Category: poetry

lights in the vines

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lights in the vines
light in hanging jars
lights crisscrossing the cracked patio dance floor
night settling over soft blankets spread on the lawn
this world
what we have
and each other with lights in our eyes
lay our souls on the grass
share our souls at the tables and all about the house

it is July and we are free
these stones
river stones
smooth oval stones
are whispers beneath us like prayers we silently share
continually praying the tears of saints
joy and sorrow and rivers

it is July and you
tender
sleepy joy
swim in the last twilight
Venus and Mars in a moonless quiet sky
and I alone at the gate
pausing at the horizon on my way to you

-July 1999/2007

a single bird

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These streets are named for you
But they are empty
Waiting for your voice
Your touch, your soft skin, your cry,
Your tender body

A single bird in a sky full of birds
Touches infinity
And knows nothing of it
I know you are beyond that sky
I know you have also touched the infinite

Where did we leave off?
Tiny fingers
Little wrinkles on your knuckles
Small hands in the hand of God

And I cannot walk these streets
Without waiting for you
But I will come, you know I will
And you will greet me

June, 2007

Herakles

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Roads disappear
Into umbral expanses,
And half lying
In corpulent darkness,
I grasp your body.

I am a child
Between spheres.

Your members,
Knitted
Above Juniper silhouettes,
Bring forth evocations
And visions.

Drawing backwards,
Anamnesis in immature eyes,
I behold cities
Glowing beneath us,
Extending flowers of fire
Beyond the plane’s wingtips,
Drawing farther still
I wake to see horses
Standing asleep,
The starlight so bright
I hold heaven and earth
In both hands.

I was made for questions
And spirits.
And now,
Before your
Flung figure,
Sand strewn across
Infinite obsidian,
Holding within me
Mystery and eternity,
I am cast upward.

-August, 1998

Chasing Rain

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From Palomar we raced lighting;
Thunderhead pounding summer heat,
Electric thrust of pure chaos
Striping the blasted plateau.

With the wind we bolted,
Chasing the rain,
Urgent, irrational intentions;
Our heads out the windows,
Dashes swerving beneath us,
Birds absent from charged ether,
Dark sheets in the distance.

Droplets gathered like old friends,
Dust-caked wipers turning wet;
Dry indelible desert
Melting away.

And the sage carpet,
Transmuted to blue-green
Beneath the hulking sky,
Blurred at the edges
Of our pursuit.

Wide-eyed, mouths open, we reveled.
Our desires quickening
Life into sharp relief,
Anticipation formed into
Pure emotion.

And then, at the edge
Of the long descent,
We stood at the viewpoint,
Above the arid valley,
Stretching our coats like sails,
The wind nearly uprooting us,
Rain on our faces like tears
Of ecstatic joy.

We longed for the rain,
Like wild men look for God,
Like there was nothing else.

-June 1998/May 2007

>a couple thoughts on poetry & cinema

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>I have a fondness for poetry. I used to read it a great deal, even reading collections of poems much like I read novels, beginning at the front of the book and plowing through to the last page, although my version of plowing is rather slow going most of the time. A couple of my favorite collections are Selected Poems 1966-1987 by Seamus Heaney and The Collected Poems by Czeslaw Milosz. Maybe what draws me most to a given poem is much the same thing that draws me to a great film or photograph.

Cinema can have a poetic quality, tapping into a part of one’s brain and calling forth certain emotions or ideas that don’t typically emerge in the normal course of the day. Some filmmakers naturally get tagged with the “poetic” label, for example Tarkovsky. But I would contend that we find elements of the poetic in cinema in many films, even if only for a few moments here and there.

I like to think of poetry as being the art of the unsayable (among other things). In other words, whatever it is about poetry, it taps into and expresses something that cannot be expressed directly, or denotated with words, but can only be hinted at, suggested, or connotated. In the same way cinema has the ability to connote, to suggest, to hint at. I am drawn to that quality of cinema, to those moments within films that, while transitioning us from one plot point to the next, take the time to elicit from within us something unsayable but real.

I have to say that this post came about by my re-reading an old poem of mine that someone once told me has certain “cinematic qualities” – whatever that means.

independence day

a simple breeze brings
the scent of summer fields
below a starless sky.
along the country highway
the night is cooling comfortably.
I walk in the dry grass
toward the lights.

I move quietly through the crowd;
weird, immobile, sentinel,
like reeds in a frozen lake
gathered in subjective silence.

I can feel myself
beginning to move in slow-motion,
almost floating, almost absent;
my body and mind slowly separating
like the tide receding from the shore.

what remains of the two cars
is a sculpture of brutality;
a performance piece of abject fury
staged without intention or wit,
a muricated death posing for no one,
visceral and empty.

