talking about truth

for G. Lloren



Thursday on a week that has the weight of years
you leave the office past seven.
Outside, the dark says both 
the day is old and the night young.
The crisp breeze blows the leaves a promise.

At the convention last night
everyone wrangled
about the word you summoned
afraid of its presence 
in midst of a tagline.

The word was a beast
giant and a phosphorescent green
reptilian and curled, 
legged and tailed.
"Too spiritual," someone said.

"Too dragooning," another said.
They all tried to poke it away.

You hail a cab and look for coffee
there are bills to pay.
And you are now past forty.
How the strange beast, last night
was queried by fools. 

"Is it sectarian?" someone asked.
"Measurable?" asked another.
"Vendible?"
"And does it fly?"

"imagine"

And because my wife is here, I would like to say I'm sorry for the times when I wasn't what I supposed to be, said Ray in words that in one way or another must have been like it.  He then took his saxophone and, beside two guitarists and a pianist, began.  No words, just music.  And the entire Solidarity affair held in abeyance.  I found myself finding the words:



Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say 
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

You, you may say 
I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one

looking into the well: pessimism and hope

imagine a deep well.  deep and dark, a surface world of dark water, unmoving as it mirrors: a circular piece of sky, clouds, a moon, a firefly, a hint of shimmering light.  

imagine what lies beneath the waters stone cold.  imagine what lies underneath the ground.  imagine the pull, the calling, the fall.  

sometimes

in unguarded moments, we see ourselves, looking up at us from down the well.

there have been many poems about mermaids

I heard mermaids are found this way.

She who is not always near the shore

or in between abandoned mastless ships

sails torn or anchors lost.  She who is

said to be sometimes found in cities

taking the beautiful in pictures, as if

wanting to find and place the missing. 
  
                                                 C. Carreon, Through a camera lucida





Already there are many poems about mermaids, even though these are by far less than the stories about them already told.  Told by way of caution, disbelief, or awe.

If one stares at open sea long enough, they are easy to believe: creatures that resemble like you and me, though freer, under the sea; 

but only maybe 

because it could be a tail or fin of any:

sealion, snake, whale, shark.


 

morning walk

on gray mornings like this, i remember some place else.  although remembering could mean a whole different, whole new thing.  not the kind that re-collects the past, and assembling it into some kind of fiction in the prose of thinking.

in some other place, it is also gray like this.  maybe also in the middle of june, or the beginning.  and there is always the promise of rain.  maybe there is also a cool breeze, the kind that partly bites and i am wearing a sweater, the reversible kind.

when it is gray and quiet like this, i imagine walking to a place somewhere else.  the time would stretch into a stillness, the sun would never rise.  keeping low like this, behind the clouds that are gray.

there will a few trucks on the road and their cargoes heading to destinations far.  still, a number of cars, glassed, just as isolated.  there are a few wet leaves on the road, a few branches that had fallen.  and if paid closest attention to, a hint of salt in the breeze. 

i imagine remembering a dock at the far end of the road.  and a bar where one could order a hard drink.  there, there are no mornings, just dusk.  and the at windows, a skywide picture of an eternal sunrise or sunset.

palimpsests

some days ago, two young men made a performance called "white wall".  it was made of a white sheet held high and wide, with two cuts on it where the men placed their lips and talked between themselves.  the audience were meant to overhear.  their conversation short: about how nothing signifies something; how something could be anything; and anything, nothing; and how even nothing means something; and something, anything...finally the men ended their play, possibly out of breath chasing their own conversation's tail.  i thought about bertolt brecht.  and waiting for godot.  someone from the audience whispered virginia woolf.  i said nothing, thinking of the young man who thought of the performance.  how difficult it is to be "new" these days.  how the world must be older than we think.  older than it lets on...

yesterday, a korean artist brought out her painting of a girl whose head was lost inside the clouds inside an upturned fish bowl.  the goldfishes swimming on air outside the glass, swimming beside her ears. her other painting was of a girl with extra large rabbit ears.  surrealism.  how she recalls dali in the background of her figures, in the strokes and colors she chose.  how her portraits call frida in the length of her women's necks, the slopes of their shoulders, the immobile staring of their heads. 

today, i begin reading The Portland Vase...