Tag Archives: poetry

MASTERCLASS

MASTERCLASS

I sat in the masterclass
rewriting a haiku
for the ninety
ninth time

when this unkempt lunatic
barged into ths room
hair, spectacles, beard
much like
Allen Ginsberg

he had a can
of spray paint with him
at a
    furious, frenetic pace
did aeorosol poetry

floor to ceiling
all over the walls

and all
I had to save aesthetic rigour
defend high culture

was a tiny
little replica of
an evil Muramasa katana

but I would not dare
to sully that blade.

MAIN LINE (THE KASPAROV VERSION)

MAIN LINE (THE KASPAROV VERSION)

feel i have been
here before

but after the first few moves,
main lines of the opening
all the possible
permutations of the situation
make it a mathematical
impossibility near
exactly certain

such nuance, subtlety,
precise artistry, infinte
calculation
    in this rectangular game
of squares and
wooden carvings
     from crude to most
elegant a regular
box of
  delights, of wonderful,
well, surprises

and painful defeats, failures,
steep learning curves
      things you
fail to
see (way beyond your
                   ELO rating)

but Tal saw, Fischer saw,
Magnus Carlsen sees them
with stunning
        predictability

and Capablanca, my Cuban
maestro, saw them shifting
knights and pawns
across a table
              under a palm tree

dreaming today’s moves
during yesterday’s sleep
when he
     sniffs an opening he
is in
to take advantage
         like the ocean

not
   like someone we could
not possibly name in
such chess
circles

splashing around here predictably,
ankle-deep in a derisory
                        little stream

KETTLE

KETTLE

the kettle
switched itself in
wanting to discover
something about
the physics
of hor water

and me,
not
to get too critical,

invariably in
hot water myself
and thus everything
surrounding me
that has me
penned in here,
likelyto go
off at
   a tangent,
reach boiling point
explode into metaphor

as
fire is my element
and elements
cannot be
destroyed just
changed, or replaced

feel myself combining over
issue of who has
what is needed, is eager
to give, to whom
of counter
inclination is
burning, bursting
with enthusiasm free and
eager to
give

or same, same,
weird as that sounds,
enough to take me way
past my
   threshhold, over
limit
   beyond containment itself

and so
I leave chains, splitting and
shredding, breed
such a kerfuffle

you, guiltless though
you might claim, bystander
though you might be

are simply
swept away, sucked
into my dance

know what it feels like
quintessence
      of Sun
to have
become

to have been
(if but for a moment)
the light
of a star

my kettle
my cauldron
my
    sweet devastation (we
secretly
seeded with)

all
you might ever
                     hope for
ultimately

scrawled here
on this backboard

board
black as
the Universe but
such an
elegant hand




CERTAINTY

CERTAINTY

river
sea

enough water there
to slowly
slowly wash
away
hatred

one drop at
a time

while still praying
for the Holy chaos
of a love
tidal wave, a
peace tsunami

who can tell us
what is impossible, when
barriers, boundaries
washed away

all set in atithesus
to this
great poem
of being

forget itself,
     cease to remember

as thing so fiercely sure
of its own identity

take
    leap of faith

no longer demand
its own certainty

between
the river and the sea