A collection of 140 poems by Ron Kozloff is featured in Edge of Humanity magazine.
https://edgeofhumanity.com/2023/01/12/twilight-dances-by-ron-kozloff/
Tag: publishedpoet
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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THE CELEBRITY
Celebrity figures invade the dream lives in the dullness of us, incoming from WIFI zones and boredom channels. The slick images of glamour lay claim to our delicate private spaces, our individual inner worlds, lodging there like squatters, spreading the virus of appearances. The gleam of the celebrity figure is what used to be the bauble in the child’s hand that fascinated and then was relinquished. What the child has discarded, the adult now absorbs through the media, marketed by the celebrity and their environment. There must be a constant bombardment in order for the celebrity to be successful in their quest, which is desirability. It is important that the child’s mind in the adult remain engaged. The celebrity is salesperson as well as product, which ultimately serves to establish the sanctity of the system of the marketplace and the vaunted appraisal of its goods.
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A ROOM
When I speak of my heart
I describe a
Factory after hours. Light from
Half-open windows
Illuminates the dust
On the machinery
and faces, like rags,
lay scattered throughout,
ghosts of family, friends, lovers,
enemies.
Each one is given is their due
and passed over.
In this room, the temperature
Remains tepid, static.
A placid, windless vacuum occupies
The air.
Is this a comfort zone or a cell on
Death row?
Is it the bottom of the night where
We hide from blood, from fire, an
Asylum from the living
Where
We are beside ourselves or behind,
in a perpetual, pervasive
Shadow land
When
There are wars to be fought,
Children to be protected,
Skin to be investigated
All outside the
purview of this room.
Yes, outside, far away,
Nearly nonexistent.
I can see it all too clearly.
My heart is a room.
I have no use for certain rooms.
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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
Ron Kozloff 