What do any of us leave when
we leave this world except a
blemish, that is, a smear on the face
of Time that may appear further along
in the sphere of someone else who recalls
its authenticity in the form of say a word, an
image, a remark, a posture of body that enters
likely by Chance thru a corridor of Memory in
association with other factors or none
and then passes on again without us really
having had anything to do with it at all? We live on
despite ourselves in pieces and our fame,
justified or not, prevails.
Tag: poem
IN SEARCH OF A TORTURED PAST
I wish it didn’t have to be like that.
At least for the purposes of creating art,
A comfortable childhood is unsatisfactory.
But mine was, it seems just that, and
After having just reviewed a stack of
Old photographs I come away with the
Impression that I was a much loved, happy
Child. Now how to account for my miserable
Adulthood? I have to blame it on something,
Don’t I?
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A WINTER LANDSCAPE
Black and white is cold,
Correctly cold.
The bare sky a smudge
Forbidding entrance.
A bird passing overhead and
Disappears.
The air as quiet as stone.
In the middle distance
In a wash of absence
A figure appears like a solitary
Hair on a skull.
The camera intrudes on
a man
In a long dark coat standing as
Still as death
Surrounded by impersonal space.
Vacant eyes stare into a glass world.
Where is the garden, the apple tree?
Where is the touch?
This might as well be the moon
Or a planet of silver
Remember the smoke
The grim parade
The separation,
How?
He is as stuck in place as a tree,
No step available in any direction
Outside the realm of history.
They promised.
Oh, well…
Nothing forms on his face.
By force of habit a machine still works
Inside of him and he shifts with its engine.
The other side.
Brief glimpses of a hand, his mother’s,
The dress she wore on his twelfth birthday.
He is blowing the candles in a picture that was taken
Of the event.
It is possible!
Below
looks as inviting as wool although it is made of snow.
Then his view is pasted over with streaks of black shutters, like when the eyes
Blink too fast and the thought disappears.
An ocean opens with a sigh, there is fanfare and happy applause
on the other side of it, a choir of ruddy faces cheer like summer,
breaking down the cold
At last, an opening…
There is a rustle of excitement in the notion as when a gift
Is being undressed
But the body still resists. The machine will not give way.
It is frozen in its atmosphere.
What if the package is empty, she is not even there
There are no swimming souls either
It was all a mistake made by apes?
You are left with bats’ wings instead, and motor complaints,
Vinegars
And graduating degrees of spirit ache.
What if they keep you awake?
Or nothing, much like this and less, and you have no way of knowing:
Eternal discontent.
Not there.
A gust of wind catches him on the cheek.
He thinks he will wait.
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I TRY
I try so hard
I try so hard
I try so hard to love you
I try so hard to live with you
I try so hard to know you
I do not know you
I cannot rule you
Fact
I am blue not gray
I am just made that way
I will just fade that way
Now
The lamp’s down low
How low will it go
Into the dark
Our natural space
Our silly place
I try so hard
To win the race
To end the race
I try so hard
To find my place
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NIGHT
The fat brain can’t get up today
The slow familiar dead end crawl
Nothing appears at the gate
The clock doesn’t move at all
Faces come stop and stare
Through the very vast night
Birds have gone to sleep for good
The wise limp instead of fight
Within this dreamless ancient place
Music sour grates on everyone
Behind the door something waits
To make a move and overcome
The children don’t exist at all
They shoulder guns and strangle dolls
They have never known another place
Where monsters don’t make the calls
While phony women shallow men
Pretend to dance a pantomime
They kiss the air and then themselves
They make a dash on a dime
The anesthetic must soon wear off
On all these wild-eyed toothless men
Who carry around a human form
And hand you a poison pen
The future must appear some day
Even in this airless room
When people will scurry out to see
The lost ambiguous forgotten moon
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THE SKY ANNOUNCES
The pain caves his brain
Like fast anxious fire
As
Outside,
The afternoon sun shines .
