A poem for you

Photo by WV Mozer

Time for rowing 
and fishing.
A bear alone
but not quite 
in the distance.
The sense
of quiet.
Though nothing
truly is.

the steady rhythm

There is a steady rhythm in the pulse of the universe.
This I believe 
At the same time I believe

The necessary erratic erranty of the cosmos.
The Great Barrier Reef is dead
And the thousands of salmon continue living

Their lives all about the long return.
So ours, also, must be.

From where to where, from whom to whom, the definitions
May not be necessary.
What is it that we truly long for?

That which is repeated over and over lying between
All the lines and names and breaths
Including the time we stare at the seemingly 

Boundless sea.
Have we moved enough yet? 

Farther or closer who is to know.

trace

More likely than not, the Japanese
got it right. About the traces
in our lives--our very long lives, 
perhaps, very long till our souls 
grow very tired and very old.
                             And 
more likely, Buddha, as well,
got it right. About the traces
in our lives--our very long lives,
perhaps, very long till our souls
grow very tired and very old.
                            

the teddy bear and the doll

Simone de Beauvoir might as well have corrected 
Freud, showing him without raising her voice, 
how the lack is not the girl's, but the boy's.

Freud had glorified the boy's little thing which
Simone describes as wart, in other words,
insignificant. She says

everyone begins protected and pees sitting down, 
until the boy 
is weaned again and is told

"Stand up, you are a man."
"Stand up, be a man."

And so the pain is converted, becomes aversion.
The want, into compensation. 
And then both of them meet, Freud and Simone,

on the same road noting the girl with her doll
and the boy with his penis and his animal toy,
the teddy. Notice

it is Freud, as nearly all men, who is trapped
in his family name; it is Simone who has her own.
As nearly all women, able to move fluidly

one house into another, belonging truly to
no one but herself. Her own name she keeps
no matter the changing family names.

It is all, really, a matter of perspective.

Whenever I see a woman, I know how small I am
against the mystery of worlds, the layers
she knows of life and living and loving, depths

I can never be, trapped on the shallows.
How I compensate, like everyone else.

Disenchantment

Is perhaps what happens
time and again until 

believing and loving
becomes hard work.

It must begin sooner 
than later in others

more frequently and less
to some, possibly why

it cannot be helped: being
lonely whether one knows it

or not; there are always
alternative companions:

a book, a dog, a date
and sometimes, shadows.

When memory is long

it is more difficult to forgive. I remember
the exact words you said 
inside the room 
where all the words we hurled at each other
lay with the shards of glass and mirror

remains of china, frames, memorabilia
what you wore and the colour of the sheets
the sound of begging
and finality, that immovable self-possessed weight.

The stolid words, once arrived, stay
no matter you sweep them with many vacations,
drowning them in tropical seas of laughter
into a forgetfulness; the words know

how to breathe darkly in subterranean waters
finding their labyrinthine way, resurfacing
as beasts of reason
for disbelief and anger 

unfaithfulness. 
You and I do not mention 

the lock is broken and I wonder why 
it cannot be said in plain words.
What we choose not to understand.
How memory gets in the way.
A hallway, a strait. You and I, different shores.

nearly midnight

It seems to you there is a consistent hunger
In you somewhere you can neither point nor name.
Everything else appears alright.
Action movie on the cable, some mutated turtles

The kind you could have loved lifetimes ago
Now you place on mute and sleep through.
Its only redeeming quality, a young woman
Too beautiful only the young can believe

To be real. You would have preferred bio pics, 
Political conspiracies, the end of the world 
As is known, at least; these are familiar.
Closer to what you have come to believe.

And what do you believe? At eight, you had 
Your last faith in Santa Claus; at fourteen,
Fools' love. You wonder how some can go on
Dreaming of romance. Or world peace.

You remember someone saying to look at
Inevitable failure in the eye, exchanging
Blows with it anyway. A hopeless kind of talk,
Pessimism you do not subscribe to but

Remember anyway. The hero suffers in the movie.
You feel yourself pointing out refugees dying
In the next channel. And at the street, 
the stray dog scrawny and sick with open woods.

