Chemistry

It could be all is chemistry; and love,
An empty consequence of forming bonds
That happens inside all primordial ponds:
Something that happens in, and not above.
And though it may seem less sublime a thought,
I'm not so certain that it matters whether
Or not it's right; 'cuz it seems, no matter what,
That love holds all reality together.

~

Breaking Day

Sun that's touching tops of trees——
Morning Sun——I beg you, please,
I do not want to see the day:
Morning Sun, please go away.

~

A thought cantation

Reblogged from Poet Jena's Blog:

A thought cantation

inspired by the music of John Dowland.

I love this. This piece is as beautifully written as it is recited, and the recitation is gorgeous. The timing, the pacing, the phrasing,—the breathing in between each delicately wrought phrase: it’s, quite simply, the sound of poetry: it’s all pitched right and faithfully captures the eloquence of a particularly fine period imitation. The lines are more fair than fair, and one feels in them a genuine emotion, a sincerity; and sincerity is a difficult effect to achieve when one is writing something that is, at least in part, an exercise. The metaphor wherein a deep, meaningful, and substantive communication is expressed in musical terms is beautifully worked out, and very thoroughly worked out in a very small space. (The whole piece is short and sweet, and is all the more beautiful for its ephemeral and bittersweet brevity.) I'd also like to note that the softening of tone that occurs on the single word—“rather”—creates a very warm effect, like a square of dark chocolate melting instantly into soft sugar. The ending leaves us in a faery twilight, and divines as the ultimate purpose of words a means of communicating in a language that has more in common with music than with speech,—a language, in words, that communicates with the same directness as musical tones: the language of poetry. It’s a theory which is exquisitely argued in practice in this very melodious and harmonically beautiful poem on the poetry in sound and the sound of poetry.

A Touch of Frost

It's here and there I get a touch of Frost.
It comes down in a line, and then it's lost.
I wish it would fall and cover all like dew;
Or better, freeze my orchard solid through.

~

The Opposite of Funny

Everything has an opposite,
   The antithetical other:
      Rainy has sunny, 
      And stuffy has runny.
   And "How I Met Your Mother"
      Is the opposite of funny.
Or, to put it in words that speak more clearly:
It's the opposite of "The Big Bang Theory".

~

Betwixt and Between

When I see leaves decaying on the ground
Where only yesterday there'd been a freeze,
And see new leaves come budding on the trees
That all the soiling leaves are piled round,
I cannot help myself but think it sound
Reasoning to suppose that leaves like those
Peeking out slowly, mindful of late snows,
Were last years leaves that fell and rotted away
Beneath the trees that, on a recent day,
Awake and hungry, fed on the decay.
I like the thought that all things have a stay
Into eternity.  But even more,
I like the thought that former leaves, before
They're reabsorbed and budded in rebirth,
Aren't leaves or parts of trees,——they're just...the Earth.

~

The Way of All Gods

A dandelion drooped its head
   In overheated thirst,
And seeing all the grass burnt dead,
   It, flagging, feared the worst.

And bowing low beneath the sun
   (Its god and image double),
It cried "Please help this faithful one!
   God, help me!  I'm in trouble!"

The sun gave no reply, but seemed
   To burn a little hotter,
To which the little flower screamed,
   "Oh, God! please grant me water!"

And, still bent down, it felt a shade
   Come over its burning mane:
The answer to its prayers was made
   In a sprinkling of rain!

But lo, no sooner than it began
   It just as shortly stopped!
And once again the mercury ran
   Up to where it had topped.

Yet, just enough of vital wet
   Rained down upon the weed
To rain-delay the doom it met
   Days later on this mead.

The littlest bit of saving grace
   Was handed out that day
To save this weed (of the chosen race)
   While all else burned away.

And, bowing yet, it thanked its god
   With much exuberant praise
(Lest it be smitten on its clod
   By an angry sun's hot rays.)
 
It cried, "Oh, God, both good and great,
   Oh, thank you for this rain!"
(This rain that didn't saturate,
   And didn't long remain.)

And hearing all these praises sung,
   A dog that sunned nearby
Called out, "Hey, flower, there among
   The grasses dead and dry,

"What's that you said?  You thanked the lord
   For giving you some rain?
You say he heard your prayers and poured
   A beverage to soothe your bane?"

"Oh, yes!" the lively flower cried,
   "He saved me from my ill.
I very, very nearly died,
   But such was not God's will!"

The dog laughed loud and, laughing, yelled, 
   "You're welcome for that mercy;
But, dandy, you've got me all misspelled!
   I'm not God: I'm a dog named Percy!"

