soft progress have looped a new one

Mediated Cities I (draft 1)

Her gold scream cracked dawn on Reykjavik;

A fissure piercing frozen sleep, prodding nocturnal workers
and night-long drinkers in numb retreat, 

severing lovers' conjoined limbs with the fierce rebuke 

of restored sight.

In sharp key of hard light two hours high 

her scream refracts off Esja's back;

long geometries paint box houses -
moving swathes of evasive darkness hugging edges,
avoiding the lock 

The third hour. As though the city exists through writing

through blue ice my bold scream pries open its distant

my own exotic lies.

glaciers folding into dark

That penurious dawn in Reykjavik that cracked to a slivered fissure
now a warm hearted hum, death before bloom
Four hours 

dying in muted climax

Harvard in the rain

Through the evening city in whiskey lacquered,

with lifted flowers from the hospice garden

- Yes! We shall live an ever after! -

laughter ignites our wayward engine.

--Click to enlarge--

Summer Baptism: Draft 2

I think I understand now why poetry wouldn't come in Costa Rica. Something in the way I experience joy... without words. With the full body, the full brain, fully sensory, but non-verbal. Here, this poem, is a first attempt to "document" such a moment -- still poetic fiction, but from a place of joy. 

And then we were there.
Perched on the cusp between air and
gravity,
curve of the handlebar pressing thighs as I
played girl and you,
boy.
Through laughing shrieks of darkness
I sank into your chest
to nest in your stern; children
returned to the world.

And we spin cradled in an inverted hull
Low hanging ribs clipping 
our skin; headlamp tickling the ground
where wheels crackle music to our whispered
trespass
tracing the chancel
of somebody else's club.
Distant lights of unmanned sentry
mark us,
tree veiled til we reach
the nave.

And there before, sliced imperfectly,
the just-waning moon;
the font. Following along in reflected play
carving reveals of light in
porphyry and time -
momentary footholds in the rockscape.
Then naked we entered the nave.
Rough necklaces of an invisible garden played with our legs.
And there,
submerged, you lifted gently from around my neck
the umbilical anchor that
tied me to the Beast.

And love gasped at last.

Redeemed in the Sea.
Between sips of unholy water
our lips met and in shared breath
we conspired to youth,
smashed the bottle
and named this Fate.

The season turned us in her warm rocky hold

And we rode back to the sanctuary
where to the back beat of ensemble birdsong
you disappeared into sleep with a reminder:
My soul is weary, I do not believe in love
and held me in your long sea tentacles.

Sleep weary soul, I say
I will hold you in my faith,
voluminous
Chora of your rebirth

Summer baptism: Draft 1

And then we were there.
Perched on the cusp between air and
gravity.
Curve of the handlebar pressing thighs as I
played girl and you,
boy.
Through shrieks of darkness
I sank into your chest
to nest in your stern; children
returned to the world.

And we spin cradled in an inverted hull
Low hanging ribs clipping 
our skin; headlamp tickling the ground
where wheels crackle music to our whispered
trespass through the chancel
of someone else's club.
Distant lights of unmanned sentry
tree veiled until we enter
the nave.

Before us, sliced imperfection
the just-waning moon:
the font. Following along in reflected play
carving reveals of light, carved
in porphyry and time -
footholds in the rockscape -
Til naked we entered the nave.

Rough necklaces of an invisible garden played on our legs.
And there,
submerged, you lifted gently from around my neck
the umbilical anchor that
tied me to the Beast.

And love gasped at last.

Redeemed  in the Sea.
Between sips of unholy water
our lips met and in shared breath
we conspired to youth,
smashed the bottle
and named this Fate.

The season turned us in her rocky hold

And we rode back to the sanctuary
where to the back beat of unsyncopated birdsong
you disappeared into sleep with a reminder
My soul is weary, I do not believe in love
and you held me in your long sea tentacles.

Sleep weary soul, I say
I will hold you in my belief,
voluminous
Chora of your slumber

Dear Pablo, sonnet from object-subject: draft 1

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,   

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:   

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,   

secretly, between the shadow and the soul. 

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

Pablo Neruda

Translated Mark Eisner.  http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/179257/

And I love him Pablo as one loves the colorless, failure and doubt;

The gaping impossibility of oceans that cleave

Abandoned motherland and American son; my love

A child's grasp and claw at an unwanted sibling's entry.

And yet I love him as a lion's roar lacerates

The sky in fleshly signals of lust and feast.

Laughing at futility, denying denials

Stealing the gift with peals of joyous hope.

Sand at low tide neither sea nor land

Just there, waiting for water's return.

I love him unheard, as an obscure thing,

Unseen between shadow and soul.

So distant my pulse drowns in passage

So distant our touch is misplaced.

