PHOSPHORIMENTAL

Oh, friends
I was quick, too quick,
to return to the grind of occupational habit

so that here in the mainland of shit
every smile I see curl,
every cold beverage that’s raised,
is a reminder that

for a time,
amidst the troughs of this grind,
we took a lease on tracts of sand and ocean,
the azure dome and the fresh green fronds,
the swells of emotion

We were tipsy
We were carefree
The sun rose and set,
teetering drunk on time,
maundering,
stumbling
under a oven sky

We toasted our glasses, and
with each page we turned,
each one a farewell
to the tyranny of
the grind

The grist of our nature
churned in a blender
papaya, melon, cigars, vodka
the spray of friendship
from the twist of the rind.

tis nothing if not heard

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Grazed by the sun’s last glance at dusk.
A red wine droplet on the table cloth
spreads quietly,
a small scar left by the thorn reminds me…
even when the vase is empty,
there is still a rose in the garden.

It is anguishing to wonder if
you were also waiting,
wondering if you should reach for my hand
on that stormy indigo night.
It never happened.

Love can be the slow burn of ‘not having,’
Akin to the last light
of the waning amber glow in the wax,
a gray wisp from the extinguished wick.
Recollection of unrequited love is
the striking of a wet match in the wind.

You were curiously touching the grape leaves,
standing on a hillside in Domaso.
You had your back to me.
Beyond you, Lake Como. Beyond that,
the Alps.
And beyond that,
the end of a love story that never begins.

I attempted many unfinished poems
spellbound by honeyed eyes.
Walking between the rows of terracotta roofs,
on cobble streets, I authored us in my mind,
bending truth
in the forge of a heart set afire.

Whatever you looked at,
you saw it differently than others,
like Da Vinci saw the Vitruvian Man.
Like whenever I looked at you, how you became
an ever intriguing stranger,
familiar, yet always new.

Beauty is a view from the window
of two passing trains,
a boundless countryside
interrupted by the flash of another’s face.
The entrancing visage of a companion
who slipped into the void between light and sound.

Quietly, our time came and went
barely noticeable, faintly traceable…
like the seasons changing in a small town.

tis nothing if not heard

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Through the window, from outside, the two could be seen in notes of moonlight, quiet at times and then one would stir from their lunar gazing, slowly mouthing words, unheard through the glass. There was a sanctity in these moments and it was not their first full moon.  And with each day and month and year, each phase, they wondered if there could ever be a last.  

He whispered to himself, “two insomniacs,” gently stirring her from her meditation.  He continued in his trancelike reflecting, 

“When I am with you, we stay up all night.
When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.
Praise God for those two insomnias!
And the difference between them.”

She smiled knowingly, “oh joy! Mevlana does find the right moment to show up doesn’t he.”

He turned to her presence, “perhaps we should just stay awake until the sun comes up.” 

This is how goes between them; no different during a new moon, when they become the only two moths in the night, fluttering around one another, intoxicated by their candle flame.  It was during one of these many deep discussions that they had found themselves writing elbow to elbow in the mountains of the New Mexico.  Neither had ever been here before, geographically nor metaphorically. 

“Love is always the topic with us, isn’t it? Is there nothing else we can speak of – I mean, there must be something beyond the reach of our metaphors!”  She was quite serious about this.  And it left him pondering.

After a few sips of this endless brew of tea, he quietly said, “everything is sacred…”

“…what else can it be?  This is why we chase our love around like a thirsty beggars – holding up our cups to the night asking for the slightest sip… when all along we are the Saqi.”

She softly laughed and nodded her head, “yes beloved, each of us is the divine Cupbearer and our heads are like tin cups… opened upward.”

“Ours is a tin cup love I suppose my dear.  We are tin cup lovers.”

His eyes watered and a tear slipped down his cheek, “I am filled with you, and I’m overflowing.  But yet the lip of this cup is never reached by all your pouring.”

“Everyone hears me, and thinks it is me, and it makes me feel lonely.  I am my love, and my love is you and like Rumi says, it is hidden, and it is hidden and it is hidden.  They don’t understand, they cannot know… not through us at least.”  