The little flower called back, "What?"
   Then saw the mistake it made:
It saw within the laughing mutt
   The sprinkle and the shade.

The sickened flower inward stored
   Its angry agitation,
And dared not show its vengeful lord
   Ungrateful irritation.

And bowing low beneath the sun 
   It sang its same refrain:
"Oh, thank you God for sending one
   To quench my thirst for rain!"

~

Crunching Numbers

Nothing makes me more afraid
Than a number, because it isn't made;
And though I resist
The thought, I can't shake it:
Something can exist
Without a maker to make it.

~

Affirmation

I still remember: Many years ago,
When I was just a tyke, we had a fight,
And what it was concerning I don't know;
I just recall the time was early night——
Bedtime——and I was stuck in tantrum mode.
It must have blown up like tiny dynamite
Among your other stresses, this bratty explode
Of willful disobedience and petty spite.
Our battle ended with me resenting you.
You left my room, upset; went down the flight
Of stairs.  And even though I already knew,
I had to hear that all was still all right:
I called, "I love you."  I heard, "I love you, too."
And then I went to sleep.  And I slept tight.


The NPR News Quiz That's a Game of Words and Whimsy

I said, "Hey it's eight by the clock near the sink,
   And it's time for a rich word-game stew."
You said to me, "What?"  I said, "Whattaya think?"
   ——"Wait, wait...don't tell me...it's time for 'Says You!'"

~

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you!

~

The Mother of All Creation (or “A Love Supreme”)

In optimistic moments I think God
To be that source of judgment-free pure love,
Acknowledging our hardships with a nod
Of quiet concern when we in error move.
I see God as a love with such a strength
It loves all equally and never favors;
A love beyond endurance, passed all length;
A love with constancy that never wavers.
If this is truth——not just some desperate dream
From which this man would rather not awaken——
And God's the love unbreakable, supreme,
"That looks on tempests and is never shaken",
Then on this earth there cannot be another
As near to The Creator as a mother.

~

Morning-song

In semitones it sang its morning song.
With perfect intonation did it sound
Each pitch-pure shaft of tone to richly confound
The staccato, choppy, chirpy, cheepy throng.
After this phrase of notes sung clear and strong,
A cadence-closing burst of trill unwound,
Shaken out taut and cinching, fast and round,
That lasted to the pure tones half as long.
More beautiful singing I have never heard,
And yet, was I inclined to doubt its worth.
I silenced my mind and listened to the earth,
And this was in the singing of the bird:
If all the world will be the way it is
Be thankful for the bird that sings like this.

~

Acoustic

The gods will speak forever through the works
That bear their names, wherever they appear:
In recitations where the coffee perks,
On bookshelves;——and out upon the new frontier
Where large, extensive websites, Kindles, Nooks——
The largest volumes ever singly bound——
Are they themselves the books (the books-of-books)
Where nearly every published word is found.
But when I with these gods seek a communion,
Their written words on real and paper pages
Together with ink seems so divine a union——
A storied bequeathment handed down through ages——
I know for sure the ink, for me, is right.
(And not just when I read, but when I write.)

~

The Soote Season

How sad it is to be sick in the spring;
To feel amid the blooming your decline;
To feel a shiver rattle down your spine
While sunshine pours and singing birds take wing.
Sickness should be a frigid, winter thing:
A quarantined repose of cold repine
That's bordered on both sides, with strict confine,
By fresh delight and wealthy harvesting;
For sickness fits in spring like rain in shine.
And never more does sickness have a sting
Than when all nature seems to bloom and sing
With such a cheer as seems a joy divine.
And never more does care to illness cling
Than when the bloom is fresh upon the vine.

~

Himalaya

                           "boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
                             ——Shelley

Encased within the Himalayan ice
An ancient pilgrim, staring on a snow
Thick with millennial layers, sideways lies,
Whose fetal curl and frozen grimace show
With grim imprint the final night the eyes
Held on the static stars; when slowly crept——
So slowly, slowly crept——the freeze of all
Within this lonely snow-world, silent kept.
Yet now unknown and nameless is this site.
Nor lie, unburied, charms of ritual.
And torture made forever of a night
That now is disappeared forevermore.
Six thousand years have buried this pilgrim's rite.
Four thousand years have buried his culture's lore.

~

Lovesick

My love's a grim disease that has no cure.
It freezes me and burns me up in fever.
It pains me with a pain I can't endure.
It gaunts my cheeks and grays my whole demeanor.
It leads me through dark dreams of fear and torment.
It wakes me up with tremors and in fits.
It ceases never, sleeps not, nor lies dormant:
It's with me ever, crumbling my wits.
It saps my strength, my will to persevere.
It's pointless hoping I will ever mend.
It's best that I'm without you, for it's clear 
That you would only hasten my sad end.
Your presence wouldn't fight my ill or tame it.
No, having you around would just inflame it. 