Penelope's Loon - 3rd draft

Mist whispered across her back

circling shoulders and into her arms

The scent of lavender beat her tongue

feather-puncture approaching love's nerves

He left her at the port parking lot

motor still running

kissed the breeze with gaze distracted

signaling 

We'll be in touch soon.

She guessed this meant nothing

to do with touch.

Refusing to watch as he walked away,

she turned to the gulls positioned on stanchons

flipping him the bird

cawing after him in sarcastic shrieks

leave you bastard leave me

Only the scent of sails.

But Dunkin still on the corner,

kids with clipboards turning phrases for donations

Everything intact, minding it's place.

A plastic bag caught wind, gusting toward the ocean

with tight voiceless blows

Yup I'm fine. Fine. Yup I'm fine.

Alone on the clean cotton sheet

Touching her own shoulder lightly

She mimics his sanctity, mourns his mist

Weaves another memory to anchor.

So the storm grows face-first

still air sardonic on naked back.

Old, dank, her sailor's ocean shroud drapes her

And tonight, again, she drowns in his death.

Life Traces - final(ish)

I dragged your dead body from a dream today -

rather a figment, an unbidden image.

But there you were, head hovering at my feet 

perspective projecting your limbs  

away. 

Upon inspection

your insides were empty

The onion skin thin shellac brown

a cicada's husk,

filigree of meticulously traced membranes.

Inside, the wind.

A precise negative of where you once were 

You: your organs bones  arteries intestines muscles cartilage blood bile nerves veins.

But also your soul -

these remained behind in the dream.

Before me, fleetingly intact, lay your epidermal mask, shed

Translucent

Veined like a dried ginkgo leaf or

the pleasurable pulled-off layer of glue

a child has let dry on her hand.

Then in the vacancy formed by this cask

I recognized faces.

My father's ghost took residence;

once large, now scaled down to fit the space of you in comfort.

His eyes closed as in his coffin

His arms crossed in front

Dressed in one of his beautiful suits, prepared for eternity.

Dancing on him were the fragment images of every man between.

Merging together

Disappearing appearing 

As do projections on smoke.

Gathered, they darted through apertures formed
by fissures or stretched openings in the translucent shellac of your case.
I asked them: how long have you been there?
Since we parted, they answered as one.

And only your spirit stayed away.

But of course -

You aren't dead yet.

Lying before me, this mold for you was the cicada shell of my desire.

So I attempted to lay it to rest, as you've ordered I should.

Goodbye undead.

Goodbye Baba.

Goodbye undead.

Before me now, my warm, stuffed,

sleep-breathing son. Long live life...

Life Traces - second iteration (and some third...)

initial edits

I dragged your dead body from a dream today -

rather a picture, an unbidden image.

But there you were, head hovering near my feet 

perspective projecting the rest of you 

away. 

Upon inspection

your insides were empty

The onion skin thin shellac brown membrane

a cicada's husk,

each connecting line of you traced perfectly as filigree.

Inside, the wind.

The perfect negative of where you once were -

You: your organs bones intestines muscles cartilage blood bile nerves arteries veins.

But also your soul -

this too had stayed behind in my dream.

Before me, fleetingly intact, lay your epidermal mask

Translucent

Infinitely light.

Veined like a dried ginkgo leaf or

the pleasurable pulled-off layer of glue

a child has allowed to dry on her hand.

Infinitely thin.

But in the emptiness formed by this cask

I realized it wasn't just you - 

This trace of your skin held my father's ghost;

once large, now scaled down to fit in the space of you with comfort.

His eyes closed as in his casket

His arms crossed in front

Dressed in one of his beautiful suits, perfection in eternity.

Dancing on him were the fragment images of every man between.

Merging together

Appearing disappearing

As does a projection on smoke.

Gathered, they darted through apertures formed
by fissures or stretched openings in the translucent shellac of your case.

Only your spirit stayed away.

But of course -

You aren't dead yet.

Lying before me, this perfect replica of a mold for you was the cicada shell of my desire.

So I laid it to rest, as I knew I should.

Goodbye undead.

Goodbye Baba.

Goodbye undead.

Before me now, my warm, stuffed,

sleep-breathing son. Long live life...

Life traces - first word dump

Here's a start. This image had been playing in my head all yesterday afternoon. It grew more detailed as I interrogated it mentally. This 'poem' isn't yet about words - just a brain-dump collection i made last night, in bed, trying to describe the image, and capture a concept. The text below is completely unedited! 