The three candles you lighted at the church
Of Saint Teresa saying god alone suffices.
You still believe. And you feel it--although
What it is, you no longer know. 

All news by the day growing more and more
Disturbing. Stranger than any tall story
About mutants or aliens. These kinds of movies.
This world. Growing more complicated to resolve.

The TV goes on without sound.
Your dog shifts at your feet. 
It, too, cannot sleep. Ever shameless
In trusting you, waiting for you again.

the flock, the flock

I no longer say "Bless me, Father
For I have sinned." I have left
A long time ago. Not anymore
The same child who read the bible
Every afternoon, cover to cover
For the stories of unbelievable
Faith for a beyond admirable man

Or god; in my life there 
Are stories in middle of stories
The ones I do not dare have light
Or air on them--for what use?
They are the silence between
My god and me. 

I have keep my peace with 
Men and women claiming closeness
To god whom they seem to know
Up close: we are entitled to
Our own brand of delusions. But
I do not say this, let them be.
My own is that god and I 

Are this: cosmos letting me be;
My own weakness leading me--
From time to time--to becoming
That same child again who
Has nothing but faith and fear

And faith: all to be good again.

from a burning room

I am slow to anger, except in particular times
There is no water. Nothing except dry heat
For instance this, in forsaken countries
(for there really are such forsaken places).

It was not always like this, the slowness 
The calm with which I attempt to take in stride
The many kinds of failure: processes and people.
There had been much audacity when I was younger:

Edition of myself that had not yet known better 
Someone I can now only admire on those still 
Burning in fire, those still absolutely certain 
On certainty. Leading the walk ahead convinced 

Nothing cannot be surpassed, no matter literal. 
Such admirable conviction! Such admirable anger!

Perhaps anger can be exhausted, though not all
Not all. There is still anger in reserves 
The kind that is slow to come, vengeful 
Poisonous and antipathetic, something that does

Not easily yield to forgiving or forgetting--
It is terrible! As all things are when passions
Come alive. Who is afraid? Who else is afraid?

a very long wait

I think it is not fear of death itself as much as
Fear of dying; death is a given, the psyche
Attuned to it since time beyond memory: all 

Archetypes of travel (companions, fellow solo
sojourners, boats, terminals, stop-overs...) 
Everyday, departures are what have come to be 

known like the pace of one's own breathing--
But who can tell of true arrivals?
Everyone has ideas, some more convincing

Than others; what may be more fearful is 
Living: that very long wait, so long 
We become desperate lovers of life itself.














  

on devotion

M has two children, two sons, both of them
with autism. Because they live in an island 
at least thrice removed from the capital
and once deluged (it took a night 

in a ferry for her to attend
a poetry reading where we first met)
there were no centres for the boys. 
She and her husband must have schooled 

themselves on love
and forgiving the universe, and devotion.
Also pride 
for their sons.

Then the two of them built a small school
in the island where afternoons the boys
play at the shore and wade waters.
M takes photos of them and tells proudly
of little, but large, accomplishments.

Like pointing a fruit the boy wants to eat.

She writes poems about the largeness of love.
Serenity
and gratitude.
I cannot admire her enough for bravery.

These days she and the husband trains
CrossFit in anticipation of what is known
but unsaid. The boys are becoming teens. 

what comes in the end

what comes in the end after beer.
we talk about multi-modality
how so many different things mean
different on their own and different
when happening simultaneously.
the mind always attempts to mean.
platforms can change. so are worlds.
even though they essentially remain
the same. what comes in the end
after beer. i take the slow walk home. 
feeling the lightness of the new
walking boots she gave me. dark blue 
the colour of deep sea. and quiet.
some forms of serenity. a thought
came over talk asking is this the way
it feels before dying? ha ha ha.
about half a year left before leaving.
we did not toast. he is leaving too.
scotland. i name two states, where
the wind blows i go. the cosmos.
she remains to wait. i am already
thinking of coming home to her.
where really home is. we did not
toast. i come home walking slow
the sky is november too clear.
beautiful women so beautiful it hurts
the way one feels the loss of many
things. time and other lives.
this one now being what is had. 
my dogs call out from feet away
sensing my return. some loves
are perfect that way no matter
how unperfect the receiver.
what comes in the end after
beer. a sweet kind of sadness.
the kind also known as gratitude.

