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

I doubt it not

‘We begin to live when we have conceived life as tragedy.’

Yeats

There are a few that believe

the flowers waste of time

blooming in spring

Disappearing in the sun

I refute it, thus,

Such is life.

There are some that believe

a useless brutish sort

of life is lived

by the lesser species

I think it not, cause,

Such is life.

A pound of justice

Hey old man,

you in jail,

they gave you paper

to pad your cell

not to poem on.

What were

you thinking?

Writing your

epic

when you

should be

sleeping.

Hey old man

what were you waiting?

Some great

awakening

from a sleeping world.