~

Elizabethan-y No. 4

It pleaseth more my heart to think of thee
In company with one who loves thee quite
Else thinking how unhappy thou wouldst be
Whilst lonely, yearning for some warm delight;
For thine own wellness to me is more dear
Than mine own hope or vain and foolish pride.
And if it must that eye be wet with tear,
I would the eye were mine that were undried.
It is a curse to want and be without,
To wrap thy fancy round imaginings,
As arms that hold the atmosphere about
To gather inward insubstantial things.
   I know too well of what I here do write:
   I hold thee, ghostly, morn and noon and night.

~

Elizabethan-y No. 3

Cupid, thou art a coward, scab, and scarab!
Thou flingest forth thine arrows hid unseen!
And they who paint thee as some goodly cherub,
How blind they are toward thy sneering mien!
Who sit as mild kine upon a green
Do suffer most the malice of thy sport,
And resting placid in some sunny scene,
Do tempt thee to respond with sharp retort.
Thou dost in guise appear th'angelic sort,
Yet know I truly what true sort thou art:
Some fiendish demon of underworld import
That takes a gladness in the wounded heart!
And thou shouldst fear I find thy darts and thee,
For then wouldst thou with thine own tools tortured be.

~

Pipes (or The Enlightening Thoughts of a Marijuana Smoker*) {a repost in honor of J.S. Bach’s 328th birthday}

The "Highland Cathedral" does not get me high:**
Bagpipes and organ?  You could do it, but why?
It just proves what I've said so often while toking:
The best type of pipe is the pipe made for smoking!

I hear Justin Bieber, and God! is it awful!
That god-awful sound should be goddamn unlawful!
His pipes should not sing 'cuz they're best used for choking,***
And damn it! the best pipes are the pipes made for smoking!

I pick up my pipe, set some kine buds on fire;
I suck down some hits, soaring higher and higher;
And pondering what music right now would most rock,
I realize that the best pipes...are the pipes playing Bach!

But let me step back quick to add an appendix
That'll make this Bach-lover sound more like Jim Hendrix:
Bach-playing pipes are the very best type,
But Bach's music is better when you're smoking a pipe!

~

*This is a reference to the popular 18th century German 
song "The Enlightening Thoughts of a Tobacco Smoker" which 
Bach arranged and included in his Anna Magdelena Notebook.

**The Highland Cathedral is a somewhat popular piece for 
organ and bagpipes.  'Nuff said.

***Choking, not as in throttling, but as in choking on a pretzel.
Choking on a pretzel, throwing up broccoli!

Chocolate Covered Tears

"That wascally wabbit!"
            ——Elmer Fudd

The flags are flying at half mast in Easter Land today,
And I regret with all my heart this news I have to say:

For years the Easter Bunny had been struggling with addiction;
He denied it, but it’s clear those rumors were not fiction.

To be a chocoholic is to live with a disease;
Each one of us has vices so withhold your judgment please.

The facts are short: he bought a bag, and he got cranked wide-eyed;
He snorted pure ground cocoa bean, and he OD’d and died.

The tabloids will be ruthless now with stories of affairs,
Of chocked up fist fights late at night, in neighborhoods of hares.

But don’t believe a word you read or slanders that you hear:
He was a family bunny, and he lived for his career.

Bugs Bunny’s poised to take his job; it’s one he’s wanted long;
And he can't contain his happiness, and, oh! that seems so wrong!

And Bugs’s story’s kind of strange: now I won’t smear his name,
But hair from Bugs was found next to the deadened bunny’s frame. . .

Authorities can’t find Bugs now, and I think I know why:
He left behind a clue to bust his airtight alibi! 

~

Playlist Pathétique

I play your track again.  It hits a scratch
And skips——a scratch and skips——a scratch and skips——
And skips forward through the scratches patch.——
It plays, then hits another scratch and trips
Backward——and trips backward——and trips backward——
It drives me fucking nuts!  I hit STOP.  "Stop!"
I say aloud.——I get shellacked and lacquered.
Memories fall away.  I let them drop.

I play no tracks to thus record another:
With balance all a-tilt, with foamy burps,
With clumsy stumbles, sloppy sips and slurps.
I pass out, wake up,——find I didn't bother
To press RECORD...and then I press it: PLAY.——
Your scratched-up track begins another day.

~