from this week in 2008 (I was 64)
The truth is so basic so fundamental
only faith can ignore it
No man owns land
no race defines place
No land was a divine gift
Alive we occupy
but we arrive and leave landless
False needs are the seeds
All the other justifications
the wars the treaties the boundaries
the claims the writs the water rights
the promises the deeds
(indeed the deeds)
are to separate the greeds
between that that we have
and that that we want
December 30, 2014 (I was 70)
The name of the Chinese poet, Han Shan
(writing circa 760-800 AD), translates as
“Cold Mountain”. The name refers to the poet,
the place he lived and the state of mind expressed
in the poems written in his cave there.
What is Cold Mountain
Han Shan is high land under all light
gold land beneath the sun
silver land below moon and stars
It is your name when you are there
your attitude when you are not
Begin with attention to breath
the odor of the air always there
scents come and go upon it
sound of current flows in and out
feel expansion and contraction
sensation of its temperature and force
aromas that entice the tastes
and shiver the skin
dilated pupils let colors in
awaken awareness of being
within the swirling gasses
Brief but steep is the way
from there the path
downhill to everywhere
December 29, 2003 (I was 59)
revelation in Oberammergau
Non-Germans in the street
create spaces as they walk.
Women shop the windows,
men don’t know what to do;
they blow their noses and wait.
What does it mean?
To what does it allude?
Kofel was visible an hour ago,
the fog descends tree to tree,
skiers can’t see each other.
The Alps have disappeared,
the mist enters the village.
What does it mean?
To what does it allude?
People visit the theater
where no performance is held;
the look at props and sets
and at where the orchestra sits
during a very famous performance.
What does it mean?
To what does it allude?
Suddenly at thirteen hundred forty meters
the cross appears on Kofel
illuminated through sun-shredded cloud;
visitors who left to visit the Passionate Scene
return to report another passionate scene.
To what does it allude
and what does it mean?
December 28, 1998 (I was 55)
Non Parla L’Italiano
The scattered sensibilities of long-distance travel
renewed realization that no one anywhere
speaks guide-book-slow
even the most obvious spoken words
are dialectically enunciated into in-coherence
In the fatigue and frustration
street signs disappear
behind ads cars people and onto buildings
Even compact luggage weighs heavy on the hip
while Rick Stev-ing the train and the metro
Immediate paranoia and embarrassment of cultural ignorance
Suspicions of being gypped because money
costs more than you think it does
eventually begins to yield to accommodations found
comfortable and reasonable and patient direction
a good meal and rest
Tomorrow we will not be tourists
We will be citizens of Roma
SPQR
December 27,2018
Marking the Spot
Someone whitewashed a four-foot circle
with a big X through it
on the interior side of our faded redwood fence
in our enclosed backyard
I saw it through the sliding glass door
with my morning coffee in hand
Who would or could do such a thing
We have occasionally disgruntled neighbors
none with a bent toward vandalism
nor even mischievous children
I went out for closer look
to examine this symbol of rejection or worse
some sort of un-neighborly curse
Standing before it it disappeared
as if suddenly sunken into the dry wood
I ran my astonished hand over the rough planks
leaned closer as if to see where it vanished
then stepped back seeking perspective
as with a magician’s trick and then aside
whence the circled X reappeared
Repeated movements repeated the phenomenon
until I realized it as a prank of the sun
a projected reflection of cross panes of glass
in an upstairs window of the house
twisted and arced into the insignia shown
Delighted and amazed I now felt chosen
a celestial recognition of metaphoric meaning
selected by a brightness timed by the season
I’ve now seen it many times
sought it and comforted by its consistency
wondered and amused by its portent
honored by its section an attribution
of indecipherable reason bestowed
Also a wondrous bewilderment
that I hadn’t noticed it long ago
The window had been installed decades before
reaffirming my belief in selective perception
There are things we do not see
until we need to see them
from this week in 2014 (I was 70)
Giving was the gift I never had
What I received I thought I was owed
Though I was the one always in debt
I often reaped what others sowed
Told I was the most self-possessed
adopted selective deafness
chose to dismiss the unimpressed
with decisive swiftness
Anywhere I was I learned to be alone
In a meeting or celebration
knew how to say nothing well
always found a way to be a stone
December 25, 1973 (I was 29)
…from a photo of the painting
San Giovanni Battista –A. del Sarto
How softly young skin holds new muscle.
