The Fire

One spark an errant

future sent

careening as all

futures must.

On the hillside

the orchard stood

fruit ripe

as fire alight

forced

apple peddling

a way of life

far away

from mountain russets.

The Editors

Declined,

not rejected

Can’t keep anything,

not selected

Paring their words

my skin still shed

I seem to have

lived in sin

excreta I’ve read

That Bright Spot

A room of windows

western tending in a

northern facing house

To a small boy,

Huge.

So bright

during dinner

preceded by prayer

Uncle Rayburn

invoking

joined hands.

Storms of Illusion

You know there are

moments

of clarity

When  you cast about

for some

predictable plan

Return to the Wasteland

1.

Behind us

beyond the horizon

we left the wasteland.

Ahead

we steered

intuitively

to freedom instead

Of liberty

we often recited

an incantation

to strengthen resolve

Random decay

Tick

there’s a falling away

Tick

there’s an ending day

Tick

there’s a word to say

whose time has passed

Tick

there’s a looseness inside

Tick

there’s a pain alive

Tick

where soundness before

you could ignore

Rage no more

Sing no more

in old age

for the rage

of the day

has passed.

Play no more

the great sage

for the weary

of life

will laugh.

At the moment

you think

you've lifted

the veil

Poems are not Poetry, anymore Ms. Moore

Utterances perhaps sent forth

Looking for acclaim

in this world,

But no one I can find

writes a line of poetry

anymore, Ms. Moore.

I blame the war on rhyme,

Though not to rhyme

is not a crime, except

when it is.

Paragraphs

When poetry

looks like paragraph

I can't

pretend to read.

Instead

I let the cat out

or iron

my long sleeves,

Or tidy

another room

or wait

in the gloom,

Until paragraphs

become poetry

behind

closed eyes,

soon.

12/11/10

Only trees can make a God

 1.

Only trees

can make a God,

only mountains & lakes

& fields & streams

White clouds

and blue sky

define Him

Only creatures

that have dreams.

No one sees the sun

By reflection

we see a world

(More strictly by absorption and emission of quanta)

By inspection

we complete a proof

(More generally through induction or deduction of phenomena)

By detection

the invisible becomes

(The causal chain here is long and somewhat admits to faith)

By direct-ion

no one sees the sun

1/03/10

Ms. Moore, I must disagree

school-books and

business documents

aren't poetry

except in the

hands

of newly

minted MFA's

who write

the half-epics

no one reads.

Even poems are not

poetry

anymore

Ms. Moore.

Utterances

perhaps

sent forth

by those MFA's

Looking

for

the power &

respect

accorded

their brethren MBA's.

More Moore

I would say

though

I don’t like images

as much as word-play

Pen in hand

bright spot in brain

I begin

I’ll describe rain

Makers of poem

Are they gods

these makers of poem?

Who take lines

in measure

And bestow

upon some,

pleasure.?

Lover's oath

Honor among thieves

as honor among lovers

But no two, I know

have ever bothered

To swear an oath

to each other

that should one be

accused

so say the other.

12/23/10

Limited time

Some think

to plan

their path to take

Next week,

next month,

next year.

But do they stop

in evening

to think

I would like to be twenty-five

I am young,

I would like to be twenty-five,

but I feel so intensely

and I'm promised paradise.

I don't strap the device

to my chest,

they do that,

I don't understand such

mechanism.

But I know my role,

I have a memorized map,

a borrowed motorcycle

and a watch.

Haunted Houses

Haunted houses in daytime

flimsiest fascia

wire-framed to shape

Grotesque costumes

somewhat funny

in the light

As I stare

and think

without the night

would that scare?

Epicurean Death

If we've led a full life,

why do we fear death?

Why not like diners

fully-feasted, who've

simply risen from the table,

and left?

But if life is truly

wretched, why do we

long for more?

dust

 1.

Killed,

I did,

for the cause

And to create

here

a paradise.

Shed,

the blood, shed

the blood

Dice anyone?

 God does not play dice

with the world,

Einstein said.

But, why not

if it allows the

answer to prayers

with a slight

statistical shift

in the collapse of

an infinitesimal

probability wave?

Creeps

Creeps

upon

the world stage

Creeps

behind

the closed curtain

Creeps

until

the final bow

Heaps

accolades

upon the crowd.