I dragged your dead body from a dream today
More an image
A picture that comes unbidden.
There you were, your head hovering near my feet the rest of you projecting away with an exaggerated perspective
No feet - too far
upon inspection
Your insides were empty
The onion skin thin shellac brown cask
A cicadas husk transparent each line of you
Traced perfectly as filigree
Inside, the wind, the perfect negative of where you once were
You: your organs bones viscera intestines muscles cartilage blood bile nerves arteries veins.
But also your soul.
This too had stayed behind in my dream
Before me, intact, lay just your epidermal mask
Translucent
Infinitely light
Veined like a dried ginkgo leaf or
The pleasurable pulled off layer of glue
A child has allowed to dry on her hand
Infinitely thin
But in the emptiness formed by this cask
I realized it wasn't just you
This trace of your skin was holding my father's ghost
Larger than you, his ghost scaled down to fit in the space of you with comfort.
His eyes closed as in his casket
His arms crossed in front.
Dressed in one of his beautiful suits, perfection in eternity.

dancing on this were the projection memory images of every man between
Merging together
Appearing disappearing
As does a projection on smoke.
Only your spirit stayed away
But of course
You aren't dead yet
This perfect replica of a container for you
That lay before me
was the cicada husk of my desire

I laid it to rest, as i know i should.
Goodbye undead.
Goodbye Baba.
Goodbye undead.


Before me now, my pink, warm,
Sleep breathing son. Long live life

Stolen alchemy

Soft stone pressed in my palm
as a promise of calla lillies,
laced from our loam.
So calm, secure
the rock solid promise
lulls me -
I oblige;
opening for a pebble, my poem.
Lush oval warmth
becoming known, treasure,
a secret tucked in my center
ardently attesting you're not alone.

Til with obdurate pain,
having struck a ring of my own
(inscribed cold cobble of
father's memory, an
ancient artifact, dressed
deceptive in marital gold)
from the stone,
not a word.

And through fear's alchemy
the pebble freezes, fractures,
transmutes to air.
Silently attesting
the lost promise of carmot.

And I'm alone.

Song with Mary of Magdala II - draft updated

Draft. Reposting as I have updated it. Pieces in place but still torturing me....Telling a story yet maintaining the music... aligning concept and craft... The imperative of architecture...

Said Mary:
 
Even I, Mary Magdalene was loved

For my corporeal sin I

Was forgiven, anointed

In scripture appointed

A place at Jesus' side.

Said I to Mary:

That story was only pernicious fiction

Gloved Medieval sex affliction so

Your name conflated with whore

Celebrated

We all went along for the ride.

Yes, Said Mary:

My seven demons quietly cast
From a biblically accounted past pursue me
Still, mythic 
Grown monolithic as
The love of redemption abides.

Cried I:
Your story Paul emancipated, But 
Mine now a noose, my post desecrated
Discipled by hangman, by jury

By unyielding fury from Prophet's fear! 
A story of sin that misguides.

Said Mary to him:

Her story configured by external hand like mine

Through sleight of pain and graft of man

Encumbered by a catholic bent

You threw the hermeneut's perfidious cant! 

I ask you: 

The greater fiction hers or yours?

The one she wrote with financial cause

Or yours, imagined, paranoia born

Cast through eisegesis a

Woman scorned!

As he loved me, mirrored sins untrue,
Reflect love: what would Jesus do?

Three verses for U

1. Breathless

Oh you. You who, you
Who took my wind so,
So my hollowed breast echoes
Echoes so
So my wings won't fly.
Blow
Blow through
Through my chest. You
You who flew with me
Oh You
Breathe me to the divine.


2.
Though you fled, it seems my soul snagged on you, and as you fly further it unravels in infinitesimal glint,
spiraling your soar in a white love whisper, keeping you close.

or:
You Fled.
It seems my soul snagged on you
Fly further.
Unravelling in infinitesimal glint
Spiraling your soar in
White love whisper,
Keeping
You close

3.
In the middle of the night I cry out,
Who lives in this love I have?
You say, I do, but I am not here alone.
Who are these other images with me?
I say, They are reflections of you,
just as the beautiful inhabitants of Chigil in Turkestan
resemble each other.
You say, But who is this other living being?
That is my wounded soul.
Then I brought that soul before you as a prisoner.
This one is dangerous, I say.
Do not let him off easy.
You wink and give me one end of a delicate thread.
Pull it tight, but do not break it.
I reach my hand to touch you.
You strike it down.
Why are you so harsh with me?
For good reason.
But certainly not to keep you away.
Whoever enters this place saying, Here I am
must be stopped.
This is not a pen for sheep.
There are no separating distances here.
This is love's sanctuary.
Saladin is how the soul looks.
Rub your eyes, and look again with love at love.


Rumi. trans. C. Barks.

Ancient oil

Patchouli laced clove cigarettes
Your scent lingers lingual til
Word work works it out