Monthly Archives: July 2012

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Poem: 26 / The Soul


The soul is a
flowering peach tree blooming on a

bright green hill

The scale of a dragon fallen into the
Princess’ goblet turning water into the most

effluvious Paradisiacal wine one sniff of which up our
nostrils turns our flesh to song

A harbor full of sailing vessels each
loaded with inestimable treasure

but in the eyes of a single child
nothing but a cloth doll or a

lump of clay
treasured more than all the rest

and the evaluation is true

We crash against our souls in the most
unmannerly manners

yet its High C transcends all the

cacophony we produce

It’s calmer than smooth ocean under
moonlight in a sweet island cove

has traveled farther than the most
outlandish shaman from the

wildest frontier with his hard-won
healing song bringing the

entire village back to life and seals
back swimming under the ice

Is cooler than breezes over Ganges
burning ghats that take Hindus’

bodies’ essences in fine ash flakes to the
godliest heavens to

dance with other souls forever
in their extravagant eternity

Is hotter than gypsies’ cante hondo on makeshift
wood tables in heart-echoing forests of their only

safe refuge

We can never sing enough to our souls
to encourage their bravado while our

bodies seem to simmer in their
own juices or

disintegrate all around us bit by bit
like forest animals one by one running back

into the coziness of their lairs

leaving us like lone singers on a
single hill at midnight under

an entire sky of silver stars

Our souls in the pockets of our
deepest beings waiting to be

lured into the open to
proves themselves victorious over

all
and over all and anything

that can hit us
however it may hit us

to leave us undauntedly
victorious

after all
________________________________________
6/5/12 (from Down at the Deep End, in progress, insha’Allah)

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Poem: 25 / The Rowers


The rowers of the big boats
had no letup

The trapeze artist has to
catch his mate

for once in midair it’s
too late to be

elsewhere

A mortal born must go on
until there’s no more

going on

then continues by his
Fashioner in His fashion

to where his Fashioner has
fashioned

Those explorers who went to the
ends of the earth and

perished in their tents

their own bodies their last frail
physical refuge

as the sleet continued to fall
the final resounding chord on the

planet’s piano played

Alone in our beds
the brush against the

cheek of that nearness
having been born into

physical being it’s
too late to be elsewhere

Having nothing at all to do with the
body is the saint’s way

of astounding conviction
and God’s direct Light

falling upon them
head to toe

inside and out

Looking over the edge of things
can we see any other way out?

But row the big boat
catch wrists in

midair
be peaceful in our

icy tents

bodiless Allah
our sole refuge?
________________
6/4/12 (from Down at the Deep End)

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Poem: 24 / A Little Blue Monk


A little blue monk in a purple
cassock served us sarsaparilla

He looked through eyes that had been
through a thousand years of blinking

I think to him we resembled chrysanthemums
in colored vases

He wept as he told us his joys
and how the light irradiated his little

cell at night and how soft the
voices and deep the import

A faqir came along in a yellow djallaba
and brought tame giraffes to ride

“These are swifter than most and one
bound takes us to the far horizon

to the rising or setting sun — whichever
you wish”

We rode all day and the sun rose
successively for love was in the

air and nothing could stop us from

diving right into it and through its
heartfelt syrups

A little Buddha appeared and held his
hand above his head to indicate we’d

arrived at the right location

for his feet knew each terrain as perfect
and he knew for us what was

perfect for our feet as well as we
looked out over the sheerest

canyons for miles and miles we’d
ever seen

and from the depths of their crevasses rose
colored streamers and

rays of golden light

and the voices here assured us we’d
arrived at the appropriate place

When we looked around there was
no one there but we were

not alone

and a Face of Light floated in the
air in front of us

to show us our souls
____________________
6/3/12 (from Down at the Deep End)

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Poem: 23 / Falling


If a body starts to fall
and there’s nothing to stop it falling

how long will it fall
and through how many worlds?

The visions of our hearts pass in a
whooshing whirl

The sounds in our ears of every
symphony ever heard every

conversation exchanged every
trilling bird

The wind rushes past us
coming from in front

And if we start falling apart
but the soul is whole

how will it go?

Will the soul come forth with
bravado?

Or a wisp of intense light that
contains us whole?

The worlds of the past are gone
except for their gongs

going on

And this one crowds around us

And the next one’s unknown
except what the Prophet’s shown

Our souls chime in fear and delight to
know firsthand when

this life is gone

and the body has no more
to fall

and God is all
______________
5/2/12 (from Down at the Deep End, progressing)

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Poem: 22 / Job Sits in His Chair