I can see myself observing the accident
as though I’m hovering overhead.
my mind remains transfixed,
like the raised hand of the hypnotized.
there is the bloody head,
the motionless body.
(I am taking notes)
there is the twisted coffin
the thumping of a compressor,
an infant crying.

my body keeps moving around the vehicles;
spotlights casting ghostly silhouettes,
paramedics waiting for the
mangled door to be pried away,
and vapor floating skyward
like spirits escaping.

there are more people now
and Maricel has found me.
we see the crooked form
loaded on the gurney,
crippled legs illuminated
in a multicolored glow,
accompanied by the wails
of distant sirens,
and police radios,
and diesel fumes.

there is little we can say.
it is getting late
so we take another road home.
in bed I cannot sleep,
my mind is elsewhere.

the morning paper will say,
‘youths fall asleep at wheel
just miles from home.’
others will say ‘tragic,’
and still others will ask,
‘how can this happen?’
and I? sinner among sinners,
I am thinking of poetry.

– July, 1998

>Personal Responses

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>[Note: I recently re-discovered this old poem I wrote several years ago in response to three films and a book that all had powerful, personal effects upon me.]


como el viento cantando en el incendio
________________________________– Octavio Paz

1
Pensioners stir the dust
sunlight on Roman streets

(the apartment)
so quiet
dogs lie in doorways
amber light spills
through amber shades
and I am somber
(melancholy stillness)
________I eat complacency
________like the dead

the scarred floor stretches
to the corners
reminding me
of old movies
lights in the fog
make the windows paintings
my mind a de Chirico

How mysterious light
through translucent frames
creates a universe
of eternal shadows

Umberto
(an ordinary burning bush)
I drank wine and watched
as you suffered humiliation and poverty
I sat in the dark on the couch
while suicide crossed your mind
and I lived my comfort in color
as you lived your troubles in black and white
(could it be?)
do my tears caress the face of truth?
or am I (like the faithful)
under contract?

2
infidelity
redeemed
to terrific
passionate
light
forgiveness
suddenly
extinguished
on a country road
severs my soul
________like the sea
________splits the sun

(black screen)
into the darkness of the well
the emptiness of endings
and sorrow
sorrow shaking from my bones
sorrow holding tenderness
dredged from beneath the depths
of inheritance

________so this is human
(my chest asunder)
________so this is my heart
(my limbs stone cold)

in the end it’s only a story
a gift of soulish love
delivered like the morning sky
black with birds
the list of names long past
rolling into nothing

3
________visions in dreams
________shadows of substance
________details drawn close

the bottle rolls slowly
toward the table’s edge
voices call to me
“come quick the house is burning”
(rain and fire mixing poetic)

again I am carried to the window
as if being directed forward
(a reflection on the meaning of light)
And in the garden
a book lies like an open friend
(solace and things remembered)
tall grass bending
leaves turning gently
lost in beauty

And through dark doors
she sleeps above the bed
her body slowly turning
________fantastical chimera
________diegetic memory
________image of longing
________fabulaic mystery
and I cry out
my stuttering
giving me away

4
a stone face crumbling
collapsing like facades tumbling
under their own weight
a chest thick with emotions
like the wind howling
at the edges of the sky
________and I sit without movement
(I shall not call out)

Do not walk on the lake
when drops fall from the eaves

my reflection
unrecognizable
soul and spirit
tectonics
wild sorrow
wild regret
wild hope

an era passing before me
(hands wave from the dock)

In the end
it was a generation of
broken hearts and alcohol
Spanish rivers and rain wet Paris
fighting bulls and still fighting
the great war
(and who am I?)

In the end it was the simple
desires of the impotent
and in my young heart
immobilized by a string of words
I hold sadness
like a beautiful flame.

________________(January 1999)

>welcome to the plantation

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>I love the movies, but at heart I like to see the whole picture, that is, to see the social and economic fabric that makes up, and even determines, our lives. Given that, I find examinations of media, not just film, but the media that provides us a view on the world, namely the news, to be fascinating and always timely. I had the privilege of studying mass media in college and have since then been very suspicious of big media – that is, large corporate media owners & outlets. Needless to say, those in power generally want to increase their power – it’s just human nature I suppose – and having control over the means of media production is a powerful tool in that quest.

With this in mind, I was stunned and pleased to hear (via youtube) Bill Moyer’s keynote speech at the Media Reform Conference, a three-day convention organized by Free Press, a nonprofit group that describes itself as part of a growing movement to increase public access to all forms of American media. Moyers, an award-winning PBS producer and commentator, warned conference participants from around the country that corporate America wants to expand its control over the Internet while limiting access by average citizens. [For the AP article see: http://www.freepress.net/news/20315 ]

I highly encourage everyone to take the time to listen to this hour long address.

