Monthly Archives: June 2008

by

Poem: Knot of Gold

The Prophet took people of abject poverty
and strewed rubies at their feet

There was no glass in the Prophet’s windows
for any brick to break

In each heart he ties a knot of gold
whose two ends make eternity’s

radiant reclining figure eight
gazed upon by God

We can stand in the door he made in
our being or stride through it into God’s

Presence

The Prophet never rode out on his she camel
but that they longed for his return
_______________

11/24/2007 (from The Fire Eater’s Lunchbreak, soon to appear)

by

Poem: The Name of the Rose

“The name of the rose on her lips as she
sank into darkness was…”

but the dream phrase left upon waking
was cut off before the crucial word was

heard and only the teaser remembered
so that I wonder at times at human

knowledge also that we’re often left with
just the teaser that is so pregnant with

meaning but whose pith is somehow obscured
and like flags waving in a breeze

we’re left with the commotion but without the
import that will give all humankind such

ease we’re left with the motion in the air such
phrases make such cogitations but without

swimming up into them to finish the
sentence with our bodies as it were and thus embody the

very name of the rose whatever it might be
“courage” came to mind when I awoke but it

wasn’t “courage” so that it might also be
“intuition” or “pure volition” or even a symbolically

charged name like “The name of the rose is
white light in a dark place” or

“The black petaled stallion of forbearance”
“The magnificent lion’s mane of compassionate radiance”

or just “The name of the rose is The Name”
and let that stand in space as is with all its

attendant but obscure reverberations

we can’t know for sure until the rose scent
overwhelm us and

we swoon into the original rosy
alphabetization of our being

__________________

6/7/2006 (from In the Realm of Neither, soon to appear)

by

(from The Nation, June 30, 2008 )

I sing to the last the equalities modern or old,
I sing the endless finales of things,
I say Nature continues, glory continues
I praise with electric voice,
For I do not see one imperfection in the universe,
And I do not see one cause or result lamentable at last in the universe.

______________
Walt Whiteman, Song at Sunset (Leaves of Grass)
(I’m sure one could find even more apt lines, but I said the Fatihah and opened his book at random and transcribe here what I found there)

by

Poem (text & audio): If All the Wood in the World

if-all-the-wood   (audio)

If all the wood in the world were to sing

and every rose gave a political speech

and every cloud took pity on its neighbor

and every stone composed an epic poem about
being a stone

and every dust mote were aware of its
mortality as it lay or drifted onto the
curved or flat surfaces of things

and the blind archer let go of his bowstring
and his arrow sang out its target as it
flew through to its intended goal

and the air itself through which it flew
hummed in anticipatory monotones

and water blew wet kisses to the sky

and every flame danced Flamenco
stamping itself out with its own heels until quenched

and each of us saw God direct with our
own eyes in naked vision
as clearly as we see ourselves stooping to
drink from a lake

cupping the water with our hands and
catching our eyes looking back at us
as snowy mountains go up around us to the
peak of the sky

And each of us knows we see this and
acts upon it

and phones ring with the news

But there is no news

It’s as old as God
though there be no time with God

and everything is therefore inside-out to
what it seems

and that raw inner surface is
where our existence lies

singing to the clouds and roses
and the blur of things as well as their clarity

and everything stops though it
never stops but only

flows or floats or seems to stop and start so
fast it’s like movement but is immobile

as only God moves

though He be motionless

_________________
11/5/2006 (from In the Realm of Neither, in preparation)

by

Poem: Singular Shadow

A singular shadow stood on a road
and scratched its shadow head

wondering which road to go down
toward what shadowy goal

He tried to call out
but his voice was merely an echo

“If I could only be more substantial”
he thought to himself yet as the day waned
he became less so

He was shocked to see himself become
even more vague and indistinguishable

Some things like the imprint of tree branches as the
sun filtered down seemed to have
equal weight and some things like rocks
had more so

Yet he wasn’t without life
certain things made him tremble slightly
though other things like the wind
didn’t affect him at all

Where was he to go that was
different from where he came from?

And where was he now?

The road grew darker as the night came on

and he watched himself become
nothing at all

and the night become everything

________________________

7/15/2006 (from In the Realm of Neither)

by

Poem: Angelic Physics

Angelic Physics (audio reading)

The coolest part is in the center of a flame
The driest part is in the center of the sea

The highest part when the depths are home
The most healed part when all is broken

The whitest part when blackness surrounds
The quietest part in the middle of sound

The fastest part in absolute stillness
The sweetest part when bitterness obtains

and can’t be shaken and horizons are
gun metal gray with one or two clouds

that move like camels with front legs hobbled
to slake their thirst at an oasis of openness

around whose perimeters angels are gathering
who’ll soon appear in the vision of the most

hopeless among us at the very lip of despair

before all solace is foregone
in the gathering twilight lit by their

fiery dancing in the center of which is a coolness
in the drowning depths of which is a dryness

at the nadir of which is altitudinous light
that makes us whole out of uttermost brokenness

ignited in a night whose dark is hammering
but in the blast of each blow is serenest silence

whose stillness is such that it accelerates

a sweetness that pours out its

honeyed mouth into the world
______________________________

7/22/06 (from In the Realm of Neither, in preparation)