She saw his tear and could not help but well up with her own, smiling, “You are translucent my love, and you are the color of your contents – they do not need to see me or you.  Only your love.  Is this not why we came to this place … to show our love?”

He smiled and sniffled a little, “must you make sense ALL the time?”

tis nothing if not heard

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I read up some on those entering poetry contests
Do not write a poem about poetry
Or serendipitous love between strangers
standing in line at Peet’s Coffee,

Or spoken word… do not wail for others’ causes
unless you’re angry with your very own injustice; 
Write nothing on anything wished or rumored,
like a dictator’s brain warping cancer,

or those boys in the tabloids, 
in their orange jumpers, 
who threw rocks off the overpass,
making some people die.

Do not write about the sultry August sunsets 
over Gethsemani Abbey.  Do not.
Thomas Merton has carried this sublime beauty 
to the grave in a divan of silence.

If you can write after reading Cohen, 
then he’s spared you of a wicked truth; that is
without the elixir of bone, blood, and sinew,
you’ll write merely pretty lies.

You may karaoke “When Dove’s Cry” 
at the Vegas Lounge in Minneapolis. 
But Prince crooned from his guitar.
Can you picture this with a poem?

I hear, poetry is not gossip. You shouldn’t write
of the stillness of pines,
unless you love Mary Oliver 
as she loved the secrets of the woods.

Best you be like the newborn mockingbird, 
alone all its life in a soundproof cage.
Whatever song you sing upon emerging, 
that is your winning poem.

tis nothing if not heard

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Martha Heller took in wayward Christian men
I was one of her boarders for a year
I wasn’t Christian 
but I was in pain
and that was mostly why she took us in.
She named this place Raspberry Springs.
 
It is 25 acres of forested Virginia land
between the towns of Fry and Jefferson, 
pinned to the side of Mar Lu Ridge,
accessed by an unmarked drive way, 
too easy to miss. 
And it all lit up when the sun would set. 
 
The Heller’s built guest quarters 
a hundred yards up the hill
Purely a functional structure
housing servants who care for the ill,
no elaborate architectural design, 
aside from a common commode, 
no common areas.
Its simplicity, purely in the service of the divine.
 
Several small balconies 
jutting out of a maze of small rooms, 
each with westward facing, 
perfect kingly views. 
Yet it stored rag doll men, 
with little to gain,
and nothing to lose.
 
For a while I lived on the opposite wall 
of a spindly fellow
whom I only saw 
once in a while
Always half in shadows
moving about quietly
He was a recovering drunk
I was recovering from sobriety.
 
I often heard him crying, 
his sobbing came from everywhere
It made me sad, out on my balcony, 
ironically slowly sipping my warm canned beer.
Then one day, 
maybe because I paid my rent on time,
Martha moves me to “the big house" 
and the entire basement became mine.
 
Five years earlier, Martha’s son had died
the spindly fellow would confide,
"Cancer took him you know."
Two years later,
she finally had the courage 
to let the hospice nurses go.
There were no meals to be made
no medicines to give,
just bills to settle
and lives to live.
They kept her son comfortable,
wheeling him down to the raspberry pond,
There, his eyes would come alive and colorful, 
though his body was gray and gone.
 
Now, the uniformed caregivers 
were only reminders 
of when he was alive...
and when he was dying.
I can imagine the caravan departing,
rolling down the dirt road,
Martha, up the hill crying,
while her husband,
toiled silently in the boy's room,
disassembling the bed,
he’d later haul out
to an old tractor shed.
 
Though no relation, 
Martha Heller shared my mother's maiden name.
She always said,  
this is why I came;
to find family again.
This is why she took me in,
and treated me like a Heller all the same.
 
How had it come to this?
From my sprawling ranch property and 
well stabled horses,
to the company of convalescing druids.
While, my own children who‘d recently learned to talk and read
were 30 miles away on the other side of Raspberry Springs.
I had become the ghost of a woman’s dead son,
a shell of a Christian man.
And this is why Martha Heller
took me in.

tis nothing if not heard

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