Saturday, February 26, 2011

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.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Thursday, February 24, 2011

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.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

“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

Friday, February 18, 2011

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

Saturday, February 12, 2011

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.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

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

Monday, February 7, 2011

“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

Sunday, February 6, 2011

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.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

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