Janissaries

One thing only

Brothers and sons volunteered

Or taken away by

Force, one thing only

At Ampatuan, Maguidanao,

Andijan, Tucson Tripoli

and Cairo,

From the line between

A hunched and shielded

Mob and the

Brothers with swords machetes

And guns, the seraphs at

Luxor Acteal las abejas the

Janissaries in Cyprus

Brought with them only what

They had been taught

To do, the line between them,

Brothers and sons

Was punishment to whom

They were delivered was

Scattered to limbs and torn

Tortured buzzard wheeling in

The sky, was tangled

Doubt

And screaming jannisary

Srebrenica and villages of

Algeria

Hungerford Bogside Wounded

Knee, the blood flows just

The same from

Brothers and sons their women

And babes in arms at Wola and

Kalavryta and

No Gun Ri.

“When it is darkest, men see the stars.” —Emerson

Almost Forgotten

How it felt to be with you

Once

Together in a dreamscape

Standing near your temple

Holy legs the hymns

The sun converted not yet over,

Not yet gone,

The yard and the playing games,

Faster than the day could

Fathom, accomplished because

The overlooked necessity of

Traveling here and growing there

Could never compensate for

What

We had and what we lost.

“I realized in this place that people feared silence more than anything else, that our tendency to talk arises from self-defense and is always based upon a reluctance to see something, a reluctance to confess something to oneself.”

—P.D. Ouspensky

“One reason for writing, of course, is that no one’s written what you want to read.” —Philip Larkin

Complex Knowing - Number 5

Booze sipping in light shade

Pale write noting derision

Palliative,

Stoned arido colombard

Pays d’oc la baume,

The afternoon slips away

Detested.

All angles and bones, all

Pale skin dreaming of ways

To work painting Egon

Irrevocable touch of

Unconsciousness,

Oracle eyes brown and

Immutable

Bedroom changing, involved to sell the oil

And pay your debts, pressed fast

Hard against the glass. Light

Slips away, winter does her mouth

Flickers a smile takes

Possession.

And granted, there is no more

Of this, but there is always knowing adult

Needful consolation, doorknob closing

Against the acrostics against

The span of attention.

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.” —Nikos Kazantzakis

“Another way to reach zero is to expand, expand, to infinitely expand. That is also zero. Zero and the infinite are the same.” —Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev

Frozen

Miles thick once the ice

Pressed down and flattened the

Earth, shoved trees and

Dirt and boulders into valleys,

Gouged river beds, left lakes

The size of seas. Now, a shining

Silver coating, curtain fallen

From the sky,

Binds the land an inch or two at

Most, enough to castigate

The weary world of cars and

Loans and hospitals,

And satisfaction cheap enough

For all to strive.

Locked in place, attention

Drifts across the frozen

Sheets of ice towards the

Sun, which witnesses the brief

Disaster and seeks the shortest

Distance sealed away and shut

From any eye.

“When nothing is sure, everything is possible.” –Margaret Drabble