Nothing particularly untoward
reported . Only
A sense of the already been ,
The old islands of thought
Punctuated by angry siren swells,
stick figures and
Sweating somersaults of gloom…
But
There is a place and
There is a way that is
Better than possibility, the far-away sky announces
To this wreck it addresses
Whose head’s in the closet
In search for a bonnet
And a perfect drink.
The light moves fractionally (his head now out for a peek)
Yes, movement opens to a room in his parched
Brain, the pain subsides fractionally, and he hides for a beat
In a synapse of reprieve between his words.
‘Reshape this worldview ,’ the sky announces:
‘All is empty argument,’
Blinks the blue cool eye.
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AUTUMNAL BLUES
And, yes
Around us everywhere
The golden note
Autumnal glory, as you please,
Messaging the possibility
That ease may arrive
All dressed up as Sunday.
I lay in wait for Godot
With the same stumbling quality
With no ideology
No compass, no certainty,
All the spiderwebs that lead me here
That left me here bereft
The question marks looming
The leaves used up
The casual way they spread.
Perhaps I am dead
Like them
I had a home once
Where I belonged,
Now on my own I beg
Something miraculous must come
Yes, like the glory around us suggests
We are something other than
Appearance dictates
And presses so hard against
The thin film to
Evanescence and escape
Only motion and peace
And no suffering in the end
There is so much time to contend
And I am so tired of calling for
Something
Something
I don’t even know
What anymore.
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BECOMING
Sleepy in the afternoon,
sunshine bleeds thru my high windows.
Thank you for the transfusion this morning,
the digital dots that you connected,
as I sat by baffled by your sharp eye.
I felt like a statue (if statues could feel)
next to you and I was somewhat comfortable
with it. What is it about me? Have I become
totally redundant with age? Girls look at me now
with smiles that feel like charity, and I am
grateful for it. I thank everyone of them profusely.
Was it the aged Peter O’Toole who in a film begged
a girl for permission to sniff behind her ear?
I laughed then, but now I don’t! On the way out
modesty becomes us. It’s really all we have.
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CRACKS
Between the cracks I live
In a world between worlds
In the space between words
Like a twilight dance
A summer romance
A part-time dude
Someone who knew
The secret clue
That slipped away
Between the cracks
In memory in fact
It is what it is
It was it will be
An encompassing view
Both eyes well lit
On the party prize
That says we never die
Don’t try don’t stress
It’s here in nothingness
Between the cracks
Between the acts
Below the world
In flesh and blood
In skylight swoop
Beyond despair
Here and there
And everywhere
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HOW IT HAPPENED
We sit in opposition
Like cars gearing up for a
Game of chicken.
The wind blusters in your
Eyes, your piano voice comes
In crystals. I feel the years
Between us that have
Fallen off, revealing a hard
Skeleton of love in place.
But
How we try each
Other for fault! Your vanity,
my hands cut off at
The wrist. I have no
Stomach to pick through
These remains again or retrace
Plot points on the map
To here. I see it as a
Happy accident that
We have survived
Together at all,
Certainly not any of my
Doing. Was it the god
Of inertia who intervened,
limited horizons pressing
Against motion?
Were we not brave enough,
and if so,
Has it not taken us down
A step?
Or
Was it something else entirely,
A flame of recognition
That held a mutual gaze
And burned everything else
Away?
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TRANSACTION
You like the old coins
I drag from my pockets. You
say they are worth something
to you. Here.You have them.
They are worth more than
they were a moment ago.
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OLD HOLE NEW LIFE
There is an old hole on the other side of the rainbow
that you drop into
with all your dreams
and schemes and successes
shovelled away
to be consumed drastically
in the intestines of an anonymous animal
on the way to getting born again
into
your new old predicament.
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THE HORIZONTALIST
Lies flat or lays flat
Not a living thing on his mind.
Up or down like a pancake.
Down is better,
Down –
A tunnel into disappearance,
Space under the floor of the pillow,
Unlinked widespread
Carpets of form.
Practice sleep,
The one consolation.
Deep.
Neither hot nor cold
The neutral state
No body no taste.
Soundless music.
Up is different.
