seldom anticipated

man is perfectable by his own initiative.

he is lazy and distracted.

woman is perfectable by her own understanding.

she is just distracted.

L'etat c'est perfectible....by the people?

solstice

It's as if autumn died in me today; i embody the ending of a gold october.
my thoughts all tarnished, decomposing brown -
Plath and Rilke seem passed, brittle like bits of dead leaves. It's the tag end of something in my heart.
the geese have flown on, the orchards picked and abandoned,
i can't even write in meter.
Why? why this compost of unease? Why these lonely piles of brushwood?
You said you loved me, and I replied in kind,
but...there is a puritan sabbath soberness within,
physical and spiritual disconnect - it's as if autumn died inside me.
Where is the flaming maple? Where is the harvest moon?
Where is our mad laughter joyous in this sharpening wind?
I can't even write in meter.
My thoughts are dormant, stale....I think I will wait for the snows.

Nihonshu

Swathes of silk-
kimono days
a passing glancing, prancing gaze;
hobbled, stilted, fractured words
are bound within. Tormented herds
stamp the ground and shake the plain-
can my heart in one remain?
Like the stork out of the sky
awkward legs and awkward cry,
Like a wagon in long grass
like Yun's army at the pass,
halted, bitter, mired I
long for you,
my samurai.

Endless shadow-dreams do prove
that with you I am in love.
Moonless nights find me awake,
Your letters strong as ancient sake.
Return my friend! the swallows fly
the willow weeps and so do I.
My sash undone, my bed unmade
your absence sharp as Fusu's blade.

Return, my friend.

return.

WHAT COLOR IS RED?

Red was a color I thought I knew. Flashlight up against a hand - the red life shines within. Red I learned early from sharp things and stuff squirting out of me, from the book covers and dragon pictures of my library days, and the tiny columbine rockets sprouting in the backyard. "Red," i said, "That color is red."

But OH MY!

Alizarin
Terra cotta
Venetian red
Amaranth
Burgundy
Cardinal
Carmine
Carnelian
Cerise
Chestnut
Coral red
Crimson
Dark pink
Falu red
Fire engine red
Fuchsia
Magenta
Maroon
Mauve taupe
Orange-red
Persian red
Pink
Persimmon Red
Red-violet
Rose
Rose madder
Ruby
Rust
Puce
Sangria
Scarlet

East Germany

of course, economically I'm still rather depressed.

otherwise i'm fine.

SPECTRUM

monday: unduly blue

tuesday: olive drab

wednesday:fuchsia funk

thursday: eyore grey

friday: scarlet bits

saturday:raw umber

sunday: babylonian gold

First things First

As I was saying to you, O my heart,
Be still.
Remember what I said to you, before his heartbeat and hands were offered,
I said "Be still."
And do not cry, and do not think I will believe you if
you reply "I am."

For the heart that desires constancy from man will break.
Be still.

QUESTION

a small rock lay in the path
lay like a small doubt
right in the way of the careening hooves of a thousand horses

it wanted to cry out, but it was a rock, a stone, a solid silent nothing.

why wasn't it given a tongue to clamor, or a drum to strike or a larger rock
to shadow it
from
the four thousand unchangeable shocks
that
rocks are heir to?

"My life's long radiant Summer halts at last,
And lo! beside my path way I behold
Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold
Has heralded her presence; but a vast
Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed
Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold
Subdues the vivid colouring of bold
And passion-hued emotions. I will cast

My August days behind me with my May,
Nor strive to drag them into Autumn's place,
Nor swear I hope when I do but remember.
Now violet and rose have had their day,
I'll pluck the soberer asters with good grace
And call September nothing but September."
- Ella Wheeler Wilcox, September

enthralled

"I have come to a still, but not a deep center,
A point outside the glittering current;
My eyes stare at the bottom of a river,
At the irregular stones, iridescent sandgrains,
My mind moves in more than one place,
In a country half-land, half-water.
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air."
- Theodore Roethke, The Far Field

The day-before-the-first-of-october feeling: for midterms

i think the Fall fell while I was falling behind
and now i want to fall asleep
in the autumn sunshine
and forget this fallen world
and how much it hurts
to fall
and
have to get up again.

i wish i was a leaf today.

the Difference

The one spoke reams about her dreams and laughter and showered her with star-words, while
the other woke up each morning and asked "where are you?"

that was the difference, you see.