Are you so carefully off to tempt temptation,
or are you so successfully returned?
The last glance, and the first of home again, are the same.
The unmarked bodies of the unaffected traveler
And the unvanquished warrior are the same,
But the brow and the lips are not the same.
You carry your commission like a victory cup.
You carry a reed cross loosely lashed.
Certainly there are distant places you have been.
If you are weathered it does not show on you.
The perspiration has only curled your hair.
The difficult work is yet to come.
December 24, 2011 (I was 67)
The barber sits outside his shop
making sure no one gets in
people pass on the sidewalk
as quickly as they can
those who know him force a smile
without speaking
he says looks like rain
and bitter cold I say
he says I like it
without speaking
he belies the religious paraphernalia
the salvation he keeps on display
inside the deserted shop
outside a Rodin Saint Peter he sits
stone sentinel guarding a dubious heaven
from this week in 2014 (I was 70)
Twas the night before the day that came after
There was the laughter preceding the disaster
The time when everything seemed to rhyme
We drank our money the evening light and funny
The morning saw the grime and the committed crime
The night before we filled the dance floor
We rolled and we rocked and we sweet talked
In the icy dark we walked each other home
It was two below through new fallen snow
Then we awoke to find it broken
Now hand in hand we ring the toppled dome
Nothing more need be spoken
December 22, 1969 (I was 25)
The Florida sunshine tree
(so says the kid who saw it on t.v.)
is really God (or one anyway).
And he’s right.
Christians of American variety
are polytheistic
and we should be
after all, we are a wealthy nation
and can afford many gods.
December 21, 2008 (I was 64)
A story and poem from the lost literature that
escape into the dimension of the forgotten after they had
surfaced briefly in the consciousness so succinctly and
securely that the author, momentarily without pen and
paper, thought they would be easily retained while he was
perfunctorily distracted by some banality. Then they were gone,
leaving behind only threads frayed so fine they could never
be rewoven, yet so distinctly present as to represent
substantial loss.
December 20, 1985 (I was 41)
What happened to my generation
The generation waited. It was very easy. It was a time
when it was the generation’s turn to wait. Patience was easy,
mere existence was a recent awareness. Judgments were
made and reserved. First visions are clear. There is no subtlety
to them, no complexity. If something is not right, it’s wrong.
Judgment leads to conviction. Affirmation by the
precocious multitude creates righteousness, invokes the courage
to express conviction. Let others call it audacity, we called it
vision. Let others murmur presumption as long as they moved
aside. The generation would roll over time, predicting and
planning our own obvious evolution. The ride was inevitable,
it would be prudent to hold on.
The errors of the past were easily forgiven, those times
were primitive. We believed any remnant of ignorance would
surely fall before educating logic. Loving parents were not
fools, they were only preoccupied with domestic triviality. They
always talked of a better life. They had fought each other to
make the world safe for it.
So it was that the naïve were dismayed by the resistance.
The determined youth were disillusioned by the tenacity of the
resistors. The young complacent were sent to fight an invented
war, and the fanatics were killed or sent to jail. The other
generation was not done yet. Those in power had done what
they needed to get it. They knew selfish greed and would not
relinquish their desires for those to someone else. Their
advantage, in fact, was their ability to recognize the other.
