Tag Archives: writing

TRACK

TRACK

am always asked
“am I
on the right track?”

you are asking this

of one

whose recurrent
anxiety dream is
being without
a ticket
    on the wrong train

didn’t realize that this
was a message about
your dream
       as much as it was
about my
inhibiting anxieties

when it comes to this business
clear from the start
                      catch
the wrong train
relax go
         with the ride

flow is the direction
the only
          direction

and when
       the train
         shuffles into the station
at this
    strange destination

place where
           you need to be
and can

rip
  up the track

SHAME

SHAME

I sought out
Shelley (great
political poet)
to help me
with my poem

had to battle my
way to the garden gate
and along the garden path
to avoid his wife’s
deadly creatures, Doctor
Frankenstein having
restored them
from thing called death
to thing called life

the latter, at this time,
for beings deemed inferior
infinitely preferable
in the minds of those
for whom they forever
constitue
a serious problem
life best reserved for
the good and the rich

and so, ushered in,
I did speak with
the great firebrand
asking of him, quite simply,
that he
do show me the way
to convert pen traversing paper
or fingers attacking keyboard
into a manner of address
designed to inspire
and, yes, shame
shame, shame
particularly that shame
that is due
for having no shame.

LOST

LOST

we have lost
poetry somewhere
down the line

no subtlety
to speak of
      no time
to let the word
find itself

relish the slow verbs
the ones
in whose nature
much inclination
to digress

and beauty
         what has happened
to beauty in all
its carbon copied, cloned,
photoshopped glory?

our
   idea of beauty
(very idea) is

ugliness
itself

DIAMONDS


DIAMONDS

before I knew it
my life had
for better
  or for worse

gone
full mythological

Homer had
      fallen from the heavens
down on
my ten year old
                  head

and Aphrodite, my god,
how that goddess killed me
then
    thereafter
and every day since

if not in
divine form, then with
the active collusion
of her
   clones and copies
and would-be
avatars

each as gorgeous as
they were fake

but you
      were the one
she must have chosen
specially

      inner outer beauty
got in
hearts, diamonds, spades
(and so
    your namesake
did
   sing of diamonds)

time has passed on
but the poem
                      won’t
forget

FALTERED

FALTERED

his fingers faltered
that one
writing the script

and so best sibling
stepped into
replace him

but that one
not
weaned
the same

was of outlook
whole different genre

and so the dream
          disappeared, we
became awake

congratulated ourselves
on
     the end
of the fiction, red
pill reality

but it was
       embedded level
of dream
and
     move into nightmare

EDWARD

EDWARD

if you did write those plays
how wrenching for you

to have instantly disowned them
with the final word.on the page

and what words!
what words!

  our best algorithms prove
them yours statistically
        one by one
                 the pieces are found

and
   begin to fit

together
        and suddenly, quietly
we have
our mirror

plays lost to the man
         man lost to the plays

BLUE STAR

BLUE STAR

blue star
my blue star

keep
shining

when I am gone
keep shining

charm the sleeping world
with memories, stories

of he who
     sang such songs
for his lost
Eurydice

that
     the rocks, the trees
awoke from their slumber
to share
      the beauty of
this sadness

blue star

        my blue star

keep shining
     help me remember
before I go

why
I am here

DUAL CITIZEN

DUAL CITIZEN

I am writing you
this missive

conscious of the tiny
devil on my shoulder
winged like a bat
trying to
get my poem
to parrot
    the rhetoric
that just steams out
of his mouth
hot Nuremberg style

meanwhile, the other
entity meant to balance
this duality
    (put stuff in equipoise
to reflect
a Gemini moon)

creature angelic but
in semi-
state of rapture
leaving me to my
own
   (and demonic devices)
as it flutters below
the ceiling chasing
                          less
than celestial light

and so, here it is, a
text which
          could have been
more measured, produced
better
    individuation

come to your reckoning, I guess
you will be caught
in
   and between,
unsure
    of where I stand
and where
      to put your feet

remember the truisms about
lining and cloud
       (Blake’s
little imp)

silver where leaden
but all manner of danger
should
       they beam pure gold

I tell you this
            with heart undivided
yet
   complete dual citizen