OCTOBER

I will lay me down and fall
asleep.

drifting leaves will cover me

I will lay behind this wall
to weep.

heavy stones will shield me.

I will lay here in your thrall
and deep

your wings will shadow o'er me

oh autumn,
what a crimson-falling wall you are,
a quiet, witching thing
the apples and chrysanthemums are causing me to sing!

my friend

she said stop looking for doors that lead OUT and start finding ones that lead THROUGH but he said will you go with me?

I'm Glad You're Back

i come out, still pulling on my sweater
and you are sitting
right there
grinning straight into my earliest morning face,
a cheerful affront
to monday.

i thank God for you my friend.

Perhaps

Yes, i think there is one more love poem in me tonight. It is shy though, and is hesitant to step around the curtain of weariness that hangs between heart and pen.

Come out, my lovely thing.
Come out into this dim warm room and let me hear you sing.
It need not be a noble song
nor need its verses go for long.
In truth, o starry child of this most dark-filled heart,
even at song's sweet end there is the start
of melody that stretches on and on right out of time
whose very essence is sublime.
I'm sorry if I've startled you with words. I'm coarse and spare
of grace, while you are only and alone most fair.
And so begin.
I will silent sit and silent weep, for lo
and very briefly must I yield
to sleep.

yet let them not call me beggar who once did hold your gift within my ear -
i am king of wealth beyond their scope for I know you, my dear.

Gomer

It must end somewhere.
the well run dry and the oil run out.
it can't keep going on -
surely there isn't enough left. You can stop pretending.

I remember once you told Dad that no matter how harsh his words were, you knew he loved me. And how afterwards I couldn't believe how much I hated both of you.

Herbert said we are twenty different men within twenty seconds, but i've never seen you change.

I'm sorry.

Your strength revolts me when I'm at my weakest. I guess I just wish it was a more equal fit, that sometime,
sometime maybe you could come to me,
maybe I would have something to forgive.

Written On the Occasion of Your Birthday

I want to write you a birthday poem,
42 stanzas and a grand finale that Neruda and Keats
would turn green at & have to eat the rest of the cake to comfort themselves.
I want to bake you that cake, 6 stories high girded with chocolate and reinforced with
butter & all the good things that you deserve for having survived this long.
Twenty years. 86,400 seconds every day, every day since
your little wrinkeldredself first breathed in. I want to write an ode to your hair, to your hands, to your mouth, things which for decades have caused wonder
to light up in the minds of those around you.
It's your birthday, and you deserve the Arc du Triomph in verse & cake & candles
and a million cards that categorize the billion reasons I love you from nose to toes,
but it's 1 am & i'm tired & my poetic side malevolently went off to chase unicorns
somewhere, and i'm weary beyond bearing - not quite as weary as the lady that night in primordial pain, her cheeks two concetrated roses of effort in her pale face. Your mother's pain gave you the chance
to taste Time & feel it for yourself - I am not as weary as all that, not at all.
Mostly, i'm just glad its your birthday
and you haven't jumped ship or skivvied off into the jungles of some city or adventuresome place - i'm glad you're twenty here and now, where i can
track you down
and hug you till your bones crack. Maybe someday i will write you a birthday poem,
so stay alive.

1920 - The September After

i would like to know just one thing from you:

why do you leave your shoes on the mat
on all the mornings
of the nights when you don't come home so that i have to stare at them over breakfast
and lunch
and the late lonely dinners when i almost wish
that you hadn't come back
from that war you can't forget.

That One Night (for M. B. Martins)

There was one night
when the moon didn't rise
and it rained until the middle of the next afternoon.
I woke up alone in bed, and after stumbling around all morning, we met up again
in the middle of a puddle.

it was still raining

Your ankles were white, white as alabaster. Your eyes were tired
for a lot of reasons.
But then you splashed,
and the puddle and the silence shattered,
and I wanted to carry you
all the way through life until the poppy-fields bloomed into your dreams.

But instead we went down to the dead-endstreet
and put flowers next to a weeping Mary
and the body of a dead Jesus.

and then it stopped raining.