right across

Never enough time

Never enough time to be a mother
Never enough time to be a father
Never enough time for a child
Who grows out of itself by tomorrow

The child will be gone
Replaced by a woman
Replaced by a man
Replaced by a stranger 
Come tomorrow

Never enough time to be wife
Never enough to be husband
To be lover 
To be child
To be constant
Come tomorrow

Come tomorrow
Come stranger

Who does not fear tomorrow?

this, now, only

The marvel of seeing you

always the first time 

every moment, knowing

we will never again pass

this same way 

as the same persons again.

we looked for light

and walked outside. the longest time
i've ever been alone with her, beautiful woman, beautiful
and i, the constant loss of words.

smoke? she said. she had a box of cigarettes.
now the occasional, i gestured having neither 
stick nor light. no one else in the room 

smokes and we exchanged helpless smiles. 
we walked outside looking for light.
the only time i've ever been in long conversation

with her, whose "fate" in the boardroom was
just partly decided. the word she used for future
was "unease". she wanted to stay

a year more in the country. i didn't
know why, but didn't ask. we might never get to
see each other again until a time.

two cigarettes after at the side of the street
just outside the gate of no-smoking zones, 
we hugged. and she went back in

and i took my leave.

Two Days Away

It is always possible to write 
about seemingly random things.
The way the mind a pastiche.

At the moment I think about where
are my glasses? The light is harsh.
Also, the motorcycle key.

The beach wonderful today. 
The humidity and heat in this country.
Yesterday I dropped by at Ozee's 

met the new woman, the fifth one 
I've known since meeting the Pole 
eight years ago. Who says 

the house is empty. At the moment
she is gone for a week; and not
one of us talks about the possibility.

Although sometimes she says
"before you leave." 

I am afraid, sometimes, to even think
about it: leaving or staying.
Although the two Germans are marking

each day that takes them closer,
fostered local dogs in tow, 
to finally returning home.

taking a world on the shoulder

What we had was time and an excess of courage.
Immortals dreaming of endlessness
What to do with the beyond imaginable: True
Love and sunsets of halfway around the world.
Was it as clear as your toes underwater
Crystal sea on a blue tropical Sunday? What
To be.  How.
A little child squeals, the mother surprises with
Delights: look an ant on sand carrying a world on its shoulder
Look the endless tireless march to the beyond
All of them certain of tomorrow and afraid.
What happened between the dreaming and the coming
True?  Incremental losses
Of time and faith and courage: all necessary
All inevitable.
So that the mother looks at the child now and remembers
feeling the known unnameable.
     

A Whisper of Storm (a pastiche)

Three days of rain             Early sunrises             Early darks

On this listless December         On this island of rain
There is a whisper of a storm not half an ocean away

Nights the beggars pretend not to beg by carolling
The city gates have opened         The strays have come to stay


                                          *  *  *


I drove all the way to your neighbourhood and found
You were not yet home         Your new wife        The one I haven't met

She answered the door and knew my name
She looked different from the last two I've known

What leads you 
one woman to another?  

"I just dropped by.  Friday and thought maybe a couple of beers."
I drove around town


                                          *  *  *


Finally at 65         G will be leaving for Spain            to retire
We threw a celebration for her leaving or for her life        both

T made quiche
And after everything        we all had tea

Of course nobody really talks about leaving


                                         *  *  *

And

Adam wrote to Eve
"I am breathless and anxious and sick with dread and desire."



















 

in keeping with silence

In keeping with silence, the idea of
another city is no longer the same.
There is an absence that was once
not there, a kind of empty in the air.
No else knows of this, even though
surely there are those who feel
a certain trace on their skin. A damp
weight of memory that memory has
already forgotten the name.  Some-

times, when enough of us has gather
into a circle of remembering, we can
string together the beads of stories
recollected from dampness in the air.
Re-creating the city from another time.
From the days when we were young
once immortal in love.