The sky’s the limit
A network of pinpoints,
Thought smudges
And crossed out plans,
Inhalations and breathed out
Despair.
Was she there?
Who was she?
Then spirals occur
And
Her face again becomes a blur.
Everything connected,
Everything infected with her.
Your head sits on a rock
And you’re tired.
You’re tired
But you don’t turn over.
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THE ANGELS OF MAY
The angels of May make the seven
gray steps down and enter the clean sunlight.
Along the sidewalk, they move in pairs or in clusters
In solidarity on their way away from the severe
dark building where they learn to be good citizens.
In the ripple of Spring, in their plaid wraparound
skirts, sharply pleated, worn (their choice) up enough
to reveal burgeoning limbs caught between hem and
long socks, there are glimpses of the quality of
destination explorers have gladly died for: These are
perfectly in bloom art flowers!
Now, at lunchtime, they wave and frolic, dash and
dive, giving up squeals of glee and bursts of temper
in gamely fashion under the city branches, some on swings
kick at the sky with outstretched legs, as if they wanted to
leave the world; some sit in groups on the grass in bonding
arrangements, making sisterly gestures, at ease in their abstractions,
and on this oasis, what secrets shared, what plans hatched,
what crushes formed in their eager young hearts!
And when a silent bell sounds it is time to put down the recreations and
return to the cold building where instruction is bought for future advantage
when they will be harnessed to their adult woes, although for the time being,
they float automatically in procession, resigned to the remainder of their day
like angels in the afternoon.
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MY LOBOTOMY
Between the words there is rest.
Between the blizzard and the trunk full
Of rats
I pause.
Before a crown of stars,
The afternoon glorifications.
Yesterday my brain was successfully removed
Under fluorescent duress
Inside the white room
By busy gowned chaperones
Whistling as they worked.
Ten thousand glasses of water I ingested
At particular intervals between
bouts of spittoon mouth and
Terrible outcries:
For revenge.
For mercy.
All of the procedures they followed
Scrupulously
No doubt.
My head now feels as slippery
As an olive.
So please,
Thank the team for me.
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THE CHILD DEPRIVED
The child sees the back of her moving away from him across the room, for no reason to him, the door opens and she disappears. She is no more. But he remains on his hands and knees handling the glittering objects on the floor, which lay scattered about and draw him in; but soon somewhat less so, and the space around him turns white. A knot inside of him tightens, and a groan explodes at his chest, lengthening upward and eventually escaping his throat. It is a burst of yearning that is immediately relieved with tears, which spill until he tires. Worlds pass, and nothing. There once was a giantess that loomed and encompassed him with her soft folds. Everything was absorbed into her. She danced and the movement pleased him. He was not alone. He is alone now. This realization sends a swarm of black-winged creatures fluttering through him that bend his vision outward. The outside smiles crookedly back at him. Nowhere is safe. The child will continue. He may survive, though most likely, only part of him.
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THE OUTSIDE
The bleeding words of our fathers intersect the exigencies of the moment, as we keep tripping over ourselves in the seasickness world of every day. The great going forward into the outside, the dust of light, chimera and the arid spaces, the distant mirages, meetings and misunderstandings, missteps and footprints, reverberations and regrets, glancing against our will into rear-view mirrors, the images fading though not quite disappearing completely. Everything is outside, separate, set against us, a cause for mastery or evasion, the clock ticking constantly in our sleep, while what arises unbidden from the seabed is no more than random explosions, the ramblings of a lunatic machine. Questions? We do not even know what to ask anymore. All of the wrong questions have been answered wrongly, all of the right questions have never been answered. And nobody wants to be the last person standing. There is no inner world anymore, nowhere to get lost, to hide, only surfaces on screens that blip endlessly, idiotically, providing false information and dangerous messages. We may well all end up, just go out muttering inanities to our pretend friends. All this is played out against the canvas of the new normal, just another day in a fresh century, which is billed as for the best and guaranteed to please. Of course, the past still has its sway. The primitive appetites and ferocious outcries, DNA that rings sharply from its origins. The ape and the robot have been caught in an embrace. We can all live this, grotesquely replacing defective organs, staying young and void separately. This is the dream. This is the end game in the nightmare that won’t end. The truth is nobody really thinks it will come to this. It is too much for the brain to fathom. Thus it is denied as we fall deeper into darkness. In fact, it is only in the darkness where it can be tolerated at all. Nobody wants to spotlight the monstrosity, the gigantic elephant in the room, who may one day remember who he is. When one does not recognize inner space, all things become a commodity and all beings become possessions, alien to one another. It is not important to even try to understand. And if this leaves a vacuum, it is filled with pieces of death, so that we are stiffened in frozen blood and indigestible ideologies. To conquer death we must first die inside. In order to survive the prevalent mindscape, we must first turn ourselves into mobile corpses in lockstep toward the vague horizon.
