Posts tagged ‘poetry from voices’
the mourner
the mourner
here, in the moment
you’d thought to think timeless, time
has never been more present.
your mind has become
indifferent, as your body struggles, lost in the thing
called love.
later you discover
you desire her most when she won’t
be touched, unable to want
that offered. only the
untouched, the unknown and mysterious. and when she
is gone
she is most truly
your loved one, hugged close like
a nearly unbearable burden
of selfhood. your chains
made your meanings, you cannot (ever)
let them go.
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It seemed entirely unfair that the high-blown metaphors had nothing at all to do with anything except maybe the author momentarily thought she was getting paid by the word…
Return, A Poem & A Short Note
The note is this; I had a series of computer failures and either viruses or some more mysterious malady. At one point I was actually convinced I’d lost ‘voices’ [the name of that volume of poetry actually shouldn’t be capitalized]. I did lose whatever was on my Alienware computer, and I will have to say before I eventually share the story that it was ‘my luck’ yet again.
Anyway, failed restores aside, and dead computers, this poem dates from; summer, 1979, Phoenix, Oregon; there’s a much more specific address but ‘that would be telling’ as old tales have it. It’s a real place, is the point.
song
sketches of suspended dawnlight: weathered
almondtrees, still half-bloomed (ground
strewn with tattered pastel tissues): groundsquirrel
frozen, regarding
me intently: birds balleting (and cats studying):
this is the song
that silence teaches.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I haven’t gone back to visit there, yet, at least. My mother is dead, as is most or all others of ‘my generation’ of ‘the family’; the generation after that basically doesn’t exist. My grandfather for all his faults is dead, and with him whatever made us a family.
Understand that the faults I mention are utterly unforgivable, to the extent that the family is better off gone.
signs
signs
there were, quite certainly, signs that he was here:
although as certainly
we never glimpsed the promised heavenly lights and
ranks
of ethereal beings…
the story, though perhaps
not quite convincing,
was assuredly dramatic
enough,
with its angelic voices
and descended doves.
the presence, though long expected, never quite
appeared: the pleas
were to an ear if not unhearing, unanswering, the
soul’s
dark nights still unlit.
there is only a rubbish
heap there: and
the unpleasant reminders
and
memories of the people slaughtered here.
names are only names,
no matter how spoken.
that Word he was remains
unknown: and though
perhaps uttered, surely unheard.
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Yes, perhaps, for a long while I tried to represent a loss of faith as that. Mind you, that presumes there was a loss of faith, or knowledge, starting first with determinism or absolute predestination; the terms are either irrelevant or quintessential.
mnemon
mnemon*
this wilted rose
recalls you; its petals crumble at the slightest
touch.
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*”The (‘hypothetical’) smallest unit of memory”, see mnemonic, which is still in fairly common usage.
I had to start on the tiny ones. Soon, MachMag, soon.
memento amour
memento amour
early winter’s trees bare
stripped and sullen
grey-mooded sky above:
this you-shaped absence.
tone poem: shaded light
tone poem: shaded light
lakemirrored sky
fisherman set dreaming
midst wisped fog
and wind-shaped trees
the waters
scarcely stirring…
having pointed at flowers, attempted
unwordy knowledge…
i remember the fisherman,
bright in the misty
flawed refractions
of pure light.
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Okay, so I stole the phrase from music. As such it is wildly inaccurate, correct?
Oops, I forgot to add; I’ll give it a rest for ‘a bit’. Much of this poetry is exactly a breakdown of “Different View”. The difference is in mode. The “assumption” is that language is a direct barrier to the perception of reality.
*No discussions of reality here. …
the blind woman
The Blind Woman
The blind woman is dancing
out on the dimlit floor, shaking
her head
and tossing her golden hair
(i have felt her
heavy, well-kempt
scented hair), her gestures somehow formless,
unknowing.
She doesn’t even know
i watch her.
(I sip my beer, and sigh.)
What does she think of, who
does she see, lost
in her private world?
Later, walking away, muttering silently to my self, i wonder:
who watches my
private dances?
________________________________________
Real. And real.