All souls

Have you sat in the evening

with the sun going down

Maybe with the

curtains drawn?

As the light empties and

flees your grasp and

darkness enters

the room.

Have you seen the shadows slant

as they move almost alive and

wondered if there was

some connection.

All life is dialogue

All life is dialogue

told by a brown toad

Down by a pond

I scream past

racing the road

and truck my load

to the next

fence post.

Words for citizens

What was the day

when was the time

poets divined

not to sing in rhyme

but legalese?

My professor said

everyone dead

sent copy

to all the other dead

So that it could be said,

"There’s a poet".

'Freedom is only truly freedom

when it appears against the background

of an artificial limitation'

Why does this not

Why does this

not

call for poetry

just prose?

Fractal-ed limbs

against gray sky

climatic air mass

bringing drop & mist.

Why does this

not

talk to poets

less prose?

Personal god

waivers the atheist

when coincidence

makes claim.

Why does this

not

make the poetry

less prose?

The well-penned word

America in the time

of critique

new critics

deconstruction

presidential elites

Longfellow & Whittier & Holmes

may not

enter

the  new formalistic body

politic but

such as Ishtus can

A slim volume of poems

Ishtus constructs

but a monumental volume

of criticism results

But look for Longellow

and you will find

but a poorly published

volume

of rhyme

the inevitable April

A 10-key press

and there you’d be

your voice that is

on the line

unreal.

So simple

how we

can summon up

the disembodied

will.

So long ago

the date’s lost

the inevitable April

you made the choice.

The dump

The dump

is not a dump

for you

You’ve never

been there,

never passed through

Yet you throw

away

what you should save

And you save

the dying day

The benediction

His hand he holds

above the book

as if in benediction

As he notes

the poets time & outlook

on love & faith & Dickinson

He makes a comment

he makes a connection

between poems & poets & eras

Yet the poets aside,

the poems alone

make no claim on a common lineage

Reality's Intrusion

Do they understand

how insignificant

is man?

No, their plan

calls de facto for his

importance.

If you know this

then you can

understand

Why they continue

to spin their

narrative plans.

Quantum Einstein

Classical Einstein

would have you believe

past, present and future

once created, have always been

What else would you expect

treating time as a common dimension

what’s worse is through

rotation

time becomes something like distance

It just doesn’t set well

no matter how long I wait

I can’t seem to reverse direction

and back out of being late

Power of the Will (The Romantic Missive)

Sit back

and watch the heads hang

the romantics

are at it again

The Will supreme

they dream

will bring to man

a godly gain

And last of all

they hope when through

reason alone

will be due

To emotion

as imagination is due

a priori

Poem of Otar

The high mountains

of Southern Appalachia

and the spring step

of Otar

The waving rush

of rain into the valley

finds standing, in battle

Otar

And there instead

of the round globe

he’s purchased

his ancestor’s lands

Where Otar stands

the angel treads

as steady as

a granite stone

Mine is the inheritance

Mine is the inheritance

not some spreadsheet scion

counting great-grand bones

I’ve got the manner

and fire of heart

such counters can’t know

Life without creation's seed

existence without the need

they have nothing to share

Days without magic moments

Dull agendas that limit

times they could have cared

Lost we two, the chance

My love,

Open your heart

from the inside

and through that door

love will climb

And because of love

your heart will beat

a rhythm so steady

a sound so sweet

That should you think

something profound

it’s just that love

can turn you around

And there I’ll be

with lonely heart

that beats for you

though we are apart

Losin' g's

I’m losin’ g’s.

What can be done?

Someday I won’t be

able to type for fun.

What’s next?

h?

Now you might think

it’s not important

to lose your g

but I be_ to differ

See!  I told you, see!

Look away, look away

Grey man of clay

when I was two

was I as guilty as you?

Vengeance in that day

osmotic through time

percolates into this rhyme

When I was four

Did I greet servitude

at the door?

He knows not

Fire is atoms incandescent,

atoms fleeing the lock of matter

Simple

manifestation of a

natural demonstration

Again and again

of the causeless

plan

Given to man

by

he knows not.