They knew what it really was no matter the idealist tags
attached. They bought used innocence before and knew it
was a bargain whatever the price. The foolish sellers tried to
hide shrewd smiles. Ironic that something which could not be
bought could never again be owned once it was sold. After
snickering about what happened to others for twenty years,
my generation got lost in the commute traffic. On the way
it thinks about the work it gets paid for today. On the reverse
trip it thinks about the work it will be paid for tomorrow. Not
that it likes the work all that much. No work paid for is needed
all that much, that’s why someone must be paid to do it.
In the end I suppose attrition seemed so civilized.
Minute changes within the system, quality time with the kids,
skiing vacations, paid benefits and decent suits became the
things the generation did while it waited. And while it waits
another generation with nothing to do, cut its hair because it
looks so radical, rather than cutting our throats.
December 19, 1972 (I was 27)
Out on the Avenue in Berkeley
the hip artisans have discovered Christmas
and capitalism with a smile of course
Leather bags hand-tooled and dyed
go for forty bucks plus tax
The merchant’s squat is Middle-Eastern
his hash pipes are Madison Ave. eccentric
The poets’ commune is selling plaques
and art conscious bookstores bulge outdoors
with two copies each of 10,000 local writers
folded neatly and stapled between paper covers
no copies of anyone known allowed
Henry Sexounce with wet dreams set in caps and underlined
Down the block the saffron chanter gave me incense
and I gave him fifteen cents so he gave me a glossy magazine
BACK TO THE GODHEAD and I thanked him
The season still has its charm I told my wife
The street mimes were cleverly absurd
and the Santa at Rasputin’s wore clown shoes.
December 18, 1966 (I was 22)
XMAS ‘66
Sidewalk Santas
Accordion’s din
Salvation pot
To put dollars in
Headless bundles
Go by on the street
A nigger-man
Old, blind, dog at his feet
“Christ” utters one
“What is worse than to be
An old nigger-man
Who can’t even see?”
Reflecting on this
I barely heard the old man
“What is worse?
To be a young one who can”
December 17, 2008 (I was 64)
A tree branch irritates the roof
Say it’s the wind
say it’s the cold
causes the sweep and creak
the welt and scar in the dark
Perforations of constellations
outline myths in the night
Beneath the western moon
radiates Jupiter’s throne
to sparkle the eye of Venus
It is the scrape of wind the breath of cold
decides the story to be told
December 16, 2006 (I was 62)
family out there
Long it seemed like circumstance
moved the family along its way
an epidemic that made one listen
a death to change a dream
iron mine shut down for good
burned buildings to make one move
Storms in the winter won’t let you go
thaw of summer says get out now
Once I heard voices I had to make choices
choice by chance rarely by reason
beyond convenience expedience or season
Fearing not knowing fearing inability to know
No world to match the vision
no ambition to match the world
I’ve had neither the heat nor light
to bring us all together
We occupy our different days
In my haze I wonder about your weather
December 15, 1986 (I was 42)
Plaint
A year of less than ritual.
It is a dry vision.
Every chant is sewn into a basket.
All the prayers have become catholic.
No fat revolutionary was ever victorious.
No revolution gets old.
The Big Picture is so large and dangerous
it’s a wonder any go there.
Our time is so officially gray. The buildings,
Washington D.C. is a testament in concrete.
At their officious best the elected
attempt to look like buildings.
It is a dry vision, this American perspective,
this telescope over our eye,
each and every with his own view
looking out to everything out there made big and close,
everything out there taken by tradition of staked claim,
protected at a cost within concrete fortresses.
Insular democracy, expand like breath.
Accepted inspiration is our lungs’ strength.
The fluent release of exhaled exhilaration
pulses wind off the continent
with an Aeolian sweetness more alluring than any threat.
And the charm is the desire to do no more than draw another.
from this week in 2008 (I was 64)
The truth is so basic so fundamental
only faith can ignore it
No man owns land
no race defines place
No land was a divine gift
Alive we occupy
but we arrive and leave landless
False needs are the seeds
All the other justifications
the wars the treaties the boundaries
the claims the writs the water rights
the promises the deeds
(indeed the deeds)
are to separate the greeds
between that that we have
and that that we want
