writing – Page 11 – poems 2 die for

SAPPHO

poem from my 2014 collection: Zero Gravity

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

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

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

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
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

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

AND FEEL

they told me to write
fill
the page

I wrote and
I wrote

but the page
kept getting longer

tried
wtiting in circles
writing into
the mirror

but it
did not really help me

I wrote
and I wrote

page
keeps getting

longer

they told me to
write what
I see
and feel

NEITHER

what happens
happens

look at this poem
it may go
one way
may go
another

I may take it this way
you may take it that

both of
these roads considerably
less-travelled

only chance of us ever meeting
will be on
a road

neither of us picked

ROLL

rolled my eyes
during your poetry reading

tried my best
but could not help myself

kept thinking of
a ballroom waltz but
the dancers on
rollerskates

with the skates themselves rusted
and long strangers
to oil

as a whole, not the rock
and roll linguistic gig
I had been
anticipating

as a whole, the sum of each line
as a part
considerably less
than a hole