Future seed

It's said that the

"business of the poet is ... to express feelings

which are not in actual emotions at all"

And this approach we’ll call

stock-market poetry

where emotions may interfere

with our returns

year to year

Finally at hand

“I see that the elementary laws never apologize ... “

Walt Whitman

In the shallow creek of the summertime

A trickle would flow like spotted wine

Then came the days of endless rain and storms

Trickle became deluge sea-ward borne

The fine obstacles of ego by modern man

Met with this deluge mostly unplanned

Where yard became lake and street became stream

And municipal fountains merged with municipal greens

Eulalee

Eulalee came down from the hills

to the square of the southern town

Eulalee was there to shop

to buy her wedding gown.

Eulalee are you still the sainted daughter

that some other holds in his heart

Eulalee can you live without the other

if he should soon depart?

Enough!

Sometimes I think

poetry like music,

Enough!

All the good stuff

has been written,

Enough!

Back to the Wasteland

The desire for stasis,

to stay the moment

yet in stasis desire

the consuming fire

The love of conversion,

consuming the natural

moment, points us

back to the wasteland

As he had once done

He was through!

on the other side

as the last of

the waste land

passed below.

And the reaction-drive ship

abandoned on the sands ahead

reminded one of the only way that

even the wealthy once

could know.

At one time the waste land

was thought to be

as extensive

and barren

as the face of the moon.

America among the ruins

“In New York the opportunities . . . for acquiring a culture that shall not come out of the ruins but belong to life, are probably greater than anywhere else in the world. “

Thomas Wolfe

Imagine living a life among the ruins

Culture & music & art of the long departed

Some good, some great, but much that is poor

And you’re, constant sorting of such

Imagine living a life among the dead,

Above the dead, in love with the dead

Given names, taken names, inherited names

And you’re, constantly trying to make such a name

All that for this?

Pericles thought

early Athens

Socrates & democracy

authority of aristocracy

Future brilliant

in a misty dawn

Pope thought

Middle Ages

time of Aquinas

authority of God

Future brilliant

in a glowing dawn

56

Travels through Oxford

I’m struck by this,

No one under 56

unless they’re dead.

From Anne to Yao

then to now

or rather

56 years hence.

I think there’s

something inexplicable

that the half-century

mark

Wisteria Blossoms

April is the cruelest

now I know

with wisteria in bloom

on melting snow.

When stirrings

take root

becoming thoughts

that overarch

then quickly

fall apart.

It’s cause of this

that April begins

to waste

winter hopes

of seeing her again.

Skid

Skid…

Down the basin slides

a spider

two, four, six, eight legs

no avail.

Skid…

Down into darkness slides

a civilization

Roman, Greek or more ancient

over and over fail.

Skid…

close to the drains edge

lands the spider

an errant turn

and in darkness, spends his days.

Scop & Kennings

Scop and kennings               (poet, compound noun)

and singings

heroic

Beginnings and endings

like many

the pact

Knight of learning

in fen-fastness and

moor-marsh                          (empty places)

An emptiness

everlasting

for the wan heart (empty)

Cunnon-can (still in something, can do)

as man

is skilled

in the

uht-dawn (rosy, misty pre-dawn)

he finds

the many

wer killed (man, being)

searo and (magic)

holy magic

when pleasure

becomes law

and yeare (year)

follows yeare

til again

the fall

2/2/07

Receptacle

Woman is receptacle

vestigial regenerate

of a history

that’s mystery

to most men.

And she burdens

all things

with questions

of futures

and plans.

Woman as nature

can’t savor

the spiritual

that takes to man

as he to woman

in turn.

I resent love

I resent love

for it brought to me

you,

And having brought you

continued longer

than we two.

And though you left

love stayed

And continues to this day

and reminds me

though you have been long

away.

My resentment

you can understand

is not towards you

but this itinerant

longing

which seems

loves’ plan.

Godplans

God has godplans

and how would I

understand

one iota?

Yet each religion

assures me

the cipher

they hold

(and they alone).

This from men

that can’t understand

when reality

conflicts with pen.

It’s just a pen

in the hand of men

the maker

never typed

a page.

Don't Set Your Heart

My love

don’t set your heart

so hard against me

For you have

only yourself

to blame

or chance

or maybe fate

My love

I had my heart

contained against you

and any others

that sought

to open same

by deed

or maybe device

My love

you brought out

the remains

of my childish

belief

of happy ever after

and laughter,

and ‘for life’

A life, with you

I sit and am pensive

then panic

then despair

then resolute, I continue

The written letters

not answered

not shared

not read, I fear

I’ve only a slight chance

less than that

less than none

less hopeful, I am

The End of History

It’s the end of history

let Finnegan sit up

another tankard

of w’iskey

pour his cup!

