Tag: poems
POETRY BOOK
THIS IS MY POETRY BOOK
Twilight Dances is a collection of poems which explores the dark side of the human experiment in a serious lyrical fashion. In it the author allows thanatos, or the instinct toward a worldly death, take over and color many of the poems from various points of view, and people, some even from a comical perspective. The book is divided into three parts: Identity and Aspiration; People Known and Dreamed; Observations of Culture. There are a total of 140 poems in rhymed and free verse forms. The style is spare and transparent, though sometimes bordering on the lyrical and romantic. This is decidedly not a light read.
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DREAM DENTIST
I had a broken tooth
And we were talking
About age
And you were so bashful of yours.
You always come back to me
When my face is covered.
The tinkle of ice cubes into the tall glass.
I felt my tooth recoil in back
And hide like a mouse.
But it never touched nerve.
Why do you always talk of silly things
In the midst of my chaos?
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STAIN
You were so colorless before the event, so perfect that you passed through our field of vision unnoticed. You would always be there, though left unappreciated for the many functions and movements you performed in the world. Then the fire, then the blemish as an aftermath that put you on the map. You are now marked, dignified in your ugliness. You have acquired history, a sense of having lived and suffered, which we will exploit as an added feather in our cap.
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NOT A LECTURE
The human mind is relentless
at what it wants to get.
When there is a pay-off, don’t worry,
It will be there in one way or another
To turn over the earth for its desired worm.
Your call will be returned.
You’ll be called “sir”
There will be bells and smiles at your command.
The whole world will tickle your fancy
Till the worm is there in the hand.
Then it will be farewell and good luck
And see you soon, maybe,
Until the next worm is wished for.
Self- interest is a funny thing
Because it makes people into things.
It makes us a hinge on the door
To someone else’s gain.
I’d rather be called something else,
Like friend.
Let’s spend some time together.
Let’s have mutual pleasure.
What’s -in it- for- me
is a nowhere strategy
That subtracts from our humanity.
Let’s be
Animals that care for each other.
Your gain is mine
Mine is ours,
A communism of the heart
In a time when the heart has become
nearly dysfunctional.
It’s possible
To transcend the fear of losing,
Being less
Because you have given.
There are just rewards before heaven.
A life of me and mine
Is less than satisfactory.
So find your generosity.
(This is not a plea from
An ad agency.)
=======================
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L ‘WREN
When the bird died
I cried
She was so long and lithe
Hung from her French door.
And the world sighed,
‘Why? She had everything.’
Everything is not nearly enough,
There is nowhere to go from there
No real air,
Everything marked up with checks
And squares
To convince oneself this is a life.
I suppose we convince ourselves,
We must. Otherwise
Hell meets us face first
To declare the worst.
How to survive?
She tried , but she
Is no longer alive.
=======================================================
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DOING THE RIGHT THING
I walked in as one of the Innocents
Carrying the truth on my back
Which I was prepared to show you.
And I did just that.
With all the assurance of a judge,
I spoke from on high,
And you believed me with invisible
Tears in your eyes. If the truth hurt
You, It hurts me too.
I feel less Innocent now
Than I am supposed to.
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PROGRESS
The intermediary and the subject have fused
Into a person without blood ,
One perceived with eyes tilted down.
This other is me from far away
This other is you on the flat screen
Worn on your arm
To push away the world
To make you believe
You are not alone.
It is a way you have come to deal with terror-
The terror of the Void,
The terror of the foreshadowed.
So you dress up in distraction
To keep it at bay
Pay the Electronic Vampire
To keep you in its magnetic graces,
A blip in the atmosphere in sync
With all the friends you don’t know.
And you get sucked cleanly into this
Semblance of personhood.
What is left of being when
Everything can be denied by
A slight pressure?
Who are you if you can be anyone
And not be anyone real?
We do not need each other today
As long as we can go through
The motions instead, the body
now functioning on remote control in
This realm of the facile, a quicksand
In which we sink muttering banalities.
We have been taken over by a crafty
Master, who makes us think we
Are winning when we are losing
Almost everything.
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THE SKY ANNOUNCES (2)
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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THE SKY ANNOUNCES
Pain cave collapses brain
Like fast anxious fire
As
Outside,
The afternoon sun shines steady,
Nothing particularly untoward reported
in actuality-
A sense of already been –
Pain remembrances , the light
The islands of thought
Punctuated by angry siren swells
And stick figures and already been
Sweating somersaults of gloom…
But
There is a place
There is a way
Better than possibility, the far-away sky announces
To the wreck it addresses
His head in the closet
In hopes for a bonnet
And a perfect drink.
The light moves fractionally (his head 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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TODAY
Today I am out of the loop
Out of the play
Out to lunch.
Today I am shiny
And No one knows it.
Today all the apples
Fall from the tree
And lay there.
No one
Not even the gardener
Picks them up.
The sky is blue
Thru my window.
The coast is clear.
Noises accost me
Outside me!
(I am not mad)
Today
I don’t need anybody
To tell me I am beautiful,
That my beard
Is just the right length.
Today I am private.
It is crazy the way people
Wear the” Do Not Disturb” sign
On their eyes.
Oh well…
Today
All the arrows point up
Despite the old miseries
And the new miseries.
What did we say in Scotland?
‘Keep on walking,
Don’t stop, don’t stop!’
Yet I need.
Today I need…
What?
I need…
Maybe just to forget.
No!
Not that.
I forgot
I forget too much already .
I need…
It is vague
Today
All about me is bright
And I need…
Oh well,
Maybe an end,
Maybe just an end.
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RESPITE
The architecture of summer comes
in the form of the perfect temperature
for your clothes
and the ideal lighting from
the window which is totally open .
So, you can light a cigar
smoke it in a dream
and hear the swish of far away traffic
play on your pleasure zones.
Pain is on hold
Momentarily
And there is nothing to do
Except write about it.
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GROWING DOWN
The belief of childhood is that
Clarity is attainable with age, that we
Will know it eventually, so that we
Can bask in its glow, and braced with certitude,
Wear a banner of unwavering attestation
On our sleeve. Be grown up. A god. That it’s good.
Who knew the tedious, aching
Places grownups live. The sharp uncertainties
To which they are subject, the moans they
Are prodded often to voice?
If I had a choice, it would be to stay far away,
live well in my unknowing , and breathe in
my garden of silliness.
Ron Kozloff 