Bill Moyers keynote at Media Reform Conference
PART ONE

PART TWO


Here is the Marge Piercy poem that Moyers ended with:

The Low Road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can’t walk, can’t remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can’t stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

-Marge Piercy
From “The Moon is Always Female”, published by
Alfred A. Knopf, Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy.

>breath

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>[okay… so, if you are going to check this blog on a semi-regular basis you will get the occasional poem from me. Poetry is an amateur project of mine and publishing, even if only on a blog, helps me to keep writing. Plus, to be a film lover is to be a lover of all good things, including poetry, as far as I’m concerned. enough already!]

In my hands a camera

Occam’s razor
against my skin

I search for precious things

your breath
unexpected friends
ephemera

my soul resonates
(music on the stereo)

I bend and twist
from still life to still life

pausing
leaping
holding
breathing

I see over the trees
hills shaking
turbulent yellow
in crushed velvet skies

like matches flaring
along frost covered canals
in the cold anticipation
of still breath mornings,

and these are
the moments of which I speak

these jeweled moments,
like boxes of photographs,
names written in fading ink
on the back of relatives
(standing in their own lights)

I see the old hand,
arm stretched across
the lower third,

rough round table
like a potter’s wheel
with cup and saucer.

I contemplate
the beauty of the arm,
relaxed,
the simple beauty
of light and glass,
the subtle beauty
of truth,

and the love of arms and tables
living in silver.

And in the choosing
there is a severing
a drawing of lines
a taking of sides

the distance of memories
and the presence of knowing
frozen in sun carved shadows

but nothing is like the real
the way this world
is handed to us

windows and icons
reality through lenses
a world circumscribed
so that we might dream
beyond the frame

I surface
through my life

angels lift me
devils push

my breath
light
short and shallow

my past, my future

a thin line
clipped with snapshots
gently tugging
at my cuffs

I float
oil on water
spreading thinner
and thinner

emulsion
barely revealing
a pale image
of a fragile earth

my eyes open
dark and still
like pools
under frail, slender skies

and I am thinking…

I’ll know you
by your eyes
the touch of your hand
your silhouette in the door
propping it open

and this is the world
wrapped around me

this is the revealing
of my breath
the photograph clutched
the heart enveloped in flesh

and the world is light

The wind gentle
in the leaves;
a portion of the tree
(blossom white mixed with green)
in the cracking window
framed and set apart

an idea
showing its torso

As I move
the tree shifts
(ideas shifting)
now another idea
now another
now the corner of the house
but still only a portion
in the shifting frame

Listening I hear
the song of the frame
sweet and bitter
like a tender heart
on the hi-fi

like teeth sharpened
on the day

and the difference
of silver and light
is the distance
from here to the door

>a pageant

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>A Pageant for the Living and the Dead

1.
if this were gingham blankets and carafes of wine I’d still wonder
but I know it’s more
more than a day of graceful postures
more than cool shadows, lounging
it’s all of it
it’s Nineveh and fear and the piercing of the turbulent surface
it’s china horses buried in second century clay
it’s fish idling gently in clear green streaked riffles
it’s the tense and trembling fist clenching Abraham’s knife
and it’s really simply your heart
creating and receiving the wounds of the world
like apples hitting the ground
beautiful hues bruised and bruising
Sunday’s souls Monday to Monday

2.
turning slowly in the quiet stillness I see
on that bedroom wall a barn
in August hanging peacefully;
a Vermeer poster in a second-hand frame;
a black and white café; and suitcases
painted by someone we’ve known,
and beyond that wall
the great wheel turns like a millstone

when the sky is blue
it is the gleaming face of destruction
and down among the roots
in the tangles of soil an ancient vine
threatens our hedges
tangling our hopes with darkness
calling to us from the tomb of this world

some set up stones
some sacrificed
some spilled blood
and when night descended
the sun fought its way through hell

this is the ancient of days
the ever coming of the storm
the swelling of the tender buds

3.
we create beauty to fight death
circling the wagons against the beast of nature

in the beginning
we did not think of cities;
seeking arcadia along the rivers
and in the fertile valleys
collecting goats
corroborating stars
wearing our dreams on our skins

and quickly our sons grew up
and killed each other
oh heavens!
the pyramids never reached you,
not really
and all this is more like a parking lot
than an orchard
but still I see the leaves kicked up

4.
(I am a trunk
hewn and mobile
bone and blood
a serpent and a god
I am viscera
I am pouring forth
I am crawling through
and you
the world
a treachery
a beautiful death
an angel and a sword
a streaming light
can only cast your voice
in the stillness of my desires
like leaves falling in the shadows
of their trees)

Postscript
so finally
your sorrows never leave you
not even when you’ve left them
not even when you’ve crossed the Alps with elephants
and threatened Rome’s weathered gates
for every move you make is ancient
every step is already dead and still to come
and you can spread that blanket to the corners of the world
until a better feast arrives.