Those I’ish need

a brooming

for their blooming

imaginations.

A such and

a sound

a stave

in the ground.

Tidepools

Swept into the tidepools

from an existing life

we find the challenge changing

We are separate now

from the wide ocean

and it’s maul and churn

In the tidepool

we’re bound to

all life in manner

The Company

There are rumors

that long ago

the one company

had been a multitude

But now I doubt

that such a fantasy

could ever have been

Why would there be

other companies?

When our one company

in our one world

knows all that’s best

for me and you

Reading Henry Adams

“Such a working system for the universe suited a young man who had just helped waste five or ten thousand millions dollars and a million lives, more or less, to enforce uniformity…”

Henry Adams, 1867-68

Natural selection

to natural evolution

to select uniformity

Here was a

philosophy

that mankind

could live for

or die,

as the case may be

Hell is for the strong

I have wondered

what has fantasy given

the country boy?

An ancestor of

the monkeys

in his skull?

One last sword in hand

backed by muscle taut

he takes his stand

Primal

The drive to one world

is a primal drive

for survival

For revival

of the one cell

before there were two

Somewhere in reduction

we’ve lost the encompassing

of vast differences

and often truths

Men like air

She would have

you believe

a breakfast

of champions

she craves

She would pretend

secrets

are revealed

to the depraved

And she would laugh,

knave

At all the bright, best

passing her tests.

Huru-kun

They have passed me by

still I sit

for I know

they will spin like

Huru-kun.

And their knowing

is no deeper

And not as new

as the incantations

of Huru-kun.

I will find them

some day in this

place

as they will find

Huru-kun.

When they realize

what is old

is their race

to find,

says

Huru-kun.

9/6/04

Evolution

Evolution will destroy

the individual,

will sacrifice

the individual

It may be curiosity

or search for meaning

that fuels the desire

to evolve

It may be

simply

loneliness

But it will involve

the death

of the individual,

no doubt

It will involve

the death

of you and me.

3/28/04

Amerika

We are the little men 

we are the small men

we are not captains of industry

or counters of currency.

We are the vacant

with our party rant

filling the empty silence

between the coupling pairs.

With a bravado

we market our wares

to a suspecting world

which nonetheless

stares transfixed

at our transfiguration.

Yet we never change

just empty

And compelled

we make

a sizeable new investment

in our vested history

of fairy tales.

Why is it, Mr. Eliot

Why is it less tragic

Mr. Eliot

the loss of innocence

in these times?

Did you cram

for the poem

as exam?

Did you, critic

have emotion

only for critique?

Tree slants

Tree slants

in an open field

why does it give

and not grow true?

Tree slants

in an open field

it must give

or break 

Tree slants

in an open field

it has to yield

to greater force

To a Futurian

Here in America

apoplectic Democracy,

we treat of man

a creature-politic

An aggregate

of voters

to be polled

so that others

know

how to vote

No pulse

to this life

Alleghany or not

no right

to pride

that can’t be bought

Here in America

our economy,

our rulers

haven’t the decency

to be

Great Personalities

There is no poetry

There is no poetry

but personal

All other

is journal

As in memory

there is no eternal

only forgettings

and forgotten

So why theory

draws breath

with personal reminisce

I can only guess

Is some

static need

to grip life

in a stasis

Snip, snip, snip

When they have your genotype

will it be long

Before they find the snip

that’s in sequence wrong

Abnormal pathology

will be the tag

you wear

As soon as the computer

shows them

you’ll get the stare

No matter where you go

the record once created

follows

Need to be

God, the rain still falls

Even on the concrete

here in the city

The clouds hang low

obscuring our follies

and sizing them to human scale

Without the sounds of sirens

you could almost believe

you’re hearing the natural world

Rain has no purpose

except its natural

But the city as machine does

And that’s the difference

I have no purpose

as a good city street

And that’s the difference

Machine as purpose becomes

rain manifests nonesuch

Perhaps when our machines

become creation

they’ll not need rain

It would have no purpose

but block the systems’

one source of all energy, the sun

No need for rain

No need for me

or any creation

that just has need

to be

11/27/03