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NO EXIT
Bitterness,
I have come to know you well.
I drink you every morning
as my coffee,
which is such a soothing mix
of warmth and sweetness tinged
With acid.
It asks:
What is it like to kill,
What would it be like?
Would it assuage the pain,
the nagging discontent
I carry as an invalid on my back?
Whom to bestow it on?
No one special,
only the act,
lancing the pimple, so to speak,
and the spray of white goo
on the mirror would suffice,
like my mother demolishing
my teenage acne,
with her scent nearby.
Is that a recipe for relief,
for the bitterness
that lives in my gums,
jaws clenched and ready?
You may see it in the lips
Downturned, sullen,
a picture of contained rage
as a memory passes,
a regret perhaps.
Yet I do not know why
I carry such poisons. I know
all things are born to suffer,
to decay and die.
Does a flower know bitterness?
I am not above a flower,
only another evanescent thing
I encounter in the mirror.
But the rancour is static,
metallic, situated at the
bottom, a constant irritant,
the bullet that does not fire,
that has no focus, no target.
I have no real enemies, nobody
I harbour hatred for. I rarely hate people,
only myself on an occasional basis.
And why? I find no answer, I rather
appreciate me. Origins? I know this: I felt
it as a child when I knew nothing
about the past. Perhaps I inhaled
a generic truth somewhere along the line
that there is no Justice. Anywhere for anything,
and so we are stuck (I am not the only one)
in a perpetual state of futility, a swamp of impotence
that grates and itches and cannot really be relieved.
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HAPPINESS (inspired by Donovan)
Happiness runs
Happiness runs on a magical ocean
Happiness runs on a mystical beach
Happiness runs thru you
And it runs thru me
It is freedom from
It is freedom to
All you’ve ever wanted
You have for free
See the balloons leaving now
The sky’s in place
With no specific destination
No reason for haste
We become suspended
In a private garden of space
Time has gone now
Gloom has disappeared
It is a world of appearances
As light as air
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I SEE ME YOU SEE ME
I am this to me. I am that to you. This is the real me because I know myself better than you know me. I have spent longer with myself than you have spent with me and I know me at a deeper level than you know me. This this is me, this I is not. This I is merely an observer, just as you are an observer of that. When you tell I that this is that, I don’t understand you because I never see that when I am looking at me. I only see this. It is not that I don’t want to see that. It is not that my mirror is broken, it is only that I don’t see it. Don’t you see this? How can you show me that that is me? You define that and then expect I to see it but you see me thru eyes that are not innocent. Your eyes want to see me like that, they need that. You see me with eyes that are less than honest, at least less honest than my eyes because I don’t need to see me like this. I don’t have a problem with it. At least I don’t have as much of a problem with it as you do. I could easily see me as that if I could see it. But you could not see me as this even if you could see it. Why I say that is because you have more to lose by seeing me like this than I have to lose by seeing me like that. I may have something to lose as well but I don’t mind losing as much as you do. It wouldn’t bother me to lose if I could see it your way. But I can’t so I won’t. What I want is for you to see me like I see me. That would make I happy. Then I would feel good about me and about you. Understand me. See me correctly. Don’t lie. Be honest. I don’t want you to see it my way just to please I. It would please I only if you could really see me this way.
Ron Kozloff 