292.365 - the womb unfulfilled

the empty page lies on the desk
a pen nearby
the poet paces window to door
and back again
finally he sits and writes a word
any word, he doesn't care
a word that can begin a sentence
even a phrase would do
he stares unseeing past the glass
into the mirror of his mind
outside
a red bird hops from branch to branch
a cat prowling the snow
watches the bird
and tries to climb the tree
ice on the bark makes the cat slide
so he watches the red bird dance
where no red bird should be
not in this season
is there a metaphor here?
a parable? a fable?
the music for a dance of words?
we'll never know
the poet paces
sure that his poem begins in his mind
the page lies empty on his desk

291.365 - connections

I learned working beside
men who had killed
men who might have killed
men who saw the world a simpler way
than most men I had grown up around
men for whom buying a car required two lists
pros and cons
men for whom
a leaky faucet
required a plumber
men who spent all day in meetings
I learned how to dig
in ground so soft your boots sank in it
in ground so hard we broke it with a pick
before we could shovel anything
later I learned to repair high speed cameras
which had damned near torn themselves apart
when one gear broke
none of these skills had anything to do
with programming computers
although they may have left me attached
a little more firmly to the earth
than people who had had fancy office jobs
I had no way to test
and now that I write poems
devices spun from gossamer and air
sometimes trailing tails of gauze
I am so very glad for every pick's swing I made
for every camera I sent back into the field
and think they still connect me to what's real

290.365 - Isolde without Tristan

I wonder if my father
would raise an army
board them onto ships
and come rescue me
he hasn't yet
although his only clue
is that I haven't written
what would I write?
that I am so unhappy
I think of leaping from the tower?
that the man they married me to
is so not the man they told us of?
no happy warrior prince
defying gods and battles
no sunny rider welcomed by vassals
who shares a cup of ale with them
no laughter leader in the hall
cheering his warriors' hearts
a beetle on his throne
with spiders around him spinning webs
so that the soldiers who fight for him
fight only when they cannot lose
while he, I cannot even bring myself to say "poor man"
too sick to come to bed
coughs into his napkin
or his handkerchief
and smiles his dreadful smile
as if foreseeing some dread day
when I too am a beetle
oh tower top do not fail me
oh heart of mine do not fail me
when next I climb there
encourage me
father avenge me

289.365 - syllabus

what would I teach
if I were teaching poets now?
read, I would tell them
read and read and read
then read some more
not necessarily who I did
although I still prowl those readings
and find inspiration there
and some nights find despair
read til you know
or think you do
old masters you admire
old masters you think were crazy
old masters you wonder why
ever embraced what their poems claim they did
love poems, angry poems, praise, and curses
learn to know the differences
between bards, poets, and fabulists
between students and idealists
revolutionaries and recalcitrants
and read your contemporaries too
prowl for the ones that stir your mind
those who make your blood move to their rhythm
those who explore with rhyme
and those who glory in its death
but never let your reading stop your writing
write and write and write
(and if you need me to tell you this
consider another calling)
write to listen to words play
write to experiment with language
write to listen to how you think folks talk
then go out and listen, sit still and listen
work beside them and listen
all the while writing, writing, writing
how some words jump out of the streams like trout
and others hide in shadows
some words play ring games and others run and kick
and some don't play at all no matter how you coax
try forms, there must be reasons for them
read what other poets say about how they write
and argue with them
why is your way better for you?
present your work to audiences
go back and present new work
then newer
find new audiences and try out new work
and when all this gets old or wearying
consider which is dying
poetry or you
look for a job that satisfies
throw yourself into it
burn yourself out
but what I wish for you instead is
never let your poet's play run quiet
keep toying with words and listen to them play
so that even while you're dying
and you will, all of us do
you are still hearing words tumble and somersault
and still catching the order that shows off that play

288.365 - disconnect

I read the poets
I learned from
and wonder at them
languid and peaceful
did I ever know that world?
in mine, another child is shot
every week, another kidnapped
young men shoot each other
and cops
charged with protecting us
use us for targets
could my mentor poets
know a world like mine?
or would they have to deny it
I know my fellow citizens do
at least some
I think most
they tell me of a world
in which aphids bother roses
I nod and wonder if they ever
turn on their televisions
and if they do, do they
think all those deaths are fiction
actors who will get up as soon
as cameras turn away
I close my books
like sometimes I close my ears
I do not want to know
your greatest concern is bugs on plants
while I watch young men drop around you
and hear young women scream or plead or sob
and I remember that in another time like this
scraggly old men pretending to be saintly
moved out into the desert
to get away from people and what they did
to get, they said, closer to god

287.365 - a trickle-down theory

no, he said, no
that is not quite it
you will never distinguish
the underbelly from the surface glare
you swim too low
too close to the floor
of whatever we all swim in
we fight for
whatever drifts down from the top
they?  they have no more notion of the bottom
than you of air
yes, air, whatever that is
allegedly floats above water
so it may be just a myth
part of the foolishness our elders handed down to us
but if there is air
they break out of water into it
a few shining seconds
and partake of in their wriggling there
whatever makes the surface glow
no wonder they lord it over us
and send down nets and trawling fish
to scoop up hundreds of us
as sacrifices
go ahead
revolt if you must
our histories say we do it every few lifetimes
but never ever record
any of our victories

286.365 - waiting for recall

the poet exiled
wakes up mornings
dresses in furs against the cold
wraps head and neck in a scarf
steps outside into the breeze
that knifes right through what he wears
he shivers, pounds his hands, coughs
asks the peasants questions they think stupid
but struggle to answer, tongues and brains
wrestling with new thoughts in old words

the poet exiled
never tells them what to do
wouldn't know if someone had left him a list of instructions
and so the peasants tend the land
exactly as they always have
blessed with land so fertile
they almost never have to think
or need some master's more informed word
the poet goes back inside
grateful to get back out of the wind
fusses with the fire and keeps it going
unaware of flue or coals or ashes

every other day a young woman
comes in and surreptitiously watches him
while she cleans up a two-days kitchen
resets the flue for today's weather
sweeps ashes out of the fireplace
into the slot where they'll be caught
for later making into soap
after she finishes she reports
to a council of peasant women

the poet exiled
reads books, she says, and sometimes magazines
he strides back and forth in the living room
the only room big enough to hold his paces
then hurries to the study and hurls himself at the desk
and for an hour moves paper from the clean stack to the used
scribbling only down the middle in marks she cannot read
he reads some more, paces again, then dashes back to desk
he is quite mad, she guesses, and the women nod

the poet exiled
sometimes smokes a pipe and gazes at the sky
so full of stars  he wonders where they all come from
surely this is not the same sky his city knows
he remembers conversations
now and then almost cries for missing
words lightly tossed among his friends
the game of it, the thoughts building
that later would rearrange into his poems
his work is harder here without the play
and nothing he has tried elicits conversation with the peasants
not as he knew it in the city

the poet exiled
wonders if a year or three out here in the motherland
will rob him of how words play into poems
so far not, he assures himself
and rereads what he wrote this week
yes, so far not

the poet exiled
puts down his pipe and writes another page
sometimes adds five before he quits
struggling against the shadows from the lanterns
at last goes to bed and sleeps
exhausted by his work against what's so
and lost in demands of what he doesn't know