Job sits in his chair of molten lead
Walks on a beach of burning sand

speaks words that blister the air
sings a soft song that his

heart can hear

Finds his closest companion just
a jugular vein away

Holds onto that conversation as its
whirlwind hurls its lights

through the entire rattletrap cosmos
returning again as earth-shattering music

whose gong is himself
going over Niagara in the

barrel of his ribcage
holding on as it crashes through the

waves in spattering sprays of
silver and gold sparks

against a flashing blue sky that flies from
Hell to Paradise in a single arc

on which Job rides as if on a stallion
loosed from its pen its tail aflame

with everything in the world he’s
known and loved

whipping the air itself into
screens of fire

onto which his whole life plays
from moment to moment from his first birth

to the time he now finds himself in
aswelter in pure being

facing God’s Face like breath
blown on a windowpane

clearing to a transparency
where Job and windowpane both

vanish completely away
and only God stays
___________________________
6/2/12 (from Down at the Deep End, progressing)

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POEM: 17 / Poem Ending with Lines by Yeats


I’ve got a dark force swimming inside me
sort of like the Beast from the Black Lagoon

or the famous statue of Lacoön with
everyone’s limbs entangled in snakes

and its phosphor eyes and sulfur breath
are searching out the little blobs that are

trying to kill me

as it swims through all my
pipes and passages ransacking

(sadly) even some of the good Samaritans inside who just
happen to be nearby where the cowardly

dastards are dividing with no
rhyme or reason

and the dark force this time is my
new lover injected by angels in

scientific smocks and its gnashing
teeth are looking for detritus to bite

(I’ve always wanted to use that
word in a poem I pronounced

debt-tritus after my California mother’s pronunciation
but in a poem New Jersey’s Allen Ginsberg once read

he pronounced it de-try-tus so it’s
up for grabs)

slithering through every crack and opening
putting its tiny massive head where

no light shines to find the floating
crap game of cancerous cells where they

attach themselves this time at the
base of my only tongue

and smash them to smithereens
foreclosed and forgotten

dispelled in the drainage system of my
only body back into the

black sea from which they came
the both of them finally reduced to a

tiny point of light above a sloshing
brackish harbor

water lapping with low sounds by the shore
in the deep heart’s core
__________________________________________
5/29/12 (from Down at the Deep End)

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Poem: 16 / I Hear Nearby


I hear nearby
firing squad bullets

meant for me

I am elsewhere

All my deeds in a little box
in my heart

There are trees in full leaf
and meadows in full bloom

Nothing ripples like a horse’s back
bounding through the air

I soar over oceans
to get nearer to sky

the waves below
don’t even see me go

Though the bullets get nearer
I’m their superior

My metal harder than theirs
my swift spirit swifter in dispersal

I’m already air

Only God is near
nearer and nearer

They whistle as they work
coming toward me

But my whistle is higher
and clearer

Whole cities have risen and
fallen into ruin

and not a moment has passed
whole populations disappeared

and appeared again
all different faces

and all the same spirit

Nothing really disappears
once it is

I think they’re about to
reach their mark

but I’m not here

dyed in
God’s color
__________________________________________________
5/29/12 (morning of first Chemo & radiation therapies)

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Poem: 15 / Science Fact Science Fiction


If illness by Allah is science fact

then its cure is
science fiction by a mad

scientist we hope’s on the right track

his beakers abubble his machinery abuzz

the light in the air growing youthful
peach fuzz

a pasture of health in the distance
waiting for us

to arrive in one piece and
run on its grass

into the open space
of His Merciful Face
____________________
5/28/12 (from Down at the Deep End, progressing)

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Poem: 14 / The Lion’s Arena


The lions’ arena
is full of medical equipment

The roar of the lions is the
great radiation ring whirring

The crowd leaning forward with
thumbs at the ready

wears chemotherapy gowns

It’s a hot day
and a restless hum is in the air

The masks of everyone’s faces
are beginning to slip

As we enter naked and
shackled the

crowd is hushed

The outcome is anyone’s guess
and God’s to toss into the

arena’s dust we’ve
been since birth

waiting for this moment’s
test

There’s no signal to start
all is already closing in

A star glimmers overhead
for each of us

wanting the best

Our hearts have already
entered paradise

and come to
rest
_______________________
5/28/12 (From Down at the Deep End, progressing)

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Poem: 12 / If I Should Die Tonight


If I should die tonight
it would be like stepping out onto a big pond’s

lily pads with all the other frogs

combing out my hair and
flames falling onto a plate

the horse muzzle that follows me
finally coming so close I can

feel its breath
sweet as clover all over me and the

sheer delight of simply galloping

Hills become flat and
broad valleys rolling

Sky melts back into its
first kaleidoscope

rotating its rainbows

White gloves handle me
and swans crowd the air with an

avalanche of feathers rising on its
updrafts

I’d say goodbye to everything at once
and hello to God Who would

come through the aether to catch me
afloat as always but now with even

greater buoyancy

Let giraffes crowd around my bed
their sexy eyelashy eyes shining as the

whole bed rises

and all the windows of the world
open of their own accord

to let me out into the sound of
tubular bells and gurgling waters and

newborns opening their eyelids for the
first time and

looking around
their inner light blending with the

light they’ve been born into
where everything happens and

nothing happens
in the instant of our lives and deaths

but this
sudden awakening
________________
5/25/12 (from Down